Omerta The Widow's Daughter

Miss Giordano, we've found a body. The features match your mother. We need you to come in and identify it.

My smile, reflected in the bridal shop mirror, shattered with a single phone call.

The morgue reeked of formaldehyde and something oldersomething that clung to the walls like a confession no one wanted to hear. When they pulled back the sheet, her body was barely recognizable. Her eyesgone. Her organsripped out like she'd been nothing more than livestock to be harvested.

I collapsed, a scream tearing from my throat as the world turned black.

When I came to, my fianc, Colino Marconi, was sitting by my side in the dimly lit hospital room. He gently wiped away my tears and pressed his lips to my forehead with the tenderness of a man who'd rehearsed the gesture.

"They caught the bastard who did it," he whispered against my skin. "I made sure he paid for what he did to your mother."

He swore that, for the rest of his life, he'd love and protect me the way she used to.

But that night, jolted awake by another nightmaremy mother's hollowed face swimming behind my eyelidsI caught something outside the bedroom. Through the crack in the door, golden lamplight spilled across Colino's back as he held my half-sister, Piper Giordano, in his arms.

She was sobbing into his chest, her whole body trembling like a wounded animal.

"If she ever finds out the truth she'll kill me."

Colino cupped her face, gentle as evergentler than he'd ever been with me.

"Hey, it's not your fault. You didn't know those guys were scammers. You're a victim too."

The chill in my bones cut deeper than any winter wind off the harbor. I could hardly breathe.

So this was it. My mother died because of Piper. And the man who swore to protect me was shielding her.

Colino finally sent Piper home, the heavy oak door clicking shut behind her, and turned aroundonly to see me, collapsed on the marble floor like a broken doll.

His expression flickeredguilt, frustrationthen hardened into something I didn't recognize.

"So you heard everything?"

His tone turned cold, like I was the problem. Like I was the inconvenience.

"Don't blame Piper. Your mother got greedy, okay? She kept pestering Piper to help her 'invest'she brought this on herself."

He tossed a blank check on the table like it meant nothing. The paper landed with a whisper that echoed like a slap.

"Write whatever number you want. But forget what you've heard. Let's pretend nothing happened for the meantime. The union ceremony's in five days. We'll go through with itpeacefully."

I stared at the man who once swore he'd love me for the rest of his life. Now, he felt like a stranger wearing a familiar face.

I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand.

If my wedding was doomed to become my mother's funeral, then five days from now I'd return the favorwith interest.

I said nothing. He grew impatient, yanking off his silk tie and tossing it on the nightstand with barely concealed irritation.

"If you get it, then go to sleep."

But something snapped in me. The grief, the rageit all poured out, raw and shaking, like blood from a wound that refused to close.

"Pretend? Are you fucking serious?!"

"You knew. You knew my mother was the only family I had. And you knew how much it meant to her to see me walk down the aisle in white. And Piper fucking destroyed it!"

Did he really not understand why my mother was desperate to make money?

The Marconi Family had looked down on us from the start. His parentsDon Bertram and Carmela Marconibarely tolerated my presence at their table. To them, I was the daughter of a servant, no matter that my mother had once saved their precious heir's life. And my motherGod, she tried so hard to make me worthy in their eyes. That's why she went to Piper, thinking maybe this time, things would be different. Maybe blood would finally mean something.

I could still hear the officer's voice in my head: "Your mother tracked those people down to try and get her money back. She didn't know they were part of a butcher operationorgan trafficking. They carved her up and took everything they could sell."

I couldn't stop crying. Each word came out like a blade. "If it weren't for Piper and her mother, none of this would've happened. All I want is justice for my mother, and you want to keep me from that?"

"Enough, Anneliese!" Colino barked, his face suddenly dark as a storm rolling in from the sea. "Piper was conned too. She lost everything. And you? Instead of showing any compassion, you've been running around telling everyone she's your father's bastard child. Do you even have a heart?"

"Compassion?" I let out a hollow, bitter laugh that scraped my throat raw. "What about my mother? She died in the most horrific way imaginable!"

"She died because she got greedy and made stupid choices," he scoffed, his lip curling with contempt. "Piper had nothing to do with it. Don't even think about laying a finger on her."

His voice was frost-edged now, sharp enough to draw blood. I shook from the inside out.

I gripped the front of my silk nightgown like it would hold my chest together, like it could keep my heart from spilling out onto the floor. The marble blurred under the torrent of my tears.

"Colino," I whispered. "Have you forgotten? When you were snatchedwhen that rival Family grabbed you off the streetwho risked everything to save you? Who fought off those men with her bare hands until your father's soldiers arrived?"

"And what about the day she was in that hospital bed, broken and bleeding, and you knelt at her side and promised you'd never hurt me? That you'd take care of me for the rest of your life? That was a blood debt, Colino. And you swore on your family's honor."

His jaw clenched, his expression hardening into granite. "Don't throw ancient history in my face. I've given you and your mother everything for yearsfood, clothes, a place in this house, respect you never earned. Whatever debt I had, I paid it off a long time ago."

Then, as if to twist the knife deeper, he let out a bitter laugh.

"This is about money, isn't it?"

He flicked the check at me again. The edge sliced across my cheek, drawing a thin line of blood that dripped onto the pristine white marble.

I bit down hard, fists clenched until my nails carved crescents into my palms. "I don't want your money. I want Piper to be held accountable for what she's done."

He chuckled, a smug little breath through his nosethe sound of a man who'd never been told no. "Go ahead. Let's see which mouthpiece is dumb enough to take that case and face the Marconi Family in any courtroom in this city."

"Know your place." His eyes narrowed, cold and reptilian. "I won't have a hysterical lunatic as my wife. This ends now."

His phone rang. He glanced at the screenand just like that, his face lit up like a boy on Christmas morning.

"A gift? From you? That's so thoughtful. Honestly, those associates only signed on because of you."

