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.

Against all odds, I woke up.

But my mother never recovered.

On her deathbed, she pressed the necklace into my palm and made me swear to keep it safe.

I had treasured it beyond measure ever since, carrying it with me every single day of my life.

It was the thing my mother traded her life for. It was sacred. Untouchable. No debt in this world could buy it, and no debt in this world could pay for its loss.

I would never let anyone destroy it.

"The more you want it back," Gemma said, a cruel grin spreading across her face, "the more I want to smash it to pieces."

Before I could reach it, Gemma hurled the pendant at the marble with all her strength.

A sharp crack split the air. The jade shattered into pieces, fragments scattering across the floor of the estate.

"No!"

My mother's pendant. The one she'd climbed a mountain on her knees to earn, the one she'd traded her life for. Gone. Just like that.

The pain in my chest was so sharp I couldn't breathe.

"You're an animal!"

Something inside me snapped. I swung my hand and slapped Gemma across the face as hard as I could.

"You bitch!" Gemma shrieked, clutching her cheek. "Beat this slut within an inch of her life!"

Her voice pitched higher, eyes wild with fury. "Whoever does the best job gets a million dollars!"

The words hit like a starting pistol. Gemma's hangers-on lit up at the sound of that number, and they descended on me in a frenzy of fists and kicks.

"You actually hit Gemma? She's about to be the wife of the capo who runs half the Valente holdings. Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Seriously, it was just a trinket. You probably earned it on your back anyway. Go service a few more men and buy another one. What's the big deal?"

"Shameless whore. You seduce another woman's man and then have the nerve to hit his girl? You must have a death wish."

They beat me to the floor. My whole body shook with rage. I gritted my teeth and forced out the words:

"You're going to regret this."

The room erupted in laughter, every one of them throwing their heads back like I'd told the funniest joke they'd ever heard.

"Oh, that's rich! Gemma's man answers to the Family. What are you? Nobody. You think you can make anyone here regret a thing?"

"You're nothing but some bottom-feeding hanger-on who threw herself at a made man. You already sell your body for cash, and now you're threatening us?"

"A whore should know her place. You take your beating and you stand there and take it."

They pinned me to the ground, mocking and humiliating me without a shred of restraint.

Surrounded by her cheering entourage, Gemma grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head up. Her face twisted with vicious triumph.

"Regret? I've never regretted a single thing in my entire life." She leaned closer, her breath hot against my ear. "Go ahead. Show me what a worthless piece of trash like you can do to make me regret."

The words had barely left her mouth when the roar of engines filled the air. One armored car after another came tearing up the long gravel drive, headlights sweeping the walls of the estate as they pulled to a stop in a hard line outside the door.