THE MAFIA'S NEW BRIDE

THE LIE I TOLD EVERYONE

She didn't tell him.

She meant to. She really did, the whole drive home, her phone burning a hole in her pocket like it might actually catch fire, every mile bringing her closer to the moment she'd promised herself she'd just say it. Just tell him. He threatened my sisters, Marco. He knows their names. He knows their ages. He's counting down to Friday and I don't know what happens after that.

But then they were home, and Marco was pouring two glasses of something amber and expensive, and his face was doing that thing again, the careful, controlled thing, the thing that made her chest ache with how hard he was working not to fall apart in front of her, and the words just wouldn't come. If I tell him, he'll do something reckless. Something that gets someone else hurt. I need to think first. I need, I don't know what I need.

"You said you'd tell me everything," she said instead, her voice smaller than she wanted it to be.

"I know." He handed her a glass. She didn't drink it. "Sit down."

She sat. He didn't.

He paced instead, slow, deliberate, like a man circling something he wasn't sure he had the strength to pick up.

"Isabel wasn't happy here," he started, voice rough. "I knew that. I knew it, and I told myself it would pass, that it was just an adjustment. New house. New life. Same thing you're going through, actually, except I didn't watch her closely enough to catch it in time."

"Catch what?"

"How isolated she'd gotten." His jaw tightened. "Elena's family never accepted her. Never wanted her here in the first place. And I was so buried in the business, in Vittorio's constant circling, I didn't see how bad it got until—"

He stopped. Swallowed hard.

"Until she was gone," Nora finished quietly.

"Until she was gone." He set his glass down, untouched, hand not quite steady. "The official story is she took her own life. I've never fully believed that. Something about it never sat right. But I never had proof. Never had anything except a feeling I couldn't justify to anyone, including myself."

"And Vittorio thinks you're hiding something."

"He thinks I found something after. Evidence. Something that would implicate someone, maybe Elena's family, maybe him. I don't even know anymore." He dragged a hand hard through his hair. "I don't have it, Nora. Whatever he thinks I know, I don't have it. But he won't believe that, and now he's decided the way to force it out of me is—"

"Is to hurt everyone I love until I make you talk."

The words came out sharper than she meant, and something in his face shifted, sharp and alert.

"What do you mean, is it?" His eyes narrowed. "Nora. What happened?"

Tell him. Tell him now.

"Nothing." The lie slipped out fast, too fast, before she could stop it. "I just meant, generally. That's the pattern, right? Hurt the people I love until you break."

He was quiet for a moment too long, studying her face like he was trying to read something underneath it.

"You're lying to me."

"I'm not."

"Nora."

"I said I'm not!" Her voice cracked, too loud, too fast, giving away exactly the thing she was trying to hide. "God, why does it matter? You've been lying to me since the day I walked through that door. Forgive me for not spilling every single thing the second you ask."

"Because if something happened, I need to know." His voice rose too now, sharp with something that wasn't quite anger, closer to fear, closer to desperation. "Because if he's already made contact with you, Nora, that changes everything. That means he's escalating faster than I thought, and I can't protect you from a threat I don't know about."

"You can't protect me from anything!" It burst out of her before she could stop it, raw and furious and terrified all at once. "That's the whole problem! You promised me security and all I've gotten since I walked through that door is more danger than I've ever known in my entire life!"

"That's not fair."

"None of this is fair!" She was on her feet now, glass forgotten on the table, chest heaving. "None of it! Not the debt, not the marriage, not you deciding what I get to know and when. None of it has been fair since the day my father opened that door!"

"I'm trying to fix this!"

"Then let me help you fix it instead of hiding me from it!"

The words hung there, loud and raw, echoing off the too-perfect walls of this too-perfect apartment.

Marco stared at her, breathing hard, something wild and unguarded in his eyes that she'd never seen before, not once, not even in the worst of their fights.

"He called you," he said quietly. Not a question anymore.

Nora's silence answered for her.

"Nora."

"He threatened my sisters." Her voice broke completely, all the fight draining out of her at once, leaving only exhaustion and fear behind. "He knows their names, Marco. He knows how old they are. He gave me until Friday to get him the truth about Isabel, and I don't have it to give him, and I didn't tell you because I was scared of what you'd do if you knew."

Marco went white.

"Say that again."

"I don't have it to give him—"

"No. The part about Friday." His voice had gone terrifyingly flat, terrifyingly calm, the calm of a man holding himself together by sheer force of will. "He gave you a deadline."

"Yes."

"And you were going to sit on that."

"I didn't know what else to do!" Her voice cracked wide open, tears spilling hot and fast now. "I didn't want you doing something reckless that got someone else hurt! I didn't want—"

"You don't get to make that decision for me." His voice rose sharply, furious, a mirror of everything she'd just accused him of moments before. "You don't get to decide what I'm allowed to know either, Nora. You just spent the last ten minutes yelling at me for exactly this."

The hypocrisy of it landed like a slap. She had no answer for it. None at all.

They stood there, both of them shaking, both of them raw and furious and terrified in equal measure, the silence between them heavier than anything either of them had said out loud.

"I'm sorry," she whispered finally.

"Don't." His voice cracked, rough. "Don't apologize. Just don't ever do that again. Whatever happens. Whatever he says to you. You tell me. Immediately. I don't care what you think it'll make me do."

"Okay."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

He nodded once, sharp, and turned away from her, pulling out his phone with hands that weren't quite steady, already dialing someone, voice low and urgent as he moved toward the window.

Nora sank back down onto the couch, drained completely, watching him pace and talk in low, clipped sentences she couldn't quite follow.

She didn't notice her own phone buzzing softly in her pocket until the third time.

A text. Unknown number.

She opened it with shaking hands, her heart already sinking before she'd even read the words.

Friday just moved up. I don't like being lied to either.

Check your father's hospital room. He's not alone anymore.