"What? No ride? Don't worry, I'm coming to pick you up right now. Just stay put, bella."

He didn't even look back at me as he walked out, his footsteps echoing down the corridor like a death knell.

I stared at the door as it closed behind him. My tears burned down my cheeks like acid.

Fine. If this is how it's going to beso be it.

I just stood there, staring after the man I used to love, tears searing tracks down my face. Fine. If that's how he wanted to play itthen so be it.

I turned to pack my bags, my hands steady despite the trembling in my chest. But then the phone rang again.

"Miss Giordano," the consigliere's assistant said cheerfully, his voice dripping with false courtesy, "since you've dropped the charges in your mother's case, we're closing our investigation. Just letting you know."

The line went dead.

I hadn't dropped anything.

I froze. The words hung in the air like smoke from a discharged weapon. Dropped the charges? What the hell were they talking about?

I rushed to the attorney's office as fast as my legs could carry me, my heels striking the rain-slicked pavement like desperate heartbeats. But by the time I arrived, breathless and wild-eyed, the filemy mother's case filehad already been fed through the shredder. Confetti. That's all that remained of justice. Ribbons of white paper scattered across the mahogany desk like funeral flowers.

Everything blurred. I collapsed to my knees on the Persian rug, my fingers clawing at the consigliere's sleeve, my voice fracturing into something raw and unrecognizable.

"You promised. You swore on your honor you'd help me get justice for my mother!"

The lawyera man who'd built his reputation on representing the Familieslooked away, unable to meet my eyes. He exhaled slowly, the sound heavy with resignation.

"The person who withdrew the complaint was your husband. Colino Marconi." He paused, letting the name settle between us like a blade. "None of us are in a position to go against the Marconi heir. The Family's reach extends further than you know. I'm truly sorry, Miss Giordano."

And just like that, with a small nod to his men, he had two soldiers escort me out into the street. Their grips were firm but not cruelprofessional. They'd done this before.

But I wasn't giving up.

There had to be someone in this godforsaken city who still had a spine. Someone who hadn't been bought, threatened, or broken by the Syndicate's iron fist.

Hands shaking, I called every connected attorney I could findmen who'd represented capos, who'd gotten made men acquitted, who supposedly feared nothing. One by one, they turned me away. The replies were all the same, delivered in hushed, apologetic tones.

"Sorry, Miss Giordano. Colino Marconi made it very clearanyone who touches that case will find themselves on the wrong side of the Family by morning. We can't help you. Capisce?"

I dropped to the pavement outside the last office, my knees hitting cold stone. My palm landed on jagged concrete, blood seeping from the cut and mixing with the grime of the alleyyet I barely felt a thing. The physical pain was nothing compared to the hollow ache consuming my chest.

When I was sixteen, my father threw Mom and me out of our home like we were nothing. The same day, Piper and her mother moved inhis mistress and her bastard daughter, finally claiming what they'd been circling for years.

I still remember Piperjust thirteensmirking from the staircase as we carried our belongings past her. Her eyes glittered with triumph, and in that moment, I learned the truth that had been hidden from me my entire childhood. My father, Filippo Giordano, had been keeping a comare for years. We were the legitimate family, but we were also the disposable ones.

Mom and I ended up on the streets with nothing but the clothes on our backs and whatever dignity we could scrape together. One freezing night, huddled beneath an overpass for warmth, we stumbled into the middle of a snatch job. A crew of men in blackprofessionals, clearlywere dragging a young man toward a waiting car. Even in the darkness, even half-conscious from cold and hunger, I recognized the face from the society pages.

Colino Marconi. Heir to the Marconi Crime Family. Being grabbed by a rival outfit.

Mom didn't hesitate. She threw herself into the fray, fighting like a woman possessed, screaming for me to run and call for help. By the time the Marconi soldiers arrived, she'd driven off three armed men with nothing but her bare hands and a broken bottle. She nearly died doing it. They stabbed her over and over, but she wouldn't stop. Wouldn't let them take him.

Afterward, Colino brought us into the Marconi compound, against his parents' furious objections. Carmela Marconi looked at us like we were stray dogs he'd dragged in from the gutter. But her sonher precious heirinsisted. He said he owed us a blood debt.

Mom turned down his offer to support us as dependents. She had too much pride for charity. Instead, she worked as a household servant in the Marconi estate, earning her keep with honest labor. I transferred to Colino's private academy. Day after day, I watched that sweet, kind boythe one who brought my mother flowers when she was recovering, who sat by her bedside reading to hergrow into someone I couldn't help falling for.

He loved me back. On my twentieth birthday, in front of my mother and the entire household staff, he knelt and took my hand. His voice was steady, his eyes bright with sincerity.

"I swear on my family's honor," he said, "I'll spend the rest of my life protecting you. You'll want for nothing. You'll fear nothing. This I promise."

But all that started changing a year ago.

He went out one nightsome gathering at one of the Family's social clubs, drinks with associates. When he got back, something was different. He started talking about Piper differently.

"She's not who I thought she was," he said one night, loosening his tie as he paced our bedroom. "She's working three jobs to pay for her education. Can you believe that? The daughter of a man like Filippo, scraping by like a common street girl."

"And get this" His eyes lit up with something I didn't recognize. "Some connected guy tried to proposition her, said he'd set her up as his comare, shower her with gifts. She stood up and slapped him across the face in front of everyone. What a feisty woman."

Then he added, his tone shifting to something almost accusatory, "I know you two never really got along. But maybe it's because you never gave her a real chance. If you just spent some time with her, maybe you'd see how lovable she is."

My gut was screaming at me that something was off. That the sister who'd smirked at my downfall was playing a long game. But I brushed it aside. Told myself I was just being paranoid. That the old wounds were making me see enemies where there were none.

And then, not long after, one of the wives in our circle told me that Colino had acquired a bracelet. Not just any braceleta vintage piece that once belonged to European nobility. A princess had worn it to her coronation. It was worth more than most men earned in a lifetime.

