"Miss Valente, you are the trueborn daughter of the Valente family. Do you truly wish to marry a cripple — as his the contract bride?"

Under Rosa Tagliaferro's astonished stare, I gave a calm nod.

"It's the only way to protect the Valente family."

The Broker clicked her tongue twice, a sharp sound in the silence of the back office. Equal parts pity and disbelief.

"There was a time when every daughter of every Family in this city envied you, Miss Valente."

"A doting father and brother above you, a childhood sweetheart devoted to you alone. You lived more grandly than a Don's queen."

"Who could have imagined that this same Family would sacrifice its trueborn daughter to a cripple's bed — just to spare the adopted one?"

I said nothing more. In silence, I wrote my name on the contract.

In three days the agreement would take effect. My body for the debt of my birth and upbringing. The ledger, settled.

From that day forward, I would have nothing to do with the Valente family — or with my old love.

All bonds severed. In life or in death, we would never meet again.

——

By the time I returned to the Valente compound, night had already fallen.

Not a single soul came out to greet me. The only sound was shouting from the main hall.

The same argument as always — the endless wave of accusations and power plays raining down on the Family since my father's assassination.

I pushed open the doors, ready to tell them the problem had been resolved.

What greeted me was my brother's palm across my face.

"Serafina Valente, what have you done?"

"I never imagined you'd stoop this low — forcing Gianna Caruso to become that cripple's the contract bride, just to protect your own comfortable life!"

"So what if they call him cold-blooded and ruthless? Dominic Ravenna is nothing but a vicious, scheming cripple. Gianna would rather die than survive a marriage to him — and you… how can your heart be this cruel!"

Our father had been assassinated. The Valente family was condemned, our territories carved up, our name a target.

That cold-blooded cripple held more power than anyone on the Commission. He was the only one who could save us.

But when the Family came begging for his protection —

He had said only one thing: "If you want my hand in this, the Valentes send me a daughter. As my lowest-ranking the contract bride."

I knew he meant it as a humiliation.

I also knew that neither my brother nor Enzo Castellani could bear to let Gianna suffer that degradation.

So I made the decision for them.

I was about to explain when Gianna dropped to her knees.

"Sister, I already did what you told me to. Please don't push me into the pool again — I'm scared."

She held up her arms, lined with scratches and bruises, weeping like a blossom battered by rain.

The two of them went white with fury.

They gave me no chance to speak. They seized me and dragged me straight to the rear courtyard.

"Serafina Valente, bullying Gianna with your tantrums was bad enough. Now you've done something truly vile. Today I'll discipline you the way our dead father should have — to preserve what's left of the Valente family's honor!"

Neither of them would hear a word from me. Rage had made them deaf.

They hauled me to the edge of the courtyard pool and shoved me in.

The water was bone-cold with the first bite of winter.

Every time I fought my way to the surface, a hand forced my head back under, and all I could do was choke as freezing water flooded my nose and ears.

Again and again, until my consciousness began to dissolve.

Through the haze, I drifted back to a day many years ago.

I had refused to practice my needlework, and Mother rapped my palms with a ruler.

My brother and Enzo — their eyes had turned red with heartache just looking at my hands.

To coax a smile out of me, they planted an entire courtyard of roses themselves.

Enzo had told me then:

"Serafina, you don't need to learn these tiresome things. You were born to be cherished."

"Before you marry, you're the Valentes' beloved daughter. After you marry, you'll be the honored wife of the Castellani household. As long as we're here, you will never suffer a single day."

But now the roses had withered and fallen.

And the two of them didn't stop until I was on the edge of drowning.

I dragged myself out of the water, every breath a blade of pain.

They weren't even looking at me. They were gathered around Gianna, comforting her.

"Gianna, we know how much you've endured. I will never let Serafina hurt you again. Once both Families are through this crisis, I'll petition the Commission for a marriage decree — and take you as my wife!"

"That's right. I'm giving all of Serafina's inheritance to you. The jewelry, the heirlooms, everything. She owes you that much."

