Before I could even say no, Lorenzo pressed the pills to my lips. "Come on, be a good girl. Let your husband feed you."

The bitter medicine slipped into my mouth as he half-forced it in. That sticky, nauseating taste spread instantly and the next thing I knew, the world spun around me. Taking advantage of my dizziness, Lorenzo caught my hand in his. "Tesoro, today is Bianca's celebration. The whole Family will be there. Her one wish is your blessing. If you don't come, word travels through the territory that you're a petty thing who won't accept her own sister. I'll go. Just have my clothes laid out." His thumb moved once, twice, along the edge of his signet ring, faster than a man at peace with himself. I didn't know yet what that tell meant. It had already cost me everything.

I knew Lorenzo had it all arranged, down to the last chair at the table. He wasn't going to leave me a single opening, so there was no point in arguing. Just then my mother came in and caught the tail end of it. Her face lifted. "My sweet girl, I knew you were the sensible one." Her fingers found the edge of her mourning shawl and rubbed the fabric slow between them. "Once Bianca's night is behind us, I'll see to your union with Lorenzo myself." She said it smiling, as though absolution came cheap.

I numbly pulled my hand back. At that moment, my heart felt like it had turned to ash. The car brought us to the estate quickly. The moment I was helped down onto the gravel, a swarm of camera flashes broke over me all at once. I panicked and reached for Mamma's hand and closed on nothing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her walking briskly away with Bianca folded in her arm, not sparing me a glance. My face went pale. I lowered my head and clutched my hat tight against it.

"Signorina Barone, we hear you feared your own sister would take the showcase from you, so you set the fire yourself to burn her alive, only it turned on you and marked your own face. Is that the truth?"

"Signorina Barone, a viper like you still dares walk into your sister's celebration? Have you no shame at all?"

"Signorina Barone, you twist so pretty on the runway. How could a girl like you fear losing to anyone? Or is it the men keeping you who've stopped being satisfied?"

As one of them spoke, another lunged and tore the hat from my head. A gasp went through the crowd in one breath. My burned, ruined face stood exposed under the hard white glare of their cameras.

"Dio, that's revulsion itself. Is that a monster?"

"I'm going to be sick. So hideous, like meeting a ghost in broad daylight."

My heart pounded and my vision started sliding to black in slow waves. They had no mercy in them. Phones went up all around me, and the live streams began, carrying my face to every corner of the territory.

"The famous Barone girl. Rotten and cruel to the bone. Tried to burn her own sister and got scorched for it instead. They say there isn't a clean patch of skin left on her. Let's see what the wages of sin really look like."

Someone shoved me and I went down onto the stone. The loose clothing I wore tore away easily. My arms, my thighs, my stomach, all of it bared to them. A hoarse, broken sob dragged out of my throat. Then my hands and my feet began to shake, past all my will. My whole body jolted as though a live current ran through it.

The ones tearing at me seemed to scent something new, and shouted, giddy with it. "She's having a fit. This is gold. Quick, get in close, get the shot, all of it."

My eyes rolled back with the pain and white foam kept spilling from my mouth. I knew the drug had taken hold, and there was nothing left in me to fight it. Like a jester stripped bare in front of the whole Family, I let them shred every last thread of my dignity. Then someone shrieked. A warm liquid ran out from beneath me and a foul, sour stench filled the air at once. The humiliation was so vast I couldn't even weep through it. I wished only to die there on the ground.

While they went on with their disgust and their insults, the flashes bore down on my lower body, snapping without end. I lay there like a dead dog, without a shred of strength left to struggle. "What are you doing. Who gave you leave to take pictures like that?"

Lorenzo cut through the crowd of associates like a blade through silk, seized the lead onlooker's camera, and shattered it against the marble floor. "Get out. Every last one of you."

My mother wrapped her mourning shawl around my shoulders with shaking hands, tears streaming down her face, her voice cracking. "The soldiers on this door. Are you all useless? How did outsiders get inside a Family celebration? You're finished. All of you."

Bianca hovered at the edge of it, one hand pressed to her mouth. "You've gone too far! How can you treat my sister this way? Don't you dare let a single one of those pictures out. My sister, seizing on the floor, soiling herself. You'd better not."

Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. You want the crown of the showcase? You want to pour every ounce of the bloodline's love into Bianca? Fine. Take it. But why did you have to do this to me?

My mind swam in fog. I simply let Lorenzo kneel in front of me, gripping my hands tight. "Wife, I'm so sorry. This is my fault. I failed to protect you. It won't happen again. From this day, I'll never let you suffer so much as a breath of pain. Let's seal the union now, quickly. All right?"

I wanted to say no, but the metallic taste climbing my throat spilled first as a mouthful of blood. It splattered across Lorenzo. His pupils shrank and his face went white as ash. Before my consciousness faded into darkness, I heard him and my mother screaming for the Family's doctors.

"The wounds were already severe, and the delay has made them far worse. On top of that, she's been given an overdose of psychotropic drugs. Her internal organs are badly damaged. The knife work carries perhaps a thirty percent chance."

Lorenzo's voice trembled. "How could this happen? I don't care what it takes. If you can't save my wife, you'll all answer for it with your lives."

Tears fell onto the back of my hand. He wept without control. "Babe, we promised we'd be together forever. You can't leave me here alone."

