He was never the kind of man who put you at ease, but he did what the Family asked of him. He came when he was called, he had the Boss's armored car waiting at the curb on time, and the leather was always spotless.

But starting last month, things changed.

The day it began, Nico came to collect me and there was suddenly a woman caked in heavy makeup sitting in the passenger seat.

I stared, confused. Nico hurried out to open my door and explained in a low voice:

"Donna Valente, this is my girlfriend, Gemma Ricci. Her work is on the way to the club, so I figured I'd give her a ride."

I nodded and said nothing.

Carrying someone along the route wasn't a matter worth a sit-down.

But gradually, something started to feel off.

What was supposed to be "on the way" hardened into a fixed, daily ritual that never varied.

Every morning, Nico collected Gemma first, then came for me.

At the start, Gemma just liked snapping photos in the passenger seat and posting videos, showing off to people that she rode in the Boss's armored car.

I could understand that. She was young. A little vanity was normal.

What I couldn't understand was the look she gave me every single time. It was pure disgust, as though I owed her a blood debt.

A few times, after I got into the car, she sprayed perfume in my direction and complained loudly:

"Dio, this is so annoying. How does a car this expensive always reek of something cheap?"

I thought she'd actually smelled something off, so I told Nico to take the car in for a thorough deep clean and disinfection.

But she only got worse. Sometimes, after I stepped out, she'd spray disinfectant on the seat where I'd been sitting.

Other times, she'd lay a disposable cover over my spot before I even got in.

When I put the matter to Nico, he always offered the same sheepish excuse in private:

"Donna Valente, Gemma's just worried the car isn't clean enough and might stain your clothes. She's particular about hygiene, that's all."

I didn't think much of it.

After all, I had too much on my plate every day. With the Family's holdings and men moving through my hands, I simply didn't have the energy to squabble with some young girl over petty nonsense.

Until this morning.

When I saw the note stuck to my usual seat, it all clicked.

Gemma thought I was a hanger-on. A nobody living off the Family.

I'd been planning to teach both Nico and Gemma a lesson in exactly what they'd forgotten.

But now Nico was on his knees in front of me, his thumb dragging hard across his knuckles, begging relentlessly:

"Donna Valente, I swear on my blood, it'll never happen again."

"I'll set Gemma straight today. I'll never give her rides again."

"Please, my father's lungs are failing. For Salvatore's sake, forgive me this once."

The thought of old Salvatore, six years loyal at the wheel, made me sigh. My fingers rested a moment on the jade at my throat. "Forget it."

"I'm dropping it."

After the man who owed the Family a favor stepped away, Nico let out a long, heavy breath of relief, thanking me over and over, his manner suddenly impeccable.

I said nothing more. I got in the car and told him to take me to the club.

For a while after that, Nico actually behaved.

Every time he came for me, the passenger seat was empty. No sign of Gemma.

The car had been cleaned, too. Every trace of that note scrubbed away.

His driving was still smooth. No trouble there.

The only problem was that he kept showing up late.

And every time, he had an excuse:

"Sorry, Donna Valente. There was an accident on the road. Traffic was backed up for a while."

"I'm really sorry, Donna Valente. My alarm didn't go off. I overslept."

"Donna Valente, a pipe burst in my apartment. I was dealing with the neighbors downstairs about the water damage, so I ran a little behind."

The excuses always sounded flimsy, but since his manner stayed decent enough, I let it slide.

I thought that was the end of it.

Then one weekend, on a whim, I decided to spend a couple of days at the estate outside the city for a little quiet.

I called Nico. "Where are you right now? I need to go somewhere. Come pick me up."

He hemmed and hawed for a long time before finally answering, his voice careful and measured:

"Donna Valente, I woke up this morning and found the car had a flat tire. I'm at the garage right now getting it fixed. The man says it won't be ready until tomorrow."

"Where are you headed? I can send another driver, if you'd like?"

I frowned, not wanting the hassle.

"Forget it. I'll arrange something myself."

After hanging up, I had one of the low associates run me out to the estate.

But when I reached the front gate, I froze.

The Boss's armored car was parked right outside the estate. Completely intact.

I stared at it for several seconds. Once I confirmed it was definitely my car, I quickened my pace toward the front door.

It was ajar.

I pushed it open, and the sight inside knocked the air out of me.

The front room was destroyed.

The low table and the floor were littered with empty bottles, fruit peels, seed shells, and cigarette butts. The sofa and the carpet, both worth more than most men in this life ever touched, were covered in dirty footprints. In several spots, cigarette burns had eaten black holes straight through the fabric.

My fists clenched at my sides.

I had taken this estate for one reason, a place away from the Family's business, a place that was mine. Every detail of it, every piece of furniture, had been chosen with care. I kept it like a sanctuary. And now these people had turned it into a dump.

My gaze swept the room and landed on the couch directly facing the door.