So naturally, I thought maybe he bought it for my birthday. A grand gesture, the kind he used to make when we first fell in love.

But on the day of my birthday, Piper posted on her social media. That exact braceletworth millions, irreplaceable, mine by every right of love and loyaltywas wrapped around her slender wrist. In the photograph, a man's hand was holding hers, fingers laced together with intimate familiarity. I recognized those hands. I'd held them a thousand times.

That night, I waited until the last birthday candle burned itself out, the wax pooling on the untouched cake. Colino never came home.

It was the first time he ever forgot my birthday.

After that, he always had some excuse for missing our important datesanniversaries, celebrations, the milestones that mark a life shared between two people. There was always a sit-down that ran late, a problem with the crew, an emergency that demanded his attention.

At the same time, Piper's social media kept updating with careful, calculated cruelty. His familiar silhouette in the background of her photographs. His ringless fingers holding a wine glass at restaurants I'd never been taken to. His toned body behind a fogged-up shower door, the image cropped just enough to maintain deniability.

Six months ago, we'd signed our blood contractthe marriage certificate that would bind me to the Marconi Family forever. He told me he wanted to give me the perfect wedding. A ceremony worthy of the future Donna.

Now I know there won't be a wedding at all.

I picked up the phone and dialed his private line. My voice, when I spoke, was cold as the grave.

"You wanted my stake in the Marconi territories, right? The tribute rights you signed over to me?" I didn't wait for his response. "I'm signing them back. All of them."

It was a "gift" he gave me the day he finally won me overthose stakes. A percentage of the Family's legitimate holdings, the kind of security that made a woman untouchable. I told him it was too much, that I didn't need his fortune, only his heart. But he held my hand tight and insisted I sign the papers.

That gentle voice still echoes in my mind like a cruel memory, a ghost of who he used to be:

"Baby, if you want the stars or the moon, I'll reach up and pull them down for you. What's a few stakes compared to that?"

I know nowwhat we had, it was real. Once. But people change. Hearts grow cold. And love? Love is never immortal. It can be killed just like anything else.

The boy who once held me like I was his whole worldhe's long gone. Swallowed by time and ambition and the poison my sister dripped into his ear night after night.

Just as I ended the call, my phone lit up with a message from Colino.

[Calmed down yet? I've arranged the cemetery plot and paid for the funeral. Satisfied now? Stop testing my patience, Anneliese.]

Another one followed almost instantly:

[Did you not see my message? Get to my office at the club. Now. Sign the non-prosecution agreement for Piper. This matter needs to disappear.]

Something in me finally broke. The last thread holding together the woman who'd loved him, who'd believed in him, who'd built her entire life around his promisesit snapped.

I called him. My voice was shaking with rage, but beneath it was something harder. Something that had been forged in the fire of betrayal.

"Why the hell should I sign that form for her? She killed my mother. She murdered her, Colino. And if I say no, what then?" I laughed, the sound bitter and broken. "You gonna press my bloody finger onto the damn paper yourself? Hold me down while your soldiers force my hand?"

The silence on the other end was deafening.

He hung up. Cold. No hesitation.

The silence that followed was absolutethe kind that settles over a room when a death sentence has been passed.

Seconds later, my phone buzzed. A photograph. A scanned document materialized on the screen, its edges crisp and damning.

An investment contract. My mother's name beside Piper's, bound together in ink and betrayal.

Bold letters in the center screamed at me like a confession beaten out of a dying man:

Investments carry risk. All losses due to personal judgment errors are the client's own responsibility.

My mother's signature sat at the bottom. Her fingerprint pressed into the paper like a blood oath she never understood she was making.

He'd been preparing for this. The Marconi Family's consiglierethat cold-eyed mouthpiece who'd buried a hundred sins beneath mountains of legal paperworkwas ready to crush me like I was nothing more than a rat scurrying too close to the Family's business.

Still, I went to the Marconi compound.

The elevator of their legitimate fronta towering monument of glass and steel that housed their import empirecarried me upward like a condemned woman ascending the gallows.

The doors slid open at the fifteenth floor, and there she stood.

Piper.

She was draped in custom Chanel, the fabric clinging to her like a second skin. Her handbag cost more than most soldiers earned in a year of wet work. And there, glittering on her wrist like a trophy ripped from a corpsethe princess bracelet.

My bracelet.

She looked like royalty. Like someone born into the inner circle, not a bastard daughter who'd clawed her way in through seduction and blood.

Her lips curled the moment our eyes meta serpent's smile.

"Oh no, Anneliese..." she cooed, her voice dripping with poisoned honey. "You look awful. Guess it's true what they saywhen a woman gets old, the bloom fades. No wonder Colino lost interest."

She tilted her head, feigning concern with the skill of a woman who'd learned to lie before she learned to walk.

"Still haven't buried your mother? Want me to help plan the funeral? I mean..." She pressed a manicured hand to her chest. "We are family, after all."

My hands curled into fists at my sides. Ragewhite-hot and blindingboiled up from somewhere deep in my chest until it threatened to burn me alive from the inside out.

"You knew it was a scam," I hissed through clenched teeth. "You knew. That was a cona scheme that tricked my mother into giving up every cent she had saved. Every dollar she'd earned on her knees, scrubbing the Marconi floors."

Piper's expression shifted into wounded innocence, but the corner of her painted lips twitched with barely concealed amusement.

"How could you accuse me like that?" she breathed, pressing her hand to her heart. "I was just trying to help. Your mother wanted to earn more for your wedding dowry. She came to me, Anneliese. What was I supposed to dosay no to that sweet old woman?"

My chest tightened like iron bands were being wrapped around my ribs. Blood rushed to my head, pounding in my ears like a war drum.

"Boy," Piper sneered, dropping the pretense like a mask she'd grown tired of wearing, "that old hag loved you like you were the whole world, didn't she?"

