Chapter 3
ADRIANA
I don’t sleep.
For the next couple of hours, I just sit on the stiff couch in the ICU waiting room and watch the sun peek above the horizon outside. I can’t relax at all, the uncertainty about my family and our future looming like a toxic cloud I’m afraid to inhale.
Luna is curled up next to me, her head in my lap, her breathing slow and shallow.
She came back from the chapel, eyes red-rimmed but fierce.
She’s angry, just like me. Angry that our lives have been thrown into upheaval, angry that our father made himself vulnerable to enemies who could have killed him tonight, angry that our livelihoods are now hanging by a thread that Eamon Molloy promised would be cut if I refuse to marry his son.
She wanted to vent, to scream and cry about how none of this is fair. But I didn’t let onto my disgust at the situation. And it frustrated the hell out of her until she finally dozed off and left me alone with my frenzied thoughts.
Because while I’ve been the picture of calm since the Molloys left, beneath it, I am anything but.
My mother is still in the chapel with Vincenzo, which suits me just fine because I don’t want to hear any more about the reality that was just sprung on me a couple of hours ago.
Eamon and Ronan left right after the cafeteria meeting where my future was carved up like a damn Thanksgiving turkey.
Vincenzo took my mother and Luna to the chapel.
And I walked away from Lochlan Molloy after telling him not to lie to me, because it was either that or scream until my vocal cords snapped.
He’s gone now. I don’t know when he left. At some point I looked toward the emergency room exit and the spot where he’d been standing with his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed on me.
I let out a breath when I didn’t see him staring back.
I don’t need him watching me fall apart. Not that I’m falling apart. I don’t do that.
The scent of industrial cleaner stings my nostrils. Somewhere down the corridor, machines beep, the rhythms holding steady. Goosebumps pop up along my bare arms and a shiver slithers down my spine.
My father’s heartbeat, proof that he’s still here.
For now.
I look down at my grandmother’s ring, the violet-colored tanzanite gem glittering in the overhead light.
Absently, my fingers twist it left and right, something I do when I need to feel her presence.
She’s always with me when I need strength, the angel on my shoulder, guiding me, comforting me, empowering me.
Nonna gave me the ring when I was eighteen, the night before I left for college. She pressed it into my palm and said, “You were always the brave one, Adriana. Don’t let them clip your wings.”
She meant my father. His world. The invisible chains that come with being a DiMicheli.
I kept that promise for twenty-two years. Built a life. Built a company. Became someone who had nothing to do with blood money and turf wars and menacing men with guns.
And now I’m sitting in a hospital waiting room at six in the morning, forced to marry a stranger because my father signed a piece of paper I never knew about with a man who terrifies me more than the people who shot my dad.
Nonna would be pissed.
I would be too, if I had the energy. Right now, all I feel is hollow and numb.
A nurse in blue scrubs approaches with a clipboard. “Ms. DiMicheli? Your father’s vitals have stabilized overnight. You can see him for a few minutes, if you’d like.”
If I’d like.
As if there’s a version of this where I say no. To any of it.
I ease Luna’s head off my lap, careful not to jostle her. She murmurs something but doesn’t open her eyes.
I follow the nurse through the double doors and she stops outside a set of glass doors. She nods toward the bed.
“Take as much time as you need,” she says with a smile that doesn’t do a damn thing to comfort me.
A sob catches in my throat as I walk over to my father’s bedside.
I’ve never thought of Francesco DiMicheli as small.
He’s always been larger than life… so engaging and gregarious.
With a look, he could command rooms, men, and an entire empire.
He’s the kind of man who walks into a restaurant and gets the best table without asking.
The kind of man people cross the street to avoid or cross the room to impress, depending on which side of his world they live on.
But lying in this hospital bed, hooked up to machines that breathe for him and pump drugs into his veins and monitor every beat of his heart, he looks old, weak, and helpless.
It’s jarring. Seeing the facade cracking right in front of my eyes.
There’s a tube down his throat that connects to a ventilator.
Wires snake out from his hospital gown, an IV stuck in his right hand.
His torso is covered by thick, white bandages, hiding the damage underneath.
The steady blip of the heart monitor is the only sound in the room besides my stilted breathing.
