My Husband Claimed He Was Allergic to Women,Until I Saw Him With His Mistress

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Everyone in the Family knew that my husband, Don Lorenzo Falcone, had been born allergic to women. Me included.

On the day we swore our blood oath, blushing, I leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth. He kicked me off the bed.

Lorenzo went white, retching until he couldn't stop, and that same night he moved into the study where he kept the Family's ledgers.

Five years bound under Omert, and we had never once shared a bed.

I moved through his world like a contagion, keeping six feet of distance from him wherever we went, past the soldiers who lowered their eyes when I passed.

Even inside the estate I wrapped myself head to toe in a raincoat and gloves, terrified of doing him harm.

Then came the day I accompanied a deaf client on a cliffside bungee jump, one of the Family's silent partners who trusted no ears but mine. Lorenzo's foot slipped, and he nearly fell. Instinctively, I reached out to steady him.

He raised his hand and shoved me off the cliff.

I clung helplessly to the rock face, watching him turn and gather the terrified young woman into his arms, gentle as he soothed her:

"Don't be scared. I'm here."

So it turned out that with true love in your arms, you could weather anything.

Fine. Then I'd let them have each other.

The wind howled across the cliff, and the client clutched at my hand in panic.

But her grip kept slipping.

Terrified, I looked over at Lorenzo beside us and forced out the words:

"Lorenzo, pull me up! The client can't hold on much longer!"

Lorenzo released the woman in his arms and lowered his eyes.

His gaze settled on my arm, torn and bloody, and my bare fingertips. The signet ring on his right hand went still. He frowned faintly.

His voice was terrifyingly calm.

"There's water below. A drop like this won't kill anyone. Wait for the rescue team."

That was the last thing I heard before I fell.

In the end, the client's strength gave out and she let go.

The icy surface of the lake slapped the stars into my eyes, and the foul, reeking water flooded into my body.

Yet none of it could suffocate me the way his words just had.

I'd swallowed too much water, and the doctor at the Family's private clinic said my lungs were badly infected. I needed emergency treatment right away.

But the one who came to sign the papers was Nico Vale, the Don's right-hand courier.

He glanced at my ashen face, cleared his throat once, quietly, his tone reproachful:

"Ma'am, do you have any idea how your recklessness nearly derailed the Don's sit-down with the Sicilian partners tonight?!"

For a moment, it felt like I'd fallen back into that frozen lake.

The cold ached all the way through my heart.

The baby inside me didn't make it either.

That was the child I'd gotten only after begging Lorenzo again and again, after enduring hundreds of injections.

And because his father stood by and did nothing, that child left me forever.

It wasn't until the third day in the clinic that Lorenzo deigned to appear.

He sat with his legs crossed in the chair, not a trace of concern on his face, the ring turning slow on his finger, and the first thing out of his mouth was an accusation:

"Why weren't you wearing gloves that day? You know perfectly well I'm allergic to women. Good intentions, bad results. That's just stupid."

Lorenzo glanced at the miscarriage report beside the bed, his eyes flat and still, and his hand went flat on the armrest:

"A child that fragile clearly isn't cut out to survive in a world like ours. Just as well it's gone."

I crushed the white sheet into wrinkles in my fists.

He had never once shown a flicker of anticipation for this child.

The only one who'd ever been happy was me. Always just me.

I forced down the ache rising in my chest and spoke quietly:

"Why did you hold that interpreter of yours? Aren't you afraid of the allergy?"

Lorenzo's expression froze for a beat, and something rippled through those ever-calm eyes.

"She was so frightened at the time. I forgot."

"The girl was on her period and couldn't afford to catch a chill. She was there doing work for me, after all. I could hardly let her fall too."

Something bitter twisted inside me.

In the second year of our oath, I'd had such severe cramps that I was burning up, drifting in and out of a fevered haze.

The housekeeper reminded Lorenzo to bring the fever down with a damp cloth.

When my fingertips accidentally brushed his, Lorenzo flung the entire basin of cold water in his hand all over me.

And his very first reaction was to rush to the bathroom to wash his hands and dry heave.

But Lorenzo, you knew perfectly well I can't swim. Weren't you afraid I'd die?

In the end I couldn't hold it in. The question slipped out into the sterile quiet of the Family's private clinic, where even the machines seemed to hold their breath around him.

I did the math. My men from the compound would reach you in ten minutes, no more. You might suffer a little, but you wouldn't die.

Serafina Costa, I told you long ago about my condition. You were the one who insisted on the blood oath. So what exactly are you complaining about now?