She leaned in close, her perfume cloying and expensive, her breath hot against my ear.

"One day," she whispered, "I stepped on Don Marconi's favorite peonies. On purpose. Crushed them right into the soil." Her voice was velvet wrapped around a blade. "The head of household staff said he'd dock her three months' pay. Your mother begged. On her knees. Right there in the garden, with dirt under her fingernails and tears running down her face."

My vision blurred. The world narrowed to a single pointPiper's smiling face.

"I found out later she hadn't taken a day off in months," Piper continued, giggling like she was sharing a delicious secret. "Just to save money. For you. For your wedding to a man who was already sharing my bed."

She pulled back, her eyes glittering with malice.

"And when I told her to crawl through the garden like a dog?" Piper's smile widened. "She did it. Just like that. Hands and knees through the mud, while I watched."

My world crumbled.

All those times my mother had smiled and told me not to worry about a thing while I planned my wedding to Colino... all those times she'd insisted everything was fine, that the Marconis treated her well, that being in service to a powerful Family was an honor...

I never knew. I never knew what she had endured for my sake.

The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, and something inside me snapped clean in two.

I raised my hand, eyes blazing with three years of suppressed rage.

"Piper, you're a monster."

But before my palm could even graze her cheek, she threw herself backward out of the elevator, crying out like a wounded animal as she clutched her unmarked face.

"Anneliese, I said I was sorry!" she sobbed, her voice carrying through the marble corridor with theatrical precision. "I even knelt to you, but you're still being so crueldo you really want me dead that badly?!"

Employeessoldiers in expensive suits, associates who knew better than to interfere in Family businessturned to stare.

"If you want me dead so bad, then fine!" Piper staggered to her feet, swaying dramatically. "I'll die for your mother! I'll pay the blood debt myself!"

She lurched toward the wall as if to crack her own skull against the marble.

"Piper!"

A figure rushed forward from the corner of my visionbroad shoulders, expensive cologne, the familiar silhouette that had once meant safety and love.

Colino.

He caught her in his arms, pulling her against his chest like she was something precious. Something worth protecting.

Then he turned, and his shoulder slammed into me with the force of a man who'd learned violence at his father's knee.

I wasn't prepared.

My head whipped back, cracking against the elevator's brass railing with a sickening thud that echoed through my skull.

The world tilted on its axis.

Warm bloodmy bloodtrickled down the back of my neck, soaking into the collar of my dress.

Colino turned on me, his eyes bloodshot with rage. The same eyes that had once looked at me with tenderness. The same hands that had once cradled my face now curled into fists at his sides.

"Anneliese Giordano," he spat my name like a curse, "how dare you? Apologize to Piper. Now."

It was like she was his wife. His Donna. The woman who would stand beside him when he inherited his father's empire.

And me? Just some lunatic. Some hysterical servant's daughter who needed to be dealt with before she embarrassed the Family further.

Piper sobbed against his chest, her fingers clutching the lapels of his suit, her body trembling with manufactured terror.

"I know she's just hurt," she whimpered, pressing her tear-streaked face into the hollow of his throat. "I already said I'd pay for it. I'd take on every job I couldeven the ones no one else wants. The dirty work. But she..." Her voice cracked beautifully. "She still hit me. And she cursed mesaid I should drop dead."

Colino's arms tightened around her. His jaw clenched. His eyesdark as the river where the Family dumped their problemsfixed on me with undisguised fury.

"Have I not compensated you enough?" he snapped, his voice carrying the weight of a man accustomed to being obeyed. "Look at yourself, Anneliese. You're just like your mother. Petty. Greedy. Always playing the victim, always looking for a handout."

He took a step toward me, and I could smell Piper's perfume clinging to his skin.

"You two deserved the punishment."

My breath caught in my throat like a blade had been pressed to my windpipe. The corridor spun around me, but I stood rooted to the blood-slicked marble, too stunned to move.

"Petty and greedy?" I whispered, staring at the man I'd lovedthe man I'd been promised to since I was nineteen years oldlike I was seeing him for the first time. "Is that really what you think of me? That seeking justice for my mothera woman who died in your family's servicemakes me some money-hungry lunatic?"

Tears blurred my vision, turning the world to watercolors. But I refused to let them fall. I would not give them the satisfaction.

Something flickered in Colino's expression when he saw me fighting to hold myself together. A shadow of the man he used to be. A ghost of whatever conscience still haunted him.

But the moment Piper whimpered against his chesta soft, wounded sound designed to twist the knifehis expression hardened back into stone.

"I saw you try to hit her," he said flatly. "I don't care what your excuse is. I don't care what story you've convinced yourself is true."

He took another step forward, close enough that I could see the vein pulsing in his temple.

"This is the last time I'll say it. Apologize."

My heart clenched like it was being crushed in a vicesqueezed until there was nothing left but pain and the bitter taste of betrayal.

I looked at him. At the man who had promised to protect me. At the underboss who would inherit an empire built on blood and broken oaths.

At the stranger wearing my fianc's face.

"And what if I don't?" I said coldly.

"She's not just the daughter of some mistressshe's the reason my mother is dead. And you expect me to kneel and beg her forgiveness?!" The words tore from my throat like shrapnel.

Piper didn't even have time to part her painted lips. Colino's eyes went glacialthe cold, flat stare of a man who'd learned to kill his emotions long before he'd learned to kill anything else.

"I warned you," he said, his voice like steel dragged across frozen stone. "Don't test my patience."

Then he turned to his soldiers and issued the order with the casual cruelty of a man born into blood. "Go to the funeral home. Bring her mother's body back here."

Every word was a blade dipped in venom.

"She won't learn until she's broken." His lip curled with contempt as he looked at melooked through me. "You think someone like you deserves to stand as the Donna of the Marconi Family?"

"Feed the corpse to the dogs." He meant every syllable.

