After I was given in alliance to the Morettis, one of the oldest families in La Cosa Nostra, as the second wife, I was Vitale's bound wife in name only. Everyone in the famiglia knew the real love of his life was his widowed sister-in-law, Serafina, the woman his dead brother had left behind.

He called me the perfect consort, a graceful hostess who could stand at his side at any sit-down. At his gatherings, I would take shot after shot of grappa to shield him from any insult passed across the table. Yet when Serafina so much as sipped a glass of fruit wine another man had offered her, Vitale had the man's hand taken off at the wrist, and never blinked.

He hung my photographs through the estate, saying he wanted every family from here to the coast to know how beautiful his wife was. But her? He kept her hidden like a secret worth killing for, locked away where no rival could ever lay eyes on her.

Then one of my photographs slipped out. His enemies saw it, and I was taken. I called him from the dark, begging him to send men for me.

He said, "Lori... Serafina is carrying my child now. It's the only heir I can give my late brother. I have to stay beside her and keep her safe."

"You'll just have to hold on a few days. Once the sickness eases, I'll come for you."

He never came.

For a full year, I was tortured. Violated more than a thousand times, my leg broken, my soul shattered.

Still, he never showed.

When I finally escaped, barely alive, covered in blood and filth, I crawled back to the Moretti Estate. Only to find my daughter locked in a dog cage, emaciated and filthy, eating scraps off the ground.

She was clutching a framed photograph of me. My memorial card. They had buried me without a body and declared me dead.

Meanwhile, my husband was throwing a lavish celebration for the one-month birthday of the son he'd made with her, proudly announcing to the whole famiglia that a blood-bound union was coming.

I held my daughter close, her tiny frame trembling against me. Through tears, I whispered to her, "Sweetheart, you don't need that kind of father. Not anymore."

……

When I walked into the inner courtyard of the Moretti compound, Vitale was gently sliding a vintage gold ring onto Serafina's finger. The same ring that had passed down through generations of the family, the mark of the Moretti Lady of the House.

At that moment, Vitale announced the union would be sealed in three days.

Serafina held a newborn boy, barely a month old, cradled against her. She leaned into Vitale's chest with a bashful smile, playing the glowing mother of the heir, perfectly in love. The picture of a made man's domestic peace.

Vitale turned to smile at the gathered soldiers and capos raising their glasses. That was when he saw me.

Even with my face caked in blood, barely recognizable, he knew it was me. After all these years, after everything, he still knew.

Shock flickered across his face, then something I hadn't seen in so long. Joy. Real, raw joy. He looked like he was about to cross the courtyard to me.

"Lor—"

But Serafina caught his sleeve, her voice soft and full of quiet desperation.

"Vito..." Something in that tone made him stop cold. Like she was reminding him of something. Something bigger than me.

He froze. Whatever name had surged to his lips, whatever memory had risen, he swallowed it.

Just like that, the look in his eyes shifted. From elation, to guilt. Then confusion. Then fear.

Around us, the guests who had been toasting and murmuring their respects went quiet and turned to stare. Their smiles died when they saw me. Drenched in blood, barefoot, broken.

Someone muttered, loud enough to carry, "Who let a filthy, crazy woman past the gate? This is a celebration. What a damn omen on a day like this."

Another whispered, louder, "Wait... isn't that Adriana? The Falcone woman Vito said died a year ago?"

"Didn't he say his enemies snatched her? That he grieved for months? Grazie a Dio Serafina was here to hold him together. She got him through it, they fell in love, had the boy... and now they're finally happy again."

I almost laughed. Dead wife? Strange. I hadn't realized I'd died.

The murmurs swelled now, rippling through the stunned crowd, ice settling in more than one glass.

"Wait... that's really Adriana? She's not dead?"

"Then doesn't that make Serafina the other woman? She got into bed with her husband's brother while the man's wife was still breathing?"

"Adriana's standing right there, alive, and Serafina still slid into his sheets the moment she had the opening..."

The words struck Serafina like a slap. Her face went pale, her eyes flicking to me with a resentment she couldn't quite bury. She had recognized me too.

Tears welled in her eyes, and she reached up with trembling fingers, pretending to slip the ring off. The corner of her mouth tightened a half-second before the first tear fell. Her voice cracked with practiced heartbreak.

"If that's what everyone believes... Vito, I don't want the ring. Call off the union. I'm only a widow. I can't carry that kind of shame. I never wanted to ruin anything. I only wanted to be at your side. You and the baby... that's all I ever needed."

Vitale's heart broke right on cue. He seized her hand and pushed the ring back onto her finger, his voice low and thick with a tenderness he'd never once spent on me.