Lorenzo's eyes were full of impatience, as if all of this were my fault.

But he wasn't wrong.

I had brought it on myself.

Lorenzo glanced at the heavy watch on his wrist and stood. The signet ring on his right hand caught the light as he turned it once, then let his hand fall flat against his thigh.

Enough. The doctor says you can leave. I'll have a soldier drive you back to the estate. I have business.

A few minutes later, the click of high heels and a girl's startled little cry drifted up from the courtyard below.

I climbed down from the hospital bed and looked out through the second-floor window.

His interpreter from that day stood there in a trench coat, her exposed ankles slender and pale.

She seemed to have twisted her foot, sticking out her tongue in a playful little pout.

Lorenzo said something to her, then crouched down and gently massaged her ankle. The Don of the Falcone Family, a man who had watched enemies bleed out without flinching, knelt on the pavement for her.

So the so-called allergy was nothing more than her not being the one he loved.

It felt like ten thousand horsemen were trampling through my heart, the pain so sharp I couldn't breathe.

Quietly, I called my consigliere.

Draw up a casting-out. An alliance broken, all of it. Yes. I want out of the oath.

When I got back to the estate, a message came in from Lorenzo.

Because of what you did, you upset an important guest. I'm hosting a sit-down at the club. You'll apologize properly.

But what was my crime?

That I shouldn't have steadied him, that I should have let him go over the cliff?

Or was it that ridiculous allergy to women he wore like a shield?

Still, I agreed.

On the night of the sit-down, I arrived at the Family's club almost the same moment as Lorenzo. Conversations dipped as he crossed the floor, men straightening without knowing they did it.

Right at his side, close as a shadow, was that girl called Delphina Serpico.

Her gown and his tie were both sapphire blue, cut by the same hand.

A matched set the designer had released to mark her own tenth anniversary with her husband.

And we stood several yards apart, as distant as strangers.

Feeling the searching eyes of every made man and every wife in the room, Lorenzo hesitated, then started toward me.

I turned on my heel and walked straight to the guest of honor, holding out the gift in my hands.

She was a woman of great grace. Though she couldn't speak, she still signed her concern to me.

Signora Falcone, please, there's no need to be so formal. I heard you lost your child. Are you all right?

Delphina hurried over, eager to interpret, but I raised a hand and stopped her.

I lifted my glass to the woman and smiled politely.

Thank you for your concern. And thank you for reaching out to help me, when my husband was so afraid of his allergy that he wouldn't pull me from the water.

Though I think that child had no wish to come into this world either. After all, his father saw his mother as a virus, a plague to be feared. A child born into a Family like that would never be happy.

So I'm going to break the oath with Lorenzo, so I stop holding him back.

Then I turned to Delphina, letting every soul in the room hear me.

Signorina Serpico, even though my husband was holding you and comforting you at the time, I hear you were badly shaken.

So I won't trouble you tonight. I'll manage on my own. Enjoy your dinner.

The room went quiet the way a room goes quiet when a gun is drawn. Then the whispers came, low and fast beneath the music.

What does that mean? Signora Falcone went off a cliff and lost the child because the Don was busy holding another woman? Isn't he supposed to be allergic to women?

His own blood-bound wife was about to go over, and this one wasn't in any danger at all, so what was there to fear? She still needed another woman's husband to hold her? What's between her and the Don?

It's plain enough, isn't it? Even her dress matches the Don's tie, a matched set. She's his kept woman.

Delphina's face went bloodless in an instant.

And I caught the surprise in Lorenzo's eyes.

Yes, I know the silent hands too. But he had never once cared to learn a single thing about me.

I pulled my gaze away, gave the guests a polite nod, and turned to leave.

I had barely stepped out of the private dining room when a figure blocked my path. Behind him, two of his enforcers went still as statues, hands loose at their sides.

"Serafina, do you have any idea what you just did?!"

Lorenzo's face was thunderous. In a room full of made men, no one raised their voice to a Falcone. He did not need to. But here, on the marble steps of the Family's front, he had forgotten himself.

"Who gave you the right to smear Delphina in front of everyone?!"

"There were people from the papers at this table tonight. If word carries to the Commission, how is she supposed to hold her head up? Who would ever take her word again?!"

I looked at the fury on his face and answered evenly.

"Smearing someone means making things up out of nothing. Did you not have your arms around her?"

"Stop pretending, Lorenzo. I know you're not allergic to her. I saw you massaging her ankle."

Caught out to his face, Lorenzo had nothing to say for a moment. The signet ring on his right hand turned once, slow, against his knuckle.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, irritated.