His crew moved without hesitation, their heavy footsteps echoing through the marble foyer like a death march. These weren't men who questioned orders. These were soldiers who'd buried bodies in unmarked graves and slept soundly after.

"No! No, please!" I lunged forward in blind paniconly to be seized by another enforcer. His grip crushed my arm with practiced brutality. I heard the crack before I felt it.

Agony exploded through me like wildfire consuming dry brush.

Tears blurred the ornate ceiling into smears of gold and shadow. I cried so hard I couldn't draw breath, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but beg.

"Colino, please! Don't do this to my mother. She'sshe's already gone. Isn't that enough?!"

Piper tilted her head with saccharine sweetness, barely concealing the triumph curving at the corners of her mouth.

"Colino the dead deserve their rest. Perhaps we should show mercy?"

He turned to her with a theatrical sigh, his hand finding the small of her back with easy possession. "You're too soft, cara mia. That's why she walks all over you."

Then his attention snapped back to his men, who had paused at the threshold. "Well? What are you waiting for? Do I need to draw you a map to the funeral home?" The bark of command echoed off the walls of the Marconi estate like a gunshot.

His voice cut through me like shattered glass, scattering the last fragments of the love I'd clung to for ten desperate years.

He knew. He knew my mother was my only weaknessthe single soft place in my armor. And he didn't hesitate to drive the knife straight through it.

I broke.

I bowed.

My spine bent, my head dropped, my pride bled out onto the cold marble floor at Piper's designer heels.

"Please," I whispered, tears falling in hot rivers down my cheeks. "Please just leave my mother in peace. Let her rest."

Each word was a razor in my throat. "I'm sorry. I was wrong."

Wrong for hoping for fairness in a world built on blood debts.

Wrong for believingfoolishly, patheticallythat maybe, just maybe, he'd choose me over her.

As I bent forward in supplication, the blood-soaked collar of my dress pulled away from my skin, exposing the wounds beneath.

Colino's eyes flickered. For a split second, something human surfaced in those dark depthssurprise, perhaps, or the ghost of the boy he'd once been.

"Is this enough for you?" I straightened with every last ounce of strength left in my shattered body, meeting his gaze with disgust I could barely contain behind my teeth.

His jaw tightened. He gestured sharply to his consigliere's assistant. "Bring the agreement."

Only when I pressed my bloody fingerprint onto the documenttransferring my stakes in the Family's legitimate fronts, signing away my mother's legacydid the tension finally ease from his brow.

"You're bleeding," he observed, as if noticing the weather. "I'll send for a doctor."

He released Piper and moved toward me, reaching out with the hand that had once cradled my face like I was something precious.

I slapped it away.

"Save your concern for your precious comare," I spat. "Better hurrywait any longer and those theatrical bruises might fade before anyone important sees them."

I turned to leave, my vision swimming, my legs threatening to buckle.

Piper's foot shot out with serpentine precision.

I tripped hard, crashing forward toward the unforgiving marble.

Colino's instincts firedthe reflexes of a man trained since childhood to protect what was his. He reached out

Then stopped himself. His hand froze inches from my falling body.

He stepped back.

"Fine." His voice was ice. "Handle your wounds yourself."

I forced myself upright, swallowing the scream that clawed at my throat as pain lanced through every nerve.

He watched me from the elevator threshold, Piper tucked possessively against his side. "I'll accompany you to select your gown tomorrow," he said, as if we were discussing dinner reservations. "The alliance ceremony won't plan itself."

The gilded elevator doors slid closed on his impassive face.

My body swayed, the dizziness from blood loss rising in nauseating waves. The chandelier above fractured into a thousand spinning diamonds.

In the blur of agony, memory dragged me backwardback to a different time. Back to when we were young and the world hadn't yet taught us its cruelest lessons.

Colino was just nineteen when his father began grooming him to inherit the Family. He'd worked through endless nights learning the businessboth legitimate and otherwisehis eyes perpetually rimmed with exhaustion. One evening, I burned my hand while making soup for him in the estate's kitchen. Just a small blister, barely worth mentioning.

Yet somehow, he found out. He stormed out of a sit-down with three capos and drove home like the devil himself was chasing him, running every red light between the social club and the compound.

He grabbed my hand and cradled it like I was made of spun glass.

"I'm so sorry, tesoro. I should've protected you," he said, his voice rough with guilt. "I swear on my mother's graveas long as I'm breathing, I'll never let anything hurt you again."

Then he pulled me into his arms. Warm. Strong. Trembling just slightly with the force of his conviction. That embraceand that blood oathhad branded themselves into my memory like a scar.

But that boy was long dead.

He'd grown into a cold, calculating man who looked at me like I was nothing. Like I was disposable. Like I was a loose end waiting to be tied off.

Now, he was the one hurting me the most.

I stumbled toward the estate's side entrance, the one the servants used. The edges of my vision darkened, collapsing inward like a dying star.

But before I hit the groundI fell into someone's arms.

A stranger's arms. Firm and unfamiliar, smelling of expensive tobacco and something darker. Something dangerous.

Before the blackness swallowed me whole, I heard a single whisper against the shell of my eara voice like smoke and shadows.

"Do you want revenge?"

The words curled around me like a devil's bargain, offered at the crossroads of desperation and death.

"In exchange for those stakes you just signed away I'll help you find the proof of who really killed your mother."

Tears carved silent rivers down my face as I clung, half-conscious, to the man's shirtthe fine wool damp beneath my trembling fingers.

"Re venge" The word escaped my lips like a dying prayer, barely formed, yet heavy with the weight of a blood oath.

When I opened my eyes again, all I saw was whitetoo bright, too sterile. The antiseptic scent of a hospital room invaded my senses, a stark contrast to the darkness that had swallowed me whole.

I turned my head slowly, wincing at the dull ache that radiated through every fiber of my body, and reached for my phone. A message from Colino waited on the screen, sent the night before.