"Lisa, don't say that. Don't even think it. You gave the Moretti family a son. An heir. You've done more for this famiglia than anyone alive. That ring, that title... they belong to you."

I stood there, stunned. Wide-eyed.

I couldn't believe it. Vitale, you once swore to me our daughter was the only rightful heir to the Moretti name.

But now, you were doing this?

That old gold ring was never just the mark of the Moretti Family's Lady of the House. It was the ring Vitale had slipped onto my finger the night he swore himself to me.

He gave it to me when he asked for the alliance to become something real, promising me forever in front of God and famiglia. To prove he meant it, he'd had the name "Adri" cut into the band with his own instruction.

But that was all buried now, like so much else in this life.

My eyes locked on that same ring, and it felt like a knife straight through my heart. The old engraving had been filed away. In its place, fresh and gleaming under the chandeliers, was a new name: "Sera." A short for Serafina.

I swallowed the bitterness burning in my throat. I was just about to speak, to tell every made man and every wife in that hall exactly who I was.

Then Vitale stepped in front of me. His words cut in cold and even, the way a Don speaks when the matter is already decided. "Adriana is dead. This woman is some beggar off the street. Anyone who dares slander Serafina again answers to me."

The room understood him. Conversations died where they stood. I froze, staring at him in disbelief.

"Vitale…" I said, my voice shaking. "Say that again. Say it to my face! Who am I?"

Vitale hesitated for a second. His eyes moved across the crowd, weighing every witness, before he leaned in and lowered his voice so only I would hear.

"Adriana, you heard them. If I admit you're alive now, Serafina's name is finished. My brother left her in my hands. I can't let her be shamed in front of the whole Family. You've always been the sensible one. Please. Just endure this. For me. Be good."

Then he stepped away. He didn't even look back.

He lifted a hand toward the old steward and told him to "see to me." Said they would let me eat the leftovers from the banquet, some scrap of charity thrown to a stray. Said it would bring his newborn son good fortune.

Across the hall, the celebration picked right back up. Laughter, applause, the thin ring of crystal touching crystal.

Everyone poured their blessings over him and Serafina. Called them a perfect match. Said the two of them were meant to be, as though the whole thing had been ordained.

All I felt inside was nothing but cold.

The old steward, Don Ricci, who had served the Moretti Estate since the days of the old Don, knew me the instant he saw my face. He sent for clean clothes and walked me to a guest room so I could wash the road off my skin.

I couldn't help but wonder, why the guest room?

Ignoring the gentle way he tried to stop me, I walked straight to the door of the master bedroom. Without hesitation, I pushed it open.

This had once been our room. Vitale's and mine.

Now I couldn't find myself in it anywhere. Not a single trace of me was left. Everything had been rearranged to suit Serafina's taste. Even our wedding portrait had been taken down and replaced with photographs of the two of them.

The man who once swore he would look at our wedding photo every night before he slept and never take it down, not even when he was eighty, had clearly become someone else.

I stared at the picture of Vitale and Serafina, their smiles mocking me from behind the glass. The tears fell quietly, without sound.

So this was why no soldier ever came for me, why no rescue was ever sent through enemy lines. Was he afraid I'd get in the way of him and Serafina?

Don Ricci sighed. He smoothed the front of his waistcoat with both hands, and I saw him searching for something to say to me. In the end, no words came.

I stood there, numb, my eyes drifting to the baby crib in the corner of the room. I asked, almost in a whisper, "Where's my daughter? Where is she?"

The old steward hesitated, plainly unwilling to answer. But my questions kept coming until they wore him down. At last he told me my daughter was out back, in the shed beyond the compound wall.

That place was cold, damp, and filthy, the kind of hole where the Family kept things it wanted forgotten. What could my daughter possibly be doing there?

When I found her in that shed, I felt a surge of hot blood rush to my head, then a chilling cold that crept up from my feet.

I couldn't believe my eyes. My five-year-old daughter was clutching my memorial photo-card tight against her chest, locked inside a massive dog cage with a half-grown wolfhound that towered over her.

Once round-cheeked and healthy, my little girl was skeletal now. Her small body looked more fragile than a bird's.

Her clothes were torn open, showing bruises and wounds along her arms, her legs, even her face. Some of the cuts ran so deep I could see bone.

The wolfhound, a beast bred for violence, lay sleeping soundly beside her, its muzzle caked with dried blood.

My daughter, who once cried at the smallest pain, didn't shed a single tear. She only watched the sleeping animal, frightened but desperate. Slowly she crawled to the food bowl and began eating the spoiled scraps in it, swallowing them down with no thought for the filth.

I couldn't stop the image of Serafina from rising up, cradling her fat newborn son only minutes ago in that bright hall. Hatred surged through my chest.