My mother sank to her knees before the doctor, begging. "You have to save my daughter. I don't care what it costs. I'd give my own life for hers."

I closed my eyes, heavy as stone. Maybe dying like this wouldn't be so bad.

When I woke again, I was back in my own room. Faint voices carried through the door. "Mother, are you truly signing all of Father's tribute over to me? Won't Adriana be furious when she learns of it?"

My mother's laugh was soft, indulgent. "She has no right to be. She'll marry into the Falcone bloodline. She'll never want for food or money again. What does she need with this little inheritance? When your father was martyred and everything was at its darkest, I fell to the leukaemia. You were the one who gave me your blood, day after day, who gave me the marrow from your own bones. From that moment I swore you were the only daughter I would ever claim in this life. There isn't much left, and still I feel I owe you. I know you love Lorenzo too. I've already spoken with him. Your sister is in no condition to carry a child. So on the night of the alliance union, you'll take her place. You'll be the one to give the Falcone heir his firstborn."

Bianca's cheeks colored and she answered sweetly, "I'll do whatever you ask, Mother."

My mother pushed the door open just as my eyes met hers. Guilt flickered across her face, and she rubbed the edge of her shawl between two fingers. "Sweetheart, since you've heard it all, I won't hide it from you any longer. The Falcone bloodline is powerful. It needs an heir. But don't fret, the standing of Lorenzo's wife..."

"I agree," I interrupted, calm and even. "In my condition, it wouldn't be fitting for me to appear at the union anyway. Let Bianca go in my place."

A smile spread across my mother's face at once. "Good girl. You've truly grown. So understanding."

Bianca cast a disdainful glance at my ruined skin, then dressed her voice in concern. "Don't worry, sis. I'll take good care of your husband for you."

I turned my head away, weary, done looking at either of them. I pressed my thumb against the inside of my wrist, against the place the fire would one day mark, and held it there. I only hoped that on the day my mother learned the truth, she wouldn't come to regret it. Because that so-called precious daughter of hers had done a great deal more, back when the sickness took hold, than open a vein.

The alliance union was to be sealed at my own house in Eastlake. It had been Bianca's idea. I knew she'd chosen it so I would have to watch, room by room, as everything that carried my name was stripped from the bloodline and handed to her. Even so, I hadn't measured the depth of her venom. She swept into my room draped in a wedding gown worth more than most men's lives, her face folding into that nasty sneer. "Not even that fire could finish you, Adriana. You really are one tough little cockroach."

I didn't want to spend words on her. "You've already taken everything you wanted. What more do you want?"

She scoffed. "Of course, I want you dead. Only when you're dead can I rightfully become the Falcone bride."

Then she drew a lighter from her sleeve and set the curtains alight. The instant the flames climbed, the colour drained from my face. I dragged my broken body across the floor, trying to reach her, and she kicked me hard into the bedpost. She bolted for the door and began screaming for help. Lorenzo appeared as if the walls had spat him out. He caught Bianca against his chest, all worry. "Bianca, what's wrong? Where are you hurt?"

My mother came in behind him. Even though there wasn't a mark on Bianca anywhere, she still cried out, rubbing the fringe of her mourning shawl between two fingers, "Quick, get Bianca to the doctors!"

Every soul in the room folded around Bianca. Not one of them noticed she'd slammed me hard enough to open my scalp. Bianca burrowed into Lorenzo's arms, weeping with wide, frightened eyes, her tears holding off a flicker too long before she remembered to let them fall. "Lorenzo, I only wanted to comfort my sister, I knew she was upset. But she said since her face was ruined, I didn't deserve to wear a beautiful gown either. Then she started the fire. She said she'd burn me past recognition too. I was so afraid..."

Lorenzo looked at me like he wanted to tear me apart. "Are you insane? Bianca was only trying to help you see the union through. Instead of gratitude, you try to harm her? Look at yourself. You're disgusting."

My mother's eyes filled with disappointment. "If I'd known how twisted you are, I'd have let that fire burn you to death. You're not worth one of Bianca's fingers. Someone this malicious doesn't deserve to be my daughter. You deserved to burn."

They lifted Bianca and left without a backward glance. At the threshold Lorenzo turned once toward the flames licking up the curtains and sneered. "You love playing with fire so much? Then play to your heart's content." He pulled the door shut. His thumb moved once along the edge of his signet ring, faster than a man at peace. "No one opens this."

My desperate cries for a hearing, for mercy, were cut off by the cold slam of the door. Behind it the frantic banging kept on, and a thread of unease flickered in my mother's eyes. Her fingers worked the shawl again. "Lorenzo, is it truly all right to lock Adriana in there? Won't something happen?"

"What could happen? She set the fire herself. You think she'd really burn herself alive? She's got an extinguisher stashed somewhere." Lorenzo carried Bianca straight to the Family's private doctors. When the examination confirmed she was entirely unharmed, he finally remembered me. He exhaled and lifted his phone, and an alert flooded the screen: word running through the territory of a massive fire at the Eastlake estate.

He frowned and was about to call the caretaker when the caretaker's call came through first. "Let her out," he said. "I'll go for her now. We're leaving for the honeymoon. I've already chosen the place. France. Her favourite."

On the other end, Enzo Ricci's voice trembled, and behind the words came the small tortured sound of a keyring gripped until it bit. "Sir, the fire was too great. Madam... she didn't make it out."