[I've got Family business to handle tomorrow. Go try on the wedding gown by yourself. Our union is approaching, so pull yourself together. Stop with the dramatics and marry into the Marconi Family with some dignity.]

I stared at the message for a long moment, my face an unreadable mask, then dragged my finger across the screen and watched the words disappear into oblivion.

But just beneath it, something else caught my eyea post from Piper's social media account.

Colino had taken her on the Family's private jet to chase the northern lights in some frozen corner of the world far from prying eyes.

In the ethereal green haze of the aurora, their silhouettes stood close together, intimate as conspirators. Matching rings glinted on their fingersfingers tightly intertwined like the roots of a poisonous vine.

The caption pierced through me like a stiletto blade:

[He told me I'm the only one for him. He promised to protect me from all the cruelty in this world. How could I ever let go of a man like that?]

Below it, a cutesy account bearing cartoon couple avatars had commented:

[And no matter how far you try to run from me, I'll find you. I'll tie you to my side forever. So don't even try, silly girl.]

I didn't need to verify the source. I knew that tonethat possessive flair, that dark promise wrapped in honeyed words. That was Colino.

I could tell from the typing style alone.

I remembered the day I asked him to use matching couple avatars with me. He had rolled his eyes, his handsome face twisting with contempt.

"What are you, twelve? Can't you see I'm handling Family affairs? Now leave!"

And yet I had once dreamed of stargazing with him in the Alpsa stolen moment away from the shadows that governed our lives. I had planned the itinerary down to the smallest detail. He said he was too busy. Every time, that was the excuse: too busy.

Now I finally understood the truth that had been staring me in the face all along. He could be romantic. He could be tender and devoted. He just never chose to be that way with me.

I set the phone down on the starched hospital sheets, trying to blink back the sting behind my eyes.

That's when I noticed the envelope sitting quietly on the bedside table, cream-colored and expensive.

Inside it was a plane ticket. Departure in two days.

And a small note, written in an elegant hand:

[You're welcome. Hope you like the gift. For your wedding V.]

So I was right. The man who had carried me through the darkness and delivered me to safety was none other than Vittorio Falconethe ghost who had returned from the dead to become Colino's worst enemy.

I texted him a quiet thank-you, my fingers hovering over the keys longer than necessary, and checked myself out not long after.

Then the wedding coordinator called. The gown my mother had ordered for mecommissioned from the finest seamstress in Little Italy, paid for with years of her modest savingshad been altered to fit. It was ready.

It was the last gift she left me before the Marconis let her die. I had to pick it up.

But when I stepped into the boutique, the bell above the door chiming softly, I froze.

There stood Pipertwirling in my gown.

"Anneliese you came." She spun in front of the gilded mirror with a saccharine smile, her voice dripping with venom disguised as honey.

"I just had to make sure it fits, you know. Trying to help you out."

She tugged the neckline lower with deliberate provocation, revealing fresh red marks scattered across her chest like a constellation of sin. Her tone turned mockingly bashful.

"Oh no, it's Colino's faulthe's just too passionate. I told him to be gentle"

I stared at her performance, cold and unblinking as a statue carved from marble.

"You really did inherit your mother's talent for stealing other women's men."

Her smile twitched, then curved into something cruelerthe mask slipping to reveal the predator beneath.

"Oh? Didn't you hear?" She placed a hand over her stomach with theatrical tenderness. "I'm carrying Colino's heir."

"And your blood contract?" She laughed, the sound like shattering crystal. "It's fake."

She flashed a video on her phone. A dim back room of some social club. Piper draped across Colino's lap like a trophy.

He was drinking, his lips brushing against her temple with casual affection.

"Do your best and bring the child into this world. When it's born, I'll gift him the Marconi territory. Everything."

Piper asked in a coy voice: "But what about my sister?"

Colino chuckled, the sound dark and dismissive. "I never truly bound myself to her. I've been slipping birth control into her milk for months. She can't conceive. When the time comes, I'll just claim we adopted."

It was like being struck by lightning. My head spun. My legs nearly buckled beneath me, and I had to grip the edge of a display case to stay upright.

So that was it.

Whatever love had existed between us had died a long time ago. I was just too blindtoo desperate to believe in the fairy taleto notice the corpse rotting at my feet.

I sucked in a sharp breath, straightened my spine with the dignity my mother had taught me, and forced a smile onto my face.

"Well, congratulations. Becoming the next Donna of the Marconi Family is just around the corner."

"But that gown is mine. Take it off," I said, my voice dropping to ice.

I lunged forward to reclaim it, but before my fingers could even brush the fabric, one of her soldiersassigned by Colino himselfdrove his foot into my stomach.

The force knocked me flat against the polished floor. Pain exploded through my gut like a grenade. I could feel everything twisting, shiftingas though my organs had been rearranged by the brutal impact.

Piper picked up a pair of scissors from the seamstress's table. Her tone was gleeful as she traced the blade over the delicate silk, savoring the moment.

"Colino said no matter what I do, he'll clean up my mess. That's what it means to have the protection of the Family."

The sharp edge tore through hand-stitched lace. Slashed through soft silk that my mother had saved for years to afford. With each cut, she shredded the last gift my mother had ever given methe only piece of her I had left.

I just lay there on the cold floor, watching the pieces flutter down like snowflakes in a graveyard.

Even my hatred felt dull nownumbed by the crushing weight of everything I had lost.

Piper strutted out of the boutique, her heels clicking against the marble like a victory march, leaving nothing but wreckage in her wake.

I dragged myself back to the penthouse or rather, what used to feel like home.

Once I got there, I tore open every drawer and closet with trembling hands, yanked out every gift Colino had ever given methe jewelry that now felt like shackles, the designer bags that were nothing but gilded cages, the stuffed animals from those early days when I still believed his lies.

One by one, I threw them all in the trash.

Behind me, I heard footsteps approaching.

Familiar ones.