"Vitale, how dare you?!"

My voice trembled uncontrollably as I called out, "Gia?"

My daughter froze, then slowly lifted her head to look at me. She stared for a long moment, dazed, until her eyes widened in disbelief.

"Mama? You're back?"

The next second, her small figure broke down into tears. She cried out like she'd finally found someone to cling to after holding on for far too long.

"Mama, Aunt Serafina locked me in the dog cage. She didn't give me any food. Papa didn't do anything about it! I was so scared. The big dog bites real hard, it hurts so bad. Mama, please get me out…"

The word "Mama," spoken with such raw pain and trust, shattered me from the inside. But I didn't have time to cry, not with that hunting dog now awake, glaring at Gia like she was prey.

I grabbed an axe from the corner of the shed, ignoring the old steward's frantic protests, and brought it down hard on the lock of the cage.

Once the chain snapped, I rushed in, scooped Gia into my arms, and held her tight.

Then I turned back. I wasn't done. Raising the axe once more, I aimed it at the snarling dog.

"Signora, please! Don't be reckless!" Don Ricci begged, his hands smoothing the front of his waistcoat before he dared to step nearer. "That's the madam's favorite dog. Don Moretti gave it to her himself! If you hurt it, she'll be furious, and the master too."

Oh? So Vitale gave Serafina a dog... to mangle his own blood daughter?

I didn't even spare it a glance. As the beast lunged, I met it head-on, and with one clean, furious swing, I severed its head.

Still not satisfied, I turned to the cage that had imprisoned my child, and hacked it to splinters.

Vitale came in at the sound of the chaos, the noise cutting through the celebration in the main house. He started scolding me the second he opened his mouth.

"Adriana, you just got back and you're already making a scene? Do you want the men outside to start asking questions? Half the Family is here tonight."

"You scared Matteo half to death. He's crying his eyes out, and Serafina's been running herself ragged all day. Now she has to calm him down too? Can't you just stop causing trouble?"

"I know this past year hasn't been easy for you, and I will explain everything when I get a moment. But I won't let you ruin Serafina's name in front of every capo under this roof."

I let out a bitter laugh. Matteo, huh? Of course. His precious little heir.

And what were Gia and I to him, then? Disposable trophies, pawns spent and forgotten?

"So your heart breaks when her son cries, but not when your own daughter is locked in a dog cage? When she's bitten by some animal? Forced to eat slop like a stray? Tell me, Vitale. How twisted is your love?"

Vitale finally looked at Gia. When he saw the raw, bleeding wounds on her tiny arms and legs, confusion twisted across his face.

"What are you talking about? Gia's my daughter. I would never let something like that happen to her."

I froze for a beat. He… didn't know?

Vitale frowned and turned to the steward. "Bring Serafina here."

Serafina walked in moments later, already crying. The corner of her mouth tightened a half-second before the tears came, but no one in that shed was watching her the way I was.

"Vitale, you've got it all wrong… Adriana misunderstood me. Gia's such a sweet little thing. How could I ever hurt her?"

"You know how much she loves playing hide and seek. Just now, she begged me to play with her. I was busy seeing to the guests and couldn't find her in time. Who could've guessed she'd go and lock herself in a dog cage? That child has such an imagination…"

Vitale staggered back a step, more stunned by my rage than anything else in that room. He didn't apologize. He didn't even look at Gia. Instead, he turned to Serafina, like she was the one who needed comforting.

Serafina dabbed fake tears with a silk handkerchief, her voice trembling just enough to sound fragile. "Vitale… she's just making a scene. I know Gia's upset, but blaming me for something like this? You really think I'd hurt a little girl?"

Vitale looked torn for half a second. Just half. Then his jaw set, and his thumb went still on the signet ring.

"This isn't the time or the place for this," he snapped. "Adriana, if you want to talk, we'll talk later. But right now, Serafina and I are celebrating the birth of our son, in front of everyone who matters to this Family. Don't ruin that for us."

I stared at him, dumbfounded. He just watched as Gia stood there, shaking, her cheek already red and swelling. His daughter. His own blood. And he chose Serafina. Again.

Serafina slipped her arm through his and leaned her head on his shoulder like the doting saint she pretended to be.

"I'm not asking for much," she whispered, loud enough for the men in the doorway to hear. "I just want a peaceful home for our baby…"

Peaceful? She had locked my daughter in a cage.

I wrapped my arms around Gia and whispered into her hair, "It's okay, baby. Mama's here now. I won't let them hurt you again."

Inside, though, I was on fire. I pressed my thumb against the smooth stump where three fingers used to be, and let the softness bleed out of me. If they wanted peace, they should have thought of that before crossing a mother with nothing left to lose.