"So what? Delphina is different to me."

"Whatever the case, you carry the Falcone name. You're my blood-bound wife. Isn't that enough for you? Serafina, don't be so greedy."

Five years bound to him under Omert, and not once did I get so much as an embrace from my husband. Was that what greed looked like?

He was no longer the little boy he had once been, the one who'd shared the dark with me when we were both nothing but merchandise.

I swallowed down the bitterness in my throat.

"You're right. Greed is wrong. So I'll correct my mistake. Lorenzo, let's cast this off. I want out."

A guest came hurrying out, knocked into me without meaning to, and sent me tumbling down the steps. My knee split open, bleeding at once. The soldiers by the door did not move. A man does not lift a hand the Don has not blessed.

Lorenzo's hand shot out on instinct, hesitated a few seconds, then drew back.

"Serafina, quit making a scene."

"If you still want an heir for the Family, we can arrange it through the clinic again. As long as you don't touch me, we can go on exactly like before."

He was about to say more when his head snapped around.

Not far off, Delphina stood with a hand pressed to her mouth, watching us and crying. The tears came a fraction too quick, the trembling lip a shade too wide. Then she reeled it back into something softer.

"Serafina, go to the Family's clinic first. We'll talk when we get home. I am not casting you out."

Lorenzo left those words behind in a rush and went to Delphina without a moment's hesitation.

I watched him gather her into his arms, aching and helpless, then take her hand and leave, never once looking back at me.

I stumbled back into the car, and the tears I had held in for so long finally fell.

Lorenzo, there's nothing left for us to talk about.

That very afternoon, word went out from the Falcone Family.

"Should anyone continue to slander Miss Serpico, the Family's consigliere will see the offending party ruined, their name struck from every ledger, their business left in ashes."

When the message reached me, I was standing at the door of Lorenzo's study.

Lorenzo hated being disturbed at his work. That room, where the Family's true business was settled behind a closed door, had always been off-limits to me.

"Sign this document."

He was on the phone, his voice unbearably gentle.

"What do you want after the theater? All right, I'll send the car for you myself."

Maybe it was the good mood. He showed no displeasure at all that I'd walked in uninvited.

He didn't even glance at me, just signed without lifting his head. His hand went flat on the desk when the pen stopped. The thing was already decided in his mind, and it had nothing to do with me.

He set down the phone, stood, and went to put on his coat.

On his way out, Lorenzo turned to look at me.

"Serafina, I'm glad you've come around. I'll have Nico bring you a card with no ceiling on it. Buy whatever you want and just swipe it. No need to come find me for a signature."

"Consider it tribute for the fall off the cliff."

He had no idea that what he'd just signed was the pact that severed our blood oath.

I looked toward the single bed in the study. The corner of an exquisite case peeked out from underneath it.

The moment I opened it, a mocking laugh slipped out of me.

Inside was a life-size replica doll, made to look exactly like Delphina.

No wonder Lorenzo had never let me into his study.

So it turned out that every sleepless night I spent soaking in loneliness, he had been in the next room, working out his desire for another woman.

After putting the box back beneath the bed where it belonged, I ignored the call from his courier and threw out those ridiculous raincoats and gloves.

Then, without much fuss, I moved out of the house I had lived in for five years, the one the Falcone name had built and the Falcone soldiers had watched over.

Rosa, who ran the speakeasy I held a silent stake in, sent me a message: a masked-theme wine tasting tonight, some new bottles smuggled in from the old country, and she wanted me there to taste them.

I changed into one of the dresses Lorenzo had always hated seeing me wear, boldly baring my arms and the pretty curve of my shoulder blades.

I let down the long hair I'd always had to pull up high, because he was forever worried I might brush against him.

Looking at the reborn woman in the mirror, I felt a lightness I had never known before.

The moment I stepped past the enforcer at the door, I saw Delphina arguing with a server:

"The private room on the second floor is empty anyway, so why can't I have it? That's the one I want!"

The server spotted me and dipped his head in quick greeting, then turned back to her, helpless:

"I'm sorry, that room is reserved exclusively for Miss Serafina. She's our owner's silent partner."

Delphina turned and looked me over with contempt:

"Serafina, I thought falling off that cliff might have knocked some sense into you."

"Enzo doesn't have you in his heart at all. He won't even touch you. Even if you trailed us all the way here, he can't be bothered to spare you a single glance."

I didn't so much as look at her. I quietly slipped on the queen mask:

"Every drink in the house tonight is on me."