Colino paused at the door, his hand resting on the carved mahogany frame. "What did you throw away?"

I didn't even look at him.

"Just some garbage I should've gotten rid of long ago."

He didn't seem to care. As if suddenly remembering something, he added casually, "I heard Piper accidentally damaged the wedding gown. But don't worry. I've asked the seamstress to rush a new one. It'll be ready in time for the ceremony."

He slung his jacket over one shoulder, the silk lining catching the dim light.

"Remember, tomorrow night's the gathering at the estate. Don't be late. I've got business, so I'm not coming home tonight."

He grabbed his keys and left. Not once did he glance at the overflowing trash bin behind mefilled with everything he'd ever given me.

The next night, 8:00 PM.

I arrived at the Marconi Family's grand hotel alone.

The moment I stepped into the garden, I saw them.

Colino and Piper.

Dressed in matching custom couture, bathed in warm lawn lights like royalty holding court. The cream of the Five Families milled about them, champagne flutes glinting like scattered diamonds in the evening air.

Carmela Marconi's face twisted the moment she saw me.

Her smile dropped like a cracked mask.

She wore the Bulgari necklace Piper had gifted hera gaudy thing dripping with stones that screamed new money trying to buy old respect. Her eyes ran over me with undisguised disdain, cataloging every flaw, every perceived slight against her precious bloodline.

"You're an hour late. No surprise. No manners at alljust like your mother the thief."

But Colino told me the gathering started at eight.

I clenched my fists, my nails biting into my palms.

A long time ago, I'd mentioned in passing that Piper's mother had been a mistressa comare who'd spread her legs for a married man. The next day, Carmela Marconi's missing jewelry "miraculously" appeared under my mother's pillow.

Colino knew my mother had been framed.

He never defended me. Not once.

But nowI didn't grovel. I didn't bow my head like a good little servant's daughter should. I looked straight into Carmela Marconi's cold eyes, then right at Piper's smug little face.

"I'm not here to be insulted," I said, my voice cutting through the garden's polite murmur like a blade through silk. Then I looked Piper dead in the eye. "My mother was not a thief. She didn't raise me to seduce men like some women raise their daughters."

The words had barely left my mouth when a vicious slap exploded across my cheek.

My ears rang. My body hit the ground hard, the manicured grass cold and damp beneath my palms.

The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.

Colino stood over me, expression cold and condescendingthe face of a man who'd been raised to believe his word was law, his judgment absolute.

"You spread rumors about her! Don't you know it makes her suffer? How long are you gonna keep this going? Do you want her to kill herself?"

I pushed myself up, my face burning with rage.

"She suffered? She?!" I barked out a laugh, bitter and brokenthe sound of something inside me finally snapping. "She suffered from her own stupid choices! And youyou know exactly what she did. My mother is dead! I lost everything and you're just going to stand there and let her play the victim?!"

The whispers startedquiet at first, like a ripple across still water, then louder as the crowd leaned in. In this world, gossip was currency, and I'd just handed them a fortune.

Colino's jaw clenched tight, a muscle ticking beneath his skin.

"Leave," he growled under his breath, his voice barely above a whisper but carrying the weight of a threat. "Go calm yourself down. You've embarrassed yourself enough in front of the guests."

The garden buzzed with elite chatterthe connected people of the Five Families, all watching the spectacle with barely concealed delight.

Bertram and Carmela Marconi quickly stepped in with flutes of champagne, smiling stiffly like puppet masters smoothing over a minor disruption.

"Let's not ruin the evening. Come, everyonedrink up!"

Guests swarmed Colino and Piper with congratulations.

"Cheers to the happy couple!"

"Congratulations to the future Mr. and Mrs. Marconisuch a perfect match!"

Colino had always said he wanted our arrangement to be a "surprise."

He never told a soul about us.

And now?

He smiled like a gentleman, standing next to Piper like she'd always been the promised bridelike the blood debt his Family owed my mother had never existed.

He didn't even try to explain.

She clung to his arm like she belonged there, her fingers curled possessively around his sleeve.

Under the glittering lights, they looked like a picture-perfect couplethe heir apparent and his beautiful bride, a union that would strengthen the Marconi name for generations.

While I stood there like a wet stain on a white rug.

I let out a breathless, bitter laugh and turned to go, but a hand blocked my way.

Piper.

She smiled like she'd already wonlike she'd been winning since the day she first spread her legs for my fianc.

"Leaving so soon?" she cooed, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "But I haven't told you how that old woman died."

My heart stopped.

The garden noise faded to a dull roar, replaced by the thundering of my own pulse.

"What did you just say?"

She leaned in close, her perfume cloying and thick, her voice low enough that only I could heara whisper meant for the damned.

"I told her if she wanted the money back, she'd have to film herself doing something special. You know, the kind men pay for." She grinned, her teeth white and sharp in the lamplight. "But she got all high and mighty. She refused and even had the nerve to insult me and my mom."

A twisted laugh escaped her painted lips.

"So I gave her what she deserved."

She sighed dramatically, as if recounting a minor inconvenience rather than a murder.

"Did you know? She barely made it through fifty men before she collapsed. Still had the nerve to clutch my leg and begbegme to return the money to her 'sweet daughter.'"

She made a clicking sound with her tongue, savoring the memory like fine wine.

"Pathetic, really."

Her words struck like a blade between the ribs.

For a moment, rage consumed mea wildfire that burned through every nerve, every thought, every shred of restraint I'd ever possessed. No sound escaped my throat. Only fury, raw and blinding, coiling in my chest like a serpent preparing to strike.

Then I snapped.

I lunged at Piper.

Fists clenched. Nails sinking into flesh like talons.

I seized her hair, wrenched her down, clawed at her face, her throatanywhere I could reach. The silk of her gown tore beneath my fingers like the lies she'd woven around my life.

"You monster! Give me my mother back, you stronza!"