I watched the three of them standing close together and swallowed every grievance, every word I'd been about to say.

Speaking or staying silent made no difference now. No one would listen. No one would believe me.

I forced myself to my feet through the pain.

My disheveled, soaking state drew open stares from the soldiers and household staff lining the courtyard walls. Men who had once bowed their heads when I passed now watched me the way they'd watch a stray dog that had wandered onto the compound grounds.

Enzo noticed the hostile looks and pulled off his overcoat, starting toward me.

He'd barely taken a few steps when Gianna let out a soft sigh behind him.

He turned back at once and draped the coat over her shoulders instead.

"You're delicate, Gianna. Watch you don't catch cold."

"Right. Someone go pour her a drink. Something warm. Don't let Gianna be frightened by all this filth."

Two men who once treasured me like I was the most precious thing in the world now called me filth.

And at their cue, every person in the compound shrank from me as though I carried a plague.

I laughed bitterly, alone, and went back to my room to change out of my drenched clothes.

A long time passed before Enzo walked in carrying a glass of brandy, already gone cold.

"Serafina, I know we've been promised to each other since we were children. But with a temperament like yours, you're not fit to be the wife of a Castellani."

"Out of respect for what we once had, I can keep you by my side. But you'll have to learn to show Gianna proper respect."

I looked at him.

And all at once, the vow he'd made — one life, one love, only each other — struck me as the cruelest joke.

A subordinate marriage was a leash dressed in silk. The woman who entered one was property, to be traded or discarded at will.

I was the trueborn daughter of Don Valente. Old blood. Sicilian blood.

I had been willing to become Dominic Ravenna's the contract bride to keep the Valente family safe, to repay the family that raised me.

But Enzo Castellani was nothing more than my father's ally. Be his kept woman? On what grounds?

On the grounds of a childhood sweetheart love that had already turned to ash?

I swallowed the humiliation burning in my chest and pointed at the door. Told him to get out.

Enzo didn't move. But Gianna came strolling in with a smile on her face.

"Are you still angry, Sister? The boys only lashed out because they were standing up for me. We're all family. Why hold such a petty grudge?"

"Here, let me help you with this. Wouldn't want you catching cold."

Then she reached for my spoon without warning.

I pulled back, and a few drops of ginger broth splashed onto her hand.

Instantly her eyes went red and glassy, fixed on me. Her left hand drifted to her collarbone, fingers splayed like a woman catching her breath from the shock of it.

"Sister, do you really hate me that much? I know I'm just the daughter of a low-ranking associate. Too lowborn to deserve being part of the Valente family."

"But I'm leaving soon. I won't affect your place in our brothers' hearts. So why do you have to be this cruel?"

"Serafina, when is enough enough? Gianna's suffered plenty already. Why won't you just leave her alone?"

Enzo shoved me away.

I stumbled, lost my footing, and fell hard. My hand drove deep into the shattered porcelain on the floor.

He didn't even glance at me.

He and Marcello helped Gianna out of the room to treat a burn that didn't exist.

I pressed my bleeding hand against myself, blood dripping steadily between my fingers.

When I looked up, my mother was standing a few paces away, her face dark as a storm. She was turning the wedding band on her left hand, slow and continuous, the way she always did before she passed judgment.

Every injustice I'd swallowed finally broke loose. I blinked back tears and cried out: "Mother…"

"Silence! I have no daughter like you!"

She snapped at the maid who'd rushed to help me up, stopping her in her tracks.

Then she walked toward me, eyes cold as ice, and flung the espresso in her hand straight into my face.

"Gianna is alone in this world with no one to rely on, and this is how you treat her? If word gets out, what will the other families say about us? Is this how you repay everything I've done to raise you?"

Blood from my palm kept dripping onto the floor.

And with it drained the last trace of attachment I had to this family.

I lowered my gaze to the roses crushed underfoot on the ground.

My father had planted them for me. A rare climbing variety he'd had shipped from Sicily, blooming through every season without fail.

