But that familiar hem, and the couple's ring on his finger that matched mine, spelled out exactly who the man was, every single second.

Dario had betrayed the pact a long time ago.

In the distance, fireworks went screaming up into the sky over the territory.

I came out of my daze, ripped the pendant off, and threw it into the trash.

Ding.

Vanessa had posted something new.

This time it was a voice recording.

In it, she asked in a coy, bratty little voice:

"Dario, me and your promised bride, which one do you love more?"

"Hmm?"

Dario's voice sounded a little hazy, tender and clinging.

"You. I love you most. How could she even compare to you?"

"Baby, let's do it one more time, okay?"

The violent rustle of fabric left nothing to the imagination.

I switched off my phone, rushed into the bathroom, and dry-heaved until my whole body shook.

I lifted my eyes to the mirror.

At some point, tears had streaked all down my face.

I booked a seat on the first train out at seven the next morning.

All I wanted was to get out of Capital City as fast as I could, to get away from Dario.

I don't remember how I got home to my father's house.

By the time I came back to myself, it was already the sixth day of the Christmas holiday.

My mother and the Don could tell something was wrong with me, but they didn't ask. My mother just kept finding little things to press into my hands, and once I caught her smoothing a stray hair back from my face without a word, the way her worry always spoke when her voice wouldn't.

That morning, she asked me carefully,

"The Morettis have asked you to come to dinner. Do you want to go?"

I glanced at my phone.

Dario had only answered me yesterday.

Two messages.

One of them pulled back before I could read it.

The most recent one was a single word:

【Fine.】

I said yes anyway.

Some things just have to be said out loud, once and for all, in front of the two houses.

There was a crowd gathered outside the Moretti estate. The block families had come, the ones who whisper and remember. When they saw me arrive, their looks turned strange.

Some pitying, some just there for the show.

My chest tightened. The moment I stepped through the door, I saw Dario kneeling in the middle of the front room.

Standing awkwardly beside him was Vanessa.

Working out the timing, he must have rushed her back here the instant he saw my message.

Inside, Rosaria Moretti's face was flushed red with rage, and she slammed her hand down on the table again and again.

"You ungrateful boy, how can you do this to Bianca! To a promised bride, to a Falcone!"

Dario looked a little disheveled, but his expression was set.

"I'll go and make things clear with her. I don't love her anymore. Vanessa is my woman now."

My heart felt like it was being crushed in someone's fist.

Hearing him say it with my own ears, the pain was more than I could bear.

Rosaria was almost laughing from fury.

"Then go on, tell us how wonderful she is, that you'd throw away ten years and a pact between families for her."

Dario opened up like a floodgate, his face glowing with happiness and sweetness.

"She cooks for me. She irons out the shirts that are always wrinkled."

"Even when the crew hit a crisis, she stayed up night after night working right beside me, got us through it."

"Bianca just hides back home and pays me no attention. She can't even bring me a hot meal."

"So why should I stay bound to her!"

He said it with such righteous conviction, so impassioned. His thumb turned the ring on his finger as he spoke.

It was as if he weren't only trying to convince his parents, but himself.

Around me came the low talk of relatives and neighbors, tongues loosened where they should have stayed still.

"Put that way, the Falcone girl really isn't up to much. Isn't the whole point of an alliance that someone looks after you, warm and caring?"

I stopped in my tracks, an unmelting bitterness rising in my throat.

How laughable.

No one knew that I had originally meant to make my own name in Capital City too.

There were more chances there, bigger territory to be won, and every operation I had dreamed of running was opening up across that contested ground.

But Dario wanted to build his own crew, and his parents were sick with worry.

They were getting older, and more than anything the Moretti patriarch and his wife wanted their son settled, blood-bound to a good Family, living close where they could see him.

To make his dream of building his own crew in Capital City come true, I gave up the plans I'd made for myself.

I took the quiet, unremarkable place at his household's side and stayed behind in our territory to look after his parents.

During those first brutal years, when he was scraping together his own operation from nothing, every dollar of tribute I earned went straight to him, down to the last cent, while the block whispered that I just lounged around the Moretti house, eating and drinking on his name.

When his parents fell ill, when anything came up under that roof, I was the one running to handle it.

And now he was telling me that another woman's standing mattered more to him.

Without meaning to, I dug my nails into my palms until they bit deep.

The moment Rosaria saw me come through the door, she hurried over and caught my hand in both of hers.

"I'm so sorry, Bianca. Dario's just lost his head for a while. Give me a chance to talk some sense into him—"

Dario's voice rose too, that half-beat laugh already dead in his throat.

"Bianca, you're the one who called off the pact. Tell my parents that, right now!"

"Tell them Vanessa isn't the other woman!"

Salvatore Moretti had heard enough. He set his cigar down in the ashtray without putting it out, then kicked his son flat onto the floor.

"You worthless animal!"

"Get that home-wrecker out of my house and go down on your knees to Bianca, or you can walk out of this door yourself and never come back to the name."

Dario curled on the floor, unable to get up for a moment.

Vanessa let out a short, sharp scream and rushed to help him up.

She lifted her head, her eyes stubborn and defiant.

"Don Moretti, signora, people follow their hearts these days. Dario just doesn't have feelings for Bianca anymore."

Then, so smoothly it almost looked like nothing, she tilted her head and shot me a glance, the smile held a fraction too long.

My stomach dropped. My hand rose to the pendant at my throat before I could stop it.

Sure enough, the next second her voice climbed higher.

"You can't force your own son to spend his whole life bound to her just because you pity that Bianca was violated as a girl."

"That isn't right!"

The words detonated in my ears like a thunderclap.

A stifled gasp went through the room. The men near the wall went very still, and for a heartbeat not one of them so much as breathed.

Every gaze settled on me, and the low murmuring began, hands lifting to cover mouths, eyes cutting sideways.

My mind went blank.

The one thing I'd dreaded my entire life, the secret I'd kept under omertà tighter than any of them kept the Family's, had finally been dragged into the light.

Fear and fury surged up together.

I lost control and lunged at her, shoving Vanessa to the ground, grabbing a fistful of her hair as we grappled.

A massive force yanked my arm and flung me hard to the side.

My body slammed into the corner of the table, the pain blinding me for an instant.

Dario shielded Vanessa against his chest, his eyes brimming with rage.

"Bianca, have you lost your mind!"

My voice came out hoarse and raw as I roared back:

"Can't you see she said that on purpose? Just so every family in this territory would know!"

"So what if she did!"

Dario cut me off, seething.

"It's the truth anyway!"

The whispering around me slowly sharpened into words I could make out.

"Dio, it's actually true. That poor Falcone girl."

"Still, you can't bury a thing like that. That's tricking a decent man into taking damaged goods into his blood, making a fool of him before everyone."

Pity and contempt pricked at my back like thorns.

I swallowed down the knot lodged in my throat, barely holding back the tears.

"I told you about this in confidence, so you could go announce it in front of the whole block?"

There wasn't a trace left in Dario's eyes of the tenderness he used to look at me with.

"You're the one who told me on your own. If you didn't even care yourself, why should I have to keep it a secret for you?"

"And besides, why is it always you these things happen to?"

"It takes two to make trouble. Maybe it's because you're always dressing yourself up so flashy that you—"

Crack—

Dario's head snapped violently to one side, the print of a palm plain across his face.

Rosaria set her rosary down on the table with a soft click, then had put every ounce of her strength into that blow, her chest heaving, her eyes filled with nothing but disappointment.

"You animal!"

"Don't you understand? What happened to Bianca is all because of you!"