But before I could draw bloodbefore I could carve the truth into her treacherous skinagony exploded through my spine. Then my ribs. The soldiers were on me in an instant, their polished shoes connecting with bone, their fists driving me to the cold marble until I curled into myself like a broken marionette.

Gasps rippled through the gathering like wind through dead leaves.

Colino shoved past the crowd, his face carved from granite.

He didn't spare me a glance.

He went straight to Pipersobbing, trembling, performing the role of wounded dove with practiced perfectionand gathered her into his arms as though she were spun from Venetian glass.

When his eyes finally cut toward me, they held the warmth of a midwinter grave.

"You've gone too far." His voice was quiet. Lethal. "Kneel. Apologize to her. Now."

I stared at him through blood-matted hair, disbelief clawing at my throat.

He wasn't finished.

"Your mother was weak. She got cast aside and died chasing scraps. Now you're blaming Piper for your own blood's failures? Everyone here witnessed what you did." His lip curled with disgust. "Are you proud of yourself, Anneliese? Is this the respect you bring to our union?"

The room hummed with whispers, growing louder and uglier with each passing heartbeatvultures circling carrion.

"I heard her mother once lifted jewelry from Donna Carmela's collection," one woman murmured, her voice deliberately carrying across the marble hall. "Word is she died during some botched snatch jobturned up with her organs harvested like livestock. Honestly? Sounds like she had it coming. Disloyal blood runs true."

"And the daughter's cut from the same cloth," another voice added with venomous satisfaction. "Ungrateful little puttana. Raised to sink her claws into men above her station. Just like her whore of a mother."

I remained on my knees, the cold seeping through silk into bone. I wanted to screamto tell them they were wrong. That my mother wasn't a thief. That Lucia Giordano had served the Marconi household with more loyalty than any of them would ever understand. That I wasn't some scheming woman trying to climb above my place.

But my throat was dust. My voice, stolen.

Colino's patience frayed like old rope.

"Apologize, Anneliese. I'll count to three." His words fell like hammer blows. "One... two"

Disappointment seared through every fiber of my beinga betrayal more complete than any blade could deliver.

I gave in.

My knees cracked against the unforgiving marble. I lifted my chinthen drove my forehead down in a bow so violent I tasted copper flooding my mouth.

"I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm sorry, I'm sorry"

Blood mingled with tears, blurring the world into watercolors of crimson and gold.

I raised my head with a smile that felt like broken glass cutting my own face.

"Is that enough, Colino? Did your precious comare receive sufficient tribute?"

He froze. Something flickered behind his eyesa crack in the ice, a ghost of the boy who'd once held my hand in his mother's garden. His pupils contracted as though he finally saw me. Saw the ruin he'd made of us both.

He took half a step forward.

But Piper's fingers dug into his arm, her voice quivering with manufactured terror.

"Colino, I'm frightened... look at her eyes. She's lost her mind..."

He hesitated. The crack sealed over, smooth as fresh ice on a winter pond.

He stepped back. Drew her closer against his chest.

His gaze slid away from mine like oil on water. When he spoke again, his voice was hollow. Mechanical. The voice of a man already washing his hands.

"Go home. Try not to cause any more disgrace to this Family."

I rose. Somehow. My legs trembled like a newborn foal's, but I refused to fall. Not here. Not before these jackals in their designer gowns and hand-stitched suits.

I turned to face him one final time.

The man I'd loved for a decade. The heir I'd been promised to since girlhood. The future Don who couldn't recognize loyalty when it knelt bleeding at his feet.

Then I walked away.

The crowd parted before me like the Red Seanot from respect, but from revulsion. As though my grief were contagious. As though my mother's murder might somehow stain their precious reputations.

Let them look.

Let them remember this moment when the reckoning came.

The night bit with savage cold when I reached the crematorium on the outskirts of the city. I stood in silence as my motherLucia Giordano, faithful servant, devoted parent, woman who'd once saved a Marconi heir from a rival Family's snatch job and received nothing but contempt in returnturned to ash.

The flames consumed her. Orange and gold and terrible.

When her remains scattered into the dark waters of the harbor, so did the last tether binding my heart to this world.

Gone. Just like that.

At midnight, I slipped the engagement ring from my fingerthe three-carat symbol of a blood pact that had never been honored. I set it gently inside the nightstand drawer of the bedroom I'd shared with Colino's ghost for three hollow years.

No need for formal dissolution. His devotion had never been real to begin with.

How convenient.

I wheeled my single suitcase to the front door of the Marconi estate, my footsteps echoing through halls that had never truly been my home.

My phone buzzed.

Colino: [Did you get your wounds treated? Piper says she forgives you. Let's put this behind us and focus on tomorrow.]

Colino: [I picked up a new gown for the ceremony. Hand-beaded Venetian lace. Gorgeous. I'll have it sent over.]

No reply.

A moment passed. The phone buzzed again, more insistent.

Colino: [Asleep already? Why aren't you answering? It's our union ceremony tomorrowthe alliance between our Families becomes official. Be good, Anneliese. Don't embarrass me again.]

I blocked him. Every number. Every account connected to his name. I extracted the SIM card, snapped it cleanly in half between my fingers, and dropped the pieces down a storm drain as I walked to the waiting car.

Just like him. Discarded. Forgotten.

A black sedan idled by the iron gates, its engine purring like a patient predator.

I slid into the leather interior.

"To the private airfield."

The city lights raced past my window, smearing into ghosts against the rain-streaked glass. Ten years of memoriesof stolen kisses in moonlit gardens, of whispered promises, of love that had rotted from the inside like a poisoned appledissolved into shadow.

I watched the Marconi compound disappear in the rearview mirror.

"We will never meet again, Colino." My voice was steady now. Cold as the harbor waters that held my mother's ashes. "And by sunrise, your wedding gift will arrive. Right on time."

The car merged onto the highway, carrying me toward a new life.

Behind me, a dynasty prepared to burn.