I pull a chair up next to the bed and take his hand. It’s cold. I lace my fingers with his, tears stinging the backs of my eyes.
“Hi, Dad.”
Nothing. Just the machines speaking for him.
“The doctors say you’re stable, which apparently is medical speak for ‘alive but we’re not making any promises.’ There’s still a bullet near your spine they couldn’t get to. Your vitals are holding, but nobody will tell me what that actually means long term.”
I pause for a second, my gaze dropping to our entwined fingers.
“So. A marriage contract.” I study his face, willing some reaction to my words, fluttering eyelids, quivering lips, anything.
“You signed away my future to Eamon Molloy a year ago and didn’t think to mention it to me.
Not at Sunday dinner. Not at Christmas. Not during any of the fifty-something phone calls where you asked about my company and told me you were proud of me.
” My throat tightens. “But were you really? Proud of me? Or were you just keeping me busy until you needed to cash me in?”
The hisses and beeps are my only response.
I press my free hand to my forehead. “You know what the worst part is? I’m not even surprised.
Not really. Because this is what you do, right?
You make plans. You move pieces around a board.
And the people who love you just have to deal with the fallout.
We don’t get a say about how the game is played and who gets crushed in the process. ”
I stare at my father for a long minute, anger knotting in my chest at the memory of Eamon’s smug demeanor when he approached us with that mask of concern firmly in place. As if I couldn’t see past his bullshit facade. He came in like a predator, pounced on his prey, chewed it up, and spit it out.
“Eamon Molloy is dangerous, Dad. I could see it in his eyes. He’s not offering us protection.
He’s buying access. To our territory. Our connections.
To me.” I grip his hand tighter. “And Zio Vinnie said we needed to consider it, that the danger is too great for us to ignore. He said if you signed it, it must have been what you wanted, that it’s the only thing to keep all of us safe and free from a takeover by the Russians.
He’s nervous. Like Mom and Luna. Like everyone else will be when they hear about what happened. ”
My voice drops.
“But is this really what you wanted for me?”
I give his hand a little squeeze.
“I need you to wake up. I need you to look me in the eye and tell me why. Because right now, the only explanation I can come up with is that you didn’t think I could handle the truth.
” My eyes sting. I blink hard and swallow the gaggle of tears lodged in my throat.
“And that hurts more than anything Eamon Molloy could ever do to me.”
I sit with him for a while after that, grasping his hand and listening to the machines.
When I finally stand up, I lean down and press my lips to his forehead.
“I’m going to figure this out. Whatever this is. But when you wake up, you and I are going to have a very long conversation. And you’re not going to like it.”
I smooth a crease in his blanket near his shoulder and tuck it around him to keep him warm.
With my heart hanging low in my chest, I walk back to the waiting room. Luna is awake when I get back. She has a cup of what looks like vending machine coffee in her hand.
“How is he?”
“The same.” I drop onto the couch next to her. “Stable. Still in the coma.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“More like berated him.”
She almost smiles. Almost. “Good. He deserves it.”
We sit in silence for a minute. Luna picks at the rim of her Styrofoam cup, bits of it dropping down to the tile floor.
“Adri,” she says.
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “I can’t right now.”
“Come on, we have to talk about this. You can’t marry him.”
“Luna—”
“No, listen to me.” She folds her legs beneath her and turns toward me.
Her eyes are swollen and bloodshot, but the fire behind them is pure Luna.
“You can’t marry some random Molloy because Dad made a deal without telling anyone.
This isn’t how things work. We’ll get a lawyer.
We’ll fight whatever contract there is.”
“Fight what? A mafia blood pact?” I roll my eyes. “There’s no lawyer for this, Luna. No court appeal. No filing a motion for dismissal. This is old world mafia business, with rules that don’t align with the law.”
She sits up straighter and puts a hand on my arm. “Then we run. You, me, and Mom. We can disappear. We have plenty of money, Adri. We can go somewhere they can’t touch us.”
I look at my sister and shake my head. Luna’s always been the dreamer. The one who believes in escape hatches and silver linings and the idea that everything works out if you want it badly enough.
She got the whole rose-colored glasses thing from Mom.
I got the other thing. The thing that tells you when there’s no way out.