"Go put a sign up at the door. This lady and dogs are not allowed inside."

The server caught my meaning at once and turned to signal the men who worked the floor to walk her out.

The next second, Lorenzo walked in. The low murmur of the room thinned by half; a made man near the bar straightened without seeming to know why.

"Enzo, this place bullies its customers. I got here first, but they won't give me the private room, and this so-called silent partner called me a dog and wants to throw me out."

"How much did she put in?"

Lorenzo asked the server coldly, without even a glance at me, turning the heavy signet ring on his right hand.

"Five hundred thousand"

Ten minutes later, Nico carried in two cases, both stuffed full of laundered cash.

Lorenzo reached out and hurled the bundles at my head, one stack after another:

"That's a million dollars, to buy you out of here. Enough?"

Plenty of eyes turned toward us. Nobody spoke. In a room like this, silence was a kind of judgment.

The server couldn't stand to watch and murmured a reminder:

"Don Falcone, she isn't just a silent partner. She's your wife"

"Hah, no wonder she's so arrogant. So she's someone Serafina knows?"

Dressed like this, Lorenzo clearly hadn't recognized me.

"Let me tell you, if Delphina has her eye on something, then even Serafina's own mother would have to get the hell out of the way!"

I turned to leave, but Lorenzo wouldn't let me off so easily. He drawled lazily:

"Did I say you could go? Is this how you run a house?"

"A million dollars still isn't enough to buy an apology to Delphina? Kneel, bark like a dog a couple of times, and I'll let you go."

I clenched my fists so hard they ached. Beneath the dress, I pressed my thumb to the rose at the small of my back, and the old scar under it held me still.

The server listened, dumbstruck. He had never seen anyone humiliated like this on the Family's floor.

He reached to lift the mask from my face.

"Don Falcone, this won't do. She really is your"

Delphina suddenly looped her arm through Lorenzo's and shot me a disdainful glance, her smile stretching a hair too wide:

"Forget it, Enzo. As if someone like her is worth a million? Let's go get a late-night bite."

"Only a washed-up old woman nobody wants would come to a place like this in the middle of the night to cure her loneliness. I'd find that private room filthy anyway."

Only then did Lorenzo's expression soften:

"All right, whatever you say."

"Tell your owner to cast this woman out. The Falcone Family will cover the breach penalty. Otherwise this house of yours won't stay open another day."

He gave the order to the server coldly, his hand going flat on the bar top, and walked out without looking back.

I watched his fingers laced tight through Delphina's, the two of them leaning into each other beneath the low amber light of the private room.

My heart went cold all the way through.

Rosa heard what had happened and came back to find me, her heels sharp against the floor.

She was an old friend, a woman who ran her speakeasy on the edge of Falcone territory and answered to no man's ring, and she cursed Lorenzo up and down, calling him an animal.

She didn't understand why I wouldn't just take off the mask and shame that shameless pair before the whole house.

"Whether I take it off or not, would it make any difference?"

She was quiet for a long moment, then sighed and set down the bottle she'd carried over.

"A man who won't even let you touch him. I honestly don't know what you thought you were getting, swearing yourself to him."

I said nothing, only swirled the glass. The red of the wine looked exactly like the blood Lorenzo had bled for me as a child.

After his father's bankruptcy ended with a bullet, and his mother followed him into the ground.

The old steward, for money, sold him off like a toy into Gaspare Ashford's racket.

And I was the little slave Gaspare had bought. Because I refused to have my throat ruined by poison and be made truly mute for the trade, I played at being a little mute girl and used only sign language.

Lorenzo had once put a blade into Gaspare, and for it he earned beating after beating, and starvation in the dark.

I couldn't bear to watch such a beautiful boy die like that, so every day I split my own food and gave him half.

He was the only one who knew I could speak.

One late night, when the others weren't watching, I secretly let him go.

But we were discovered, and Gaspare meant to beat me to death right there on the floor.

Lorenzo threw himself over me, taking those iron bars in my place, his blood running down my face.

It was the first time I felt someone treat me like a person.

Later his aunt came with men and bought him out, and the Feds raided Gaspare's den, but we never got the chance to say goodbye.

Yet I remember what he promised me that night, softly, under the bars.

"We have to survive. We have to live and grow up. Wait for me to marry you."

I've forgotten now how I climbed over the mountains and thorns of my whole life just to meet him again.

Just as Lorenzo had long since forgotten the little mute girl from back then.

The day I came back from collecting my papers, a few strangers I'd never seen tied me and hauled me to the rooftop of a gutted building on the edge of the city, far past where any Family soldier walked.

