THE FALCONE'S STOLEN BRIDE

THE SECOND NAME

Say the name. “Adriano's voice cuts through the corridor like a blade”.

“Valentina presses herself flat against the wall beside the doorway, listening”.

"Boss, are you sure you want—"

I said say it.

A pause. Papers shuffling.

"Salvatore Rizzo authorized the wire. But the account it came from isn't his." “The man's voice drops lower, like even he doesn't want to say it out loud”. "It's registered to Marco Contini."

Valentina's whole body goes cold.

Marco. Her groom. The man who let go of her hand first.

"Who is Marco Contini to her," Adriano says. Not a question. A demand.

"He was set to marry her this afternoon, boss."

Silence stretches so long Valentina almost steps back into the room just to see Adriano's face.

Then his voice again, quieter, more dangerous than the shouting was.

"Get me his location. Now."

Footsteps retreat fast down the hall.

Valentina doesn't wait. She bolts for the door the second she's sure nobody's watching it — and runs straight into Adriano's chest instead.

He catches her by both arms before she bounces off him.

"Going somewhere?"

"Let go of me."

"You were listening." “His grip doesn't loosen”. "Everything I just said."

"I heard my fiancé's name attached to your father's murder, so yes, forgive me for listening."

Something shifts in his face. Not anger this time.

"He's not your fiancé anymore," Adriano says. "He was never planning to be, not really. Not if he's the one who funded the hit.

“That doesn't make sense. Marco doesn't have that kind of money”. His family barely—"

"His family barely has two working properties left, and yet somehow he wired a payment large enough to buy a hit on the head of the most powerful Family in Sicily." Adriano's grip tightens slightly. "Does that sound like Marco Contini's money to you?"

Valentina's mouth goes dry.

"Someone gave it to him."

Now you're catching up.

“She yanks her arms free, and this time he lets her”. "So what, you think my own wedding was some kind of setup? That Marco was working with whoever really wanted your father dead?"

"I think," Adriano says slowly, "that your father sold you to me the same week his own daughter's groom-to-be funded my father's murder. “And I don't believe in that many coincidences landing in one wedding."

“Valentina's legs feel unsteady under her”.

"You think I was supposed to marry into it. Whatever it is."

"I think you were never supposed to survive finding out."

“The words hang in the stone corridor.”

Then why aren't I dead already? Her voice cracks despite herself. "If I know too much now — if that's what you're saying — why haven't you—"

Because I don't kill people for what their families do. “His jaw tightens”. "I kill people for what they do themselves."

"How generous of you."

"Don't test that, Valentina."

"Why not? What's the worst you'll do, lock me back in that room? ‘She steps closer instead of away, chin lifted, refusing to be the one who backs down first.” You've already taken everything else. Try something new.

“For a long moment neither of them moves.”

“Then, low, almost involuntary”: You're not what I expected.

What did you expect?

"Crying. Begging. “A woman who'd fall apart the second I raised my voice”. “His eyes drag over her face like he's reading something he can't quite decode”. "Not this."

"Disappointed?"

"No." The word comes out rougher than he means it to. He clears his throat, resets. "Get some rest. You're not going anywhere tonight."

He turns to leave.

"Adriano."

He stops at the sound of his own name in her mouth for the first time.

"If Marco's involved in your father's murder," she says, "and my father sold me the same week it happened — what does that make me to you? Really?"

He doesn't answer right away.

When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter than she's heard it yet.

“That depends on what we find when my men reach Marco Contini's house tonight.”

“His phone buzzes in his pocket before he can say anything else. He checks the screen, and whatever he reads there drains the color from his face.”

Boss? a voice calls from down the hall. "We got eyes on the Contini property."

Adriano doesn't move.

"It's already on fire.”