He was always like this with me. Polite. Controlled. In public, people often praised him for how well he treated his wife, how respectful he seemed, how he kept a ward-turned-bride beside him with such visible grace. I used to believe those words, to hold onto them like proof that what we had was real.
But now, after everything, I finally understood.
It wasn't respect.
It was exhaustion.
Exhaustion disguised as courtesy. Distance masked as restraint.
His friend gave me a polite nod as we stepped out of the precinct together, his smile easy and unaffected. "Thanks for the trouble, Sis!" he said casually, as if this were nothing more than a minor inconvenience, as if bailing a Falcone out of a holding cell was just another Sunday.
I returned the gesture with a small nod, my lips barely curving, then followed the desk sergeant to complete the remaining paperwork. My movements were mechanical, my mind distant. I was his wife. Handling things like this, cleaning up after him, standing beside him no matter what. That was what I was supposed to do. That was the unspoken arrangement sealed the day I took the Falcone name.