Delphina's hands were bound, and she'd been left dangling out over the ledge.

And yet she was laughing.

"The lead's here. Now the show can begin."

A rush of footsteps on the stairwell, and Lorenzo appeared with his enforcers fanning out behind him.

"What are you doing?!"

"Lorenzo, Serafina hates you for ignoring her that day because of me, so she wants to throw me off to my death. Save me!" Delphina wailed, the sob arriving a fraction too fast, her stricken face held a hair too wide before she softened it.

It was the first time I saw Lorenzo look at me with murder in his eyes.

He had his soldiers pin those strangers to the gravel and threw himself toward Delphina without a second thought, hauling her back over the edge.

He crushed her into his arms, his face raw with the terror of a man who'd nearly lost the most precious thing in the world.

"Thank God you're all right. I'll never let you be in danger again."

Exactly the same as back then.

So when he passed me with that blank, indifferent look, I caught his hand on instinct.

"Lorenzo, it wasn't me."

His face went white in an instant. Fighting back his revulsion, he flung my hand away, hard.

The slap landed across my face before I could brace for it.

"Get away from me. Don't touch me. You make me sick."

"Delphina would never lie to me. She's the kindest woman in this world."

Blood trickled slowly from the corner of my mouth, and in that moment I suddenly didn't want to explain anything anymore.

"Serafina, everyone answers for their own sins. In this famiglia you're no exception."

The signet ring on his right hand stopped turning. His palm went flat against his thigh, and every man on that rooftop knew the word was already spoken.

"Break Mrs. Falcone's hand. Break it until she learns her lesson and never dares lay a finger on Delphina again."

The enforcers pinned me to the gravel, and the iron bar came down on my arm, again and again.

The sound of bone shattering rang out, clear, in a silence where no soldier so much as shifted his weight.

The pain was so violent my vision blacked out, and in that blur I felt like I was back on the night Lorenzo took the beating for me.

Half-conscious, I hummed, softly, the nursery rhyme I'd made up myself.

Back then he'd been beaten unconscious, and I was terrified out of my mind, afraid he'd just slip away like that, and there was nothing I could do.

All I could do was stay beside him and sing to him, softly.

Hoping it might ease his pain, even a little.

Lorenzo's expression froze. He hesitated.:

That tune. It sounds familiar somehow

He wanted to come closer and hear it clearly. In the hush of that cellar the only other sound was the drip of water somewhere in the dark, and for a heartbeat even the enforcer's boots went still.

But Delphina held him back.

Enzo, my arm hurts so much. The lie came a fraction too fast, her smile stretching a hair too wide before she softened it into a wince.

In an instant, the cold returned to Lorenzo's face. He draped his coat over her shoulders.

Serafina, this is the last time.

When the final blow of the rod came down,

I thought, Lorenzo, I don't owe you anything anymore.

Rosa rushed over and took me to a doctor the Family didn't own, one who set the bone and asked no questions.

She couldn't bear to leave me on my own, and a few days later, she boarded the plane abroad with me.

Lorenzo sat in the back office of the club, the talk he'd overheard from his associates still turning in his mind. Cigar smoke hung flat under the low lamp, and the men outside had lowered their voices the moment he passed, the way men do around a Don who is listening.

Did you hear? The Don's wife got so jealous she actually tried to throw Delphina off the roof. Isn't that going too far?

No wonder he won't touch her. Even that baby she lost came from a clinic, not a bed. Everyone knows the allergy story is fake. He just finds her disgusting. It's a joke, five years bound to her and still an old maid

His mood was tangled.

So this was how everyone in the Family saw Serafina behind her back.

He knew his own affliction came from the shadow left by his years in the cages, from the boy he had been before he became a Falcone.

Things couldn't go on like this forever.

Serafina hadn't reached out to him for several days. It was the first time that had ever happened.

Perhaps he should give her a child the normal way, and shut those mouths for good. A whisper against a Don's name was a crack in the Family's respect, and cracks got men killed.

For the first time, he reached out on his own to Matteo, his Consigliere and blood-brother, a man who had been caged by that same flesh-peddler and had climbed out of the dark beside him.

Hearing that Lorenzo had found the girl from his childhood, Matteo offered congratulation after congratulation and asked to see a photograph of the little mute girl.

Lorenzo sent a picture of himself and Delphina together. He turned the heavy signet ring once on his finger as he waited.

Half a minute later, a message came back.:

Lorenzo, I think you've got it wrong.

This girl is definitely not the little mute girl.