"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."

Those words turned both their eyes red in an instant.

Marcello wrenched the wedding dress from my hands without a word and held it out to Gianna.

In the struggle, the rose jade hairpin fell to the floor and snapped in two.

Enzo kicked it aside without a glance and strode toward Gianna.

"Here, Gianna, try on the dress."

"No! You can have everything else, but not this dress..."

I clung to one corner of it, unwilling to let go of this last thing I had left.

"Serafina Valente, it's a dress. Would it kill you to let Gianna have it? She gave up a lifetime of happiness for you!"

The two of them flanked Gianna, shielding her, glaring at me like I was the enemy.

I looked at their eyes. The hatred in them, as if I were some stranger who had wronged them.

Whatever was left of my attachment died right there.

I grabbed the wedding dress back and threw it into the fireplace along with the jewelry box and every letter we'd ever exchanged.

I didn't want any of it. None of it.

Years of devotion, gone in a single moment.

"Serafina, what is wrong with you? Do you have any idea how valuable those things are?"

Marcello was livid.

But when he saw me reach for the portrait album, his fury turned to panic.

He shoved his hands into the flames and pulled it out, burning himself to save it.

"Fine. Those are just things. We can replace them when the Family gets back on its feet. But this, Serafina, this isn't something you throw away in a fit of anger."

He wiped the soot off carefully and pressed it into my hands.

He and Enzo had drawn every page themselves.

It was the record of all three of our lives.

From the day I was born, to my first stumbling words.

From the childhood betrothal promise to the formal alliance engagement.

The three of us, growing closer with every passing year.

So close to becoming family.

But the deepest bonds are the most fragile, and what rises highest falls the hardest.

That last small distance between us became an unbridgeable gulf, pushing us toward strangers who would never meet again.

After they left, I lit the album on fire.

Every feeling from all those years, burned to ash.

The compound was silent around me. The low crackle of the flames in the grate was the only sound, and even the soldiers posted outside the corridor knew enough to stay away. I watched the pages curl and blacken. Faces I had loved dissolving into nothing.

The next morning, when I went out to pick up supplies from the front business on Mulberry Street, every street corner buzzed with talk of the Cripple taking a bride.

"The Valente family are supposed to be old blood. Sending their trueborn daughter off in a subordinate marriage to a cripple. How far they've fallen."

"I heard that cold-blooded cripple spent a fortune having a whole set of jade-handled instruments carved. He's the type who knows exactly how to break a person. That Valente girl is in for a world of suffering."

The gossip jolted me, but the feeling passed quickly.

Could any of it be worse than what I was living through now?

There was no place left for me in the Valente family.

When the agreed-upon day came, I meant to slip away without troubling anyone.

But passing through the main hall, I saw Gianna curled against Enzo's chest, crying. Her left hand rested delicately against her collarbone, fingers splayed like a woman catching her breath from genuine grief.

"It doesn't matter if I suffer a little. What matters is that the Valente name isn't dragged through the mud. Besides, I already have someone I care for... Once I've helped the Family through this crisis, I'll prove my loyalty with my own life!"

Marcello and Enzo crowded around her, falling over themselves to comfort her.

One moment swearing they loved her, the next vowing to go put a bullet in Dominic Ravenna themselves.

I said nothing. I stood quietly, smoothing the folds of the embroidered silk pouch I'd finished stitching the night before. My right hand drifted, briefly, to the thin scar along my left wrist, then returned to the fabric.

I was no longer the pampered, adored trueborn daughter of the Valente house.

I would need to learn to lower myself and please my future husband.

Enzo shot me a look of disgust.

"Serafina, you have time to sit there embroidering pouches? Do you even know what people out there are saying about us? Gianna is an innocent girl. How is she supposed to bear this kind of humiliation?"

Gianna, the innocent girl.

The two families, rising and falling together.

So he cared about the Valente family's future. He cared about where Gianna would end up.

The only person he didn't care about was me.

When I didn't answer, Marcello reached over and snatched the pouch right out of my hands.