Luca ejected the memory card from the camera and pressed it into my palm, then pointed at the AV console in the reception hall.

"See that? Plug it in. Let it play all the way through. Then you get your money."

My hand shook around the card. The girl I used to be would never have believed any of this was possible.

The hospital calls kept playing in my head like a broken recording. I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood.

I pushed past Luca and walked toward the console. The event staff shot me confused looks. I plugged the card in.

"Anna. You sure about this?"

Luca's voice cut through from behind me. My finger hovered over the play button, trembling.

I didn't care what happened anymore. I needed his money.

I closed my eyes and pressed it.

The screen didn't show what I expected. Instead it switched to a cheerful wedding march, the Morello and De Luca family crests embroidered across the projection.

Luca looked at me with flat, dark eyes. "You haven't changed at all. You'll do anything for money."

"How did I ever love you? I can barely stand to look at who I used to be."

He'd set me up again.

"Luca, you promised me money."

"Did I?" He held my gaze with something close to contempt. "You promised you'd never leave me."

He'd brought up something five years old. My eyes burned.

"When you left, did you think about this?"

I grabbed his sleeve, trying to hold on. "I had reasons back then—"

"You think I'm still eighteen? That you can fool me again?"

He pulled his arm away without hesitation, like pulling back the last thread of hope I had.

He'd changed. The Luca standing in front of me had fully taken the reins of the Morello family, the undisputed ruler of a sizable piece of Sicily. He wasn't the boy who'd fixed boats with me in Palermo's old harbor anymore.

There was a faint scar on his right hand, running from the base of his thumb all the way to his wrist. I knew which year it was from. I knew why. His watch rested over one end of it, an IWC with a black dial, nothing like the cheap Seiko he'd worn five years ago.

"Don't expect a single euro from me."

The line of his back as he walked away was absolute. His steps fast. Too fast for me to ever catch up.

Marco walked me out. I had no choice but to leave the estate.

I sat on the stone steps outside the iron gate, no way forward and no way back.

I made one call. "Paolo. I need you to help me again."

"Didn't you come in just a couple days ago? Can your body even handle it?"

"I'll be fine."

The clinic was behind a laundromat. You had to walk through a corridor of hanging white sheets to get in. The owner didn't ask names, didn't write receipts; he just drew a line on the chalkboard on the wall. One more. Another one came in.

Inside the black-market clinic, I rolled up my sleeve. The old doctor worked the length of my thin arm until he finally found a vein that would take the needle. Bright red blood ran down the tube and away from my body. The collection bag was already past what it should hold, and the cold was settling into my bones in waves.

Half an hour later I walked out with cash and made it to the hospital before the billing desk closed.

"This isn't enough."

"I know. I'm going to figure something out. Please, just give me two more days."

I'd lost count of how many times I'd had to bow my head these past years. Begging had become second nature.

At the end of the corridor was Rosa's room. I stopped in the doorway for a moment and watched her sleep. I couldn't stay.

I pulled my messenger jacket from the motorcycle's storage box and shrugged it on. I switched on the radio unit and started taking jobs. Luca or no Luca, I wasn't giving up on Rosa.

The jacket had a number printed on the chest, the underground network's ID for each runner. You didn't open the packages. You didn't ask who was receiving them or why. One rule: on time.

In Palermo's shadow economy, there were always packages that couldn't move through official channels after dark. Running them was one of the ways people at the bottom survived. Nobody asked questions.

I wove my motorcycle through the narrow lanes near the docks. A familiar cramp hit my stomach. The lights at night were too bright. Everything was starting to blur.

The screech of brakes hit out of nowhere. I was thrown a long way.

Then nothing.

The ceiling light was blinding. I tried to cover my eyes and the pain in my arm stopped me cold.

"Stop moving. It's broken."

Luca's voice, impatient. Which meant I was in a hospital.

I struggled up from the bed and nearly fell off the edge. Luca caught me.

"My bike, I still have deliveries—"

"Anna. Are you out of your mind?"

I didn't answer. I found my phone and pulled it up. Cracked screen, but I could still see the string of late-delivery alerts. Hopelessness washed over me. I didn't know how much I'd be fined, and I had nothing left to pay with.

I started sending messages one by one, explaining there'd been an accident, that the delay wasn't intentional, asking for some understanding.

He stood by the bed in a navy bespoke suit, completely out of place in a ward without curtains. He'd probably come straight from some post-wedding reception.

Luca snatched my phone. "You know what state you're in and you're still worrying about work?"

"Give it back." I looked at him, red-eyed, furious and refusing to look away. "Mr. Morello, I'm not asking you for money right now. What business is it of yours?"

A brief silence. He let out a short, cold laugh. "So what you're saying is, I'd have to pay to have any say in what you do?"

I didn't have the energy to argue. I still didn't know why he'd shown up here at all.

"Give me back my phone."

He didn't move. "Anna. Let me give you another way to make money."