Gemma was sitting there, surrounded by a crowd.

"Gemma, you're so lucky to have found a man with that kind of pull."

"Right? Not just connected, but so good to you. You said you wanted roasted chestnuts and he ran out to buy them like a puppy."

"When you're the woman on his arm, don't forget about us little people, okay?"

Gemma's lips curled into a smug grin. She was about to answer when she glanced up and spotted me standing in the doorway.

Her smile vanished. She stood, her heels clicking against the floor as she strode toward me, chin raised.

Crack.

Without a word, she slapped me hard across the face.

"You shameless tramp. You followed my man here?"

The blow came out of nowhere. I stood rooted to the spot, my cheek burning. In a house where a single word could end a life, no one in that room understood what they were touching.

Everyone stared, wide-eyed.

"Gemma, what's going on?"

Gemma jabbed a finger at me, her face twisted with disgust.

"This is the hanger-on I was just telling you about."

"Mooching rides off my man wasn't enough. Now she's shown up to mooch off his house too."

I looked at her in disbelief.

"Who told you this is Nico's house?"

Gemma let out a sharp, mocking laugh, and it ran a half-second too long, the edges of it brittle.

"He did. Told me himself."

"You pathetic little gold-digger. You found out my man runs the Family's holdings, so now you're pulling every trick in the book to get close to him."

"Bumming rides every day, making up reasons to be alone with him, that wasn't enough? Now you've come crawling out to his estate to throw yourself at him?"

"Let me make one thing crystal clear. Nico told me he only drives you around because you're some low nobody who owes the Family. He's being generous. Don't mistake his charity for an invitation."

So that was the story Nico had fed her.

No wonder Gemma had always treated me like dirt.

In her mind, Nico was the one who owned the armored car and the estate. Nico was the rising capo, the man with the holdings.

And I was just some hanger-on who lived and breathed at his mercy.

So all this time, Gemma had believed I was the one mooching rides in Nico's armored car, shamelessly throwing myself at a rising capo who belonged to her.

What a joke.

Gemma turned to the hangers-on lounging through my ruined estate and announced at the top of her lungs:

"You want to know how shameless this tramp really is?"

"She parks herself in my man's car every single day. You literally can't get rid of her!"

"I even left word for her to keep her distance, and she threw a fit and ran to the Feds, claiming he was harassing some low associate."

"So my Nico had to start dropping me at the club first, then double back just to play wheelman for her, all to keep the Family's name clean."

"I have never in my life seen a more shameless piece of trash!"

My eyes went wide.

So that was why Nico had been late fetching me every day.

He'd been slipping off to drive Gemma around first, then circling back for me.

Well played, Nico. Well played.

You want to treat the Donna of the Valente bloodline like a fool? Then don't blame me for what comes next.

I pulled out my phone on the spot and dialed Lorenzo.

"Bring the Consigliere's men to the estate at Peach Blossom. Now—"

Before I could finish, Gemma snatched the phone out of my hand and hurled it against the marble.

"God, you are unbelievable! How can one person be this full of it?"

"Your estate? This is my man's house!"

Her friends piled on, sneering and spitting venom into the smoke-thick air:

"Classic gold-digger. Hasn't even landed the connected guy yet and she's already claiming his property."

"Some women are just born desperate. The second they smell money, they're on their knees begging like dogs. Disgusting."

"Gemma, you're way too soft. If I ran into trash like her, I'd rip her lying mouth right off her face!"

Their words pumped Gemma full of confidence. She grabbed my collar and yanked me close.

"Hear that? Everyone here agrees. You're nothing but trash."

Then her gaze dropped to my throat, and her eyes lit up.

"That jade pendant doesn't look cheap. Let me guess—you spread your legs for some old made man to buy it?"

She seized the chain and ripped it off my neck.

The motion was so fast, so violent, I didn't even have time to react before the necklace was in her hand.

The blood drained from my face. "Give it back!"

My sudden panic only made her smile sharpen. She dangled the pendant just out of reach. "This nervous? Must be worth a fortune."

"It's worthless," I blurted, lunging for it. "But it means everything to me. Give it back. Now."

I grabbed for it, desperate. My hand went to my throat and found only bare skin where the jade had always rested.

That jade pendant was a protective charm my mother had given her life to obtain.

I'd been sickly since birth. When I was four, I lay dying, unconscious and fading, tended in a back room of the family estate while the men who owed us everything stood useless in the halls. The doctors told my father to start making arrangements.

My mother refused to accept it. She made a pilgrimage to pray for me.

To prove the sincerity of her devotion, she set out in the scorching heat of a hundred-degree summer and prostrated herself the entire way, one bow for every step, from the base of the mountain to its peak.

By the time she reached the top, her knees were torn to raw flesh, white bone visible beneath the blood. Her forehead was split open, her consciousness flickering. Only then was she granted the jade pendant.

Perhaps heaven itself was moved by what she'd done.