Back then, everyone in the city used to say: "The Valente Don's trueborn daughter, more delicate than a flower, more precious than jade."

My brother doted on me beyond measure. My childhood sweetheart loved me as if I were his life.

The only hardship I'd ever known was a terrible illness the year I turned ten.

To save me, Marcello knelt before the doctor's door for three days and three nights.

Enzo nearly died retrieving a rare herb from a contact deep in the mountains, where no sane man would go alone and unarmed.

By the time I recovered, the two of them were gaunt, barely recognizable.

Enzo, still burning with fever, tied a red string around my wrist.

"I'm a soldier's son. I don't believe in saints or curses. But for you, I'll make the exception. With this red string, we share one fate. Life or death, never apart."

"From now on, we'll bear this world's suffering for you. As long as we're here, Serafina will always be happy."

But that happiness shattered without warning.

Father was ambushed on the highway coming back from a sit-down in Providence. Killed alongside the associate who drove for him.

Before the driver died, he entrusted his daughter to our Family. That was how Gianna Caruso came into the Valente household.

No one could have predicted how swiftly the Family would fall.

Two daughters became bargaining chips, goods waiting to be sold.

Gianna moved first. With her wide-eyed innocence and pitiful tears, she won everyone's sympathy before I even understood what was happening.

They ached for Gianna. They ached for the Valente Family's generations of good name.

But not a single one of them cared how much pain I was in. Fatherless, abandoned by everyone I loved.

"Serafina, what are you standing there for? Get over here and apologize to Gianna!"

Marcello and Enzo glared at me, faces tight with anger.

Then they saw the pool of blood on the floor, and the fury on their faces went blank.

Enzo hesitated, stepped forward. "I didn't realize you were hurt this badly. Let me take a look."

"Don't bother."

My coldness unsettled him.

He wrestled down the anger rising in his chest.

"How long are you going to keep acting like a child? The Valente Family is on the edge of ruin. We don't have the luxury of coddling you."

"Fine. I'll buy you some candied almonds later. Just behave and stop making things harder."

I'd been pampered since birth. Afraid of anything bitter, anything that stung.

Even a scraped knee would have them fussing over me for half the day.

No matter how long I cried or carried on, they never lost patience.

Every time, like a magic trick, one of them would produce a bag of candied almonds to coax a smile out of me.

But now... I looked at the candied almonds in Gianna's hand, and it struck me that the sweets had never really been that sweet after all.

I went back to my room in silence.

By now every soldier and servant in the compound had been reassigned to attend to Gianna.

I packed my things alone.

The red wedding dress still hung in the room, and the sight of it sent a sharp ache through my chest.

Mother and I had sewn that dress together, stitch by stitch.

The pearls along its hem were gifts from the Commission, earned through Father's and Marcello's years of loyal service to the Families.

The rose jade hairpin that went with it had been carved by Enzo's own hand.

Even the daughter of the most powerful Don on the Commission had envied them when she saw the dress and the hairpin.

"The Valente girl is truly blessed. The treasures are costly, but the devotion behind them is rarer still. Every woman in this world must envy a love like this."

Now the dress was still vivid as the day it was finished.

But the heart of the man who loved me had already changed.

"Serafina, give your room to Gianna. She'll be leaving the Valente compound soon. Whatever time she has left here, we're giving her the very best of everything we have!"

Marcello's voice wrenched me out of the memory. His right fist clenched and unclenched at his side as he said it, though he didn't seem to notice.

Before I could react, the men were already carrying my belongings out.

Gianna's gaze locked onto my wedding dress.

"What a beautiful dress..." Her left hand rested delicately against her collarbone, fingers splayed. "Too bad I'm just a lowly concubine in a subordinate marriage. I'm not fit to wear red..."

She lifted her tear-filled eyes to Enzo.

"Enzo, I'm walking into something I may never come back from. Could you grant me one wish? Before I die, let me wear this wedding dress and bow before God with the man I love."