I didn't know if this was another setup. But the word money made me look up anyway.

"Come stay with me. I'll pay you."

"You're married," I said.

"My memory's fine."

I didn't follow. "You want me as your mistress?"

Luca finally smiled. "Shouldn't be hard for you. After all, you take after your mother."

My fingers pressed into my own palm. My face went white.

He knew exactly where that would land.

Once, when someone had called me the bastard daughter of a kept woman, he'd stepped in front of me and thrown a punch.

Now the punch was his, and it was landing on me.

But Rosa needed me. I had to hold on.

I fought back the tears, my voice barely steady. "How much?"

"What?"

I met his eyes. "If I'm your mistress. How much?"

Luca's jaw tightened, his hand slowly closing into a fist. "Fifty thousand euros a month."

"Fine." I didn't hesitate for a second. "But the money comes first. Given the track record, Mr. Morello."

His chest rose and fell hard. He pulled out his phone, tapped a few times, and threw my phone back to me. The transfer had already cleared.

I let out a slow breath, walked up to him, and started to kneel down.

He caught my hand. "What are you doing?"

I looked up at him, face completely blank. "Being a mistress means taking care of you, doesn't it?"

Something I did enraged him. He grabbed my jaw. "Aren't you full of surprises."

Then he shoved me aside, turned, and walked out. "You think I'd touch you in this state."

The door slammed. I slid down to the floor, covered my eyes, and let the tears go.

Marco picked me up on discharge day.

The car took a route I didn't know. Marco said it was Mr. Morello's arrangement.

I pushed open the estate's front door. Luca was sprawled in a leather armchair in the center of the hall. His new wife sat at the far end of the sofa.

Elena De Luca. I'd seen her name on the wedding invitation.

She was focused entirely on polishing the ring on her finger, her own family's crest, and didn't spare me a single glance. My arrival registered zero.

She wore an ivory silk robe, completely at ease, like she was in her own home. Which, of course, she was. The De Luca family had traded a daughter for control of the southern docks. The Morello family had traded a wedding for access to the southern shipping corridor. Both sides walked away satisfied.

I felt as exposed as I had the day Morello men had thrown me and my mother out through the front gate, every eye in the place watching us with contempt.

What was Luca doing? He'd just gotten married, and already he was bringing his mistress in front of his wife?

I instinctively stepped back toward the door.

Luca gave a short laugh. "What are you standing there for? Come here."

I stopped, not understanding.

He drummed his fingers on the armrest. "Come here. Get on your knees."

"You didn't finish what you started at the hospital. Now you can."

My head snapped up. He couldn't be serious.

Elena was still in the room. Marco hadn't left. Two bodyguards stood in the corners. With all these people watching, he wanted me to do that.

Luca's voice was quiet and precise, dropping me into ice.

"Do I have to say it twice? Or would you like me to show our audience the video from that day?"

Elena finally noticed the tension. She gave me one faint look, not curiosity but mild notice, and the skin on my face burned.

"Disgusting," she said flatly. Then she picked up her ring and walked upstairs.

I'd just started to breathe again when Luca grabbed me and pulled me into the inner room without a word.

I landed on the bed, clutching my aching arm. The anger in his eyes startled me.

"Anna. You take the money, you deliver. Do you not understand that?"

He had me pinned, jacket thrown aside, the collar of his shirt hanging open, a knife scar visible on his collarbone.

"When I tell you to do something, you don't ignore me. What did I just ask you to do out there?"

"You want to keep your dignity? You can't have the money and the dignity both, Anna. The world doesn't work that way."

I went rigid, shaking from his words.

Luca reached for my collar. I grabbed his hand.

"Don't—"

"Don't?" He looked at me like I'd said something amusing. "Don't you dare say that to me, Anna. Don't you ever say that to me."

My phone went off where it had fallen on the floor. The specific ringtone I'd set for the hospital. It was Rosa's ward. Something had happened. Something had happened to Rosa.

I shoved him off and lunged for the phone. He grabbed me back, harder.

I couldn't break free. I bit down on his shoulder. When he flinched and his grip loosened, I hit the floor and answered.

What the doctor said on the other end made the room tilt.

"I have to get to the hospital. Luca, please, take me. Please take me to the hospital."

I was on my knees on the floor, grabbing his leg, tears making a mess of my face.

Whatever he saw in me then stopped him. He pulled me upright and put me in the car.

When we got to the hospital, Rosa had just come out of surgery. She still had tubes in her. I was afraid to touch her.

Tears dropped onto the blanket one by one.

"Rosa. Mama's here. Mama's right here. You're going to be okay."

Rosa wasn't out of danger yet. I stayed at the hospital for the next two days. Luca didn't leave either.

He asked me something during that time. I had no strength left to answer.

When the doctor finally said family could go in, I followed the nurse to get into the isolation gown.

Luca fell a step behind. Marco pulled him aside.

"Boss. This is you and the girl's paternity report."