Every month Lorenzo wired generous tribute to the families of those donors, kept them comfortable, kept them quiet.

There was only one condition: their blood could never be promised to anyone else. If Gianna ever needed a heart, they had to be ready to surrender it on demand, no questions, no refusals. That was Family law beneath the charity.

And the last form in that box was mine, except the recipient had been changed from my mother to Gianna.

Back then Lorenzo had me sign a stack of papers, said it was just paperwork the clinic required. All I could think about was getting my mother onto the table as fast as possible, so I never read any of it closely.

That form must have been slipped in somewhere along the way, and my mother's form had probably been burned long ago, the way the Family disposes of anything inconvenient.

Lorenzo. For Gianna, you really did think of everything.

After I printed the renunciation of the union, I sat on the couch, hollowed out.

The bleakness filled me, and I didn't sleep all night.

The next morning Lorenzo only assumed I'd risen early, and suspected nothing.

Maybe because I'd coughed up blood again the night before, he cooked himself, those surgeon's hands laying out a careful, well-balanced breakfast, the cuffs of his shirt buttoned neat at the wrist.

When I didn't touch a bite, a flicker of concern crossed his face.

"Serafina, why aren't you eating? Are you upset about something?"

"It's nothing. I just miss my mom."

He sighed.

"Serafina, it isn't only you. I think about her all the time too. She was such a kind, gentle woman, and it was my failure that I couldn't save her. I still remember her holding my hand, telling us we had to be happy together."

If my mother still had the strength to lift that hand, she'd probably want to wrap it around his throat.

Watching him perform that hollow grief, something sour twisted in me.

I was about to bring up the renunciation when Lorenzo spoke first, as if the thought had only just occurred to him.

"Serafina, you've been low for a while now. Gianna's flying back today, and it's her saint's day. The old estate is holding a Family banquet. Why don't we go too, get out a little? It might lift your mood."

"I know that because of your mother you've never wanted to see her. But it's been so many years, and Gianna never meant for it to happen. We're blood, after all. She's always been sensitive. If we don't go, I'm afraid it'll wound her."

So this was what the morning had been building toward. All those careful words spent, just so he could go see the woman he loved.

I cut him off.

"Whatever you want."

Lorenzo smiled.

"I knew my Serafina was the most understanding."

The moment we walked through the gates of the old estate, soldiers straightening along the drive, there was Gianna, dressed like a high-born princess of the bloodline, hanging off Donna Abbatelli's arm and playing the spoiled darling.

The old Donna laughed and let her carry on, feeding her sliced fruit by hand.

Doted on in every possible way.

Gianna spotted me at once, her fingers drifting to the pendant at her throat, toying with it as she said to the old Donna, voice dripping with mockery,

"Nonna~ you've fed me so much I'm getting fat. Look, the little aunt's here. I don't want these last few pieces, so just give them to her. She doesn't have a mother, after all."

Donna Abbatelli saw me too. She looked me up and down, took in my shabby clothes, and her face curled with contempt. The heavy mourning ring on her finger began to turn, slow, and the soldiers nearest the doorway went still.

"Who told a sickly thing like you to come? Do you want to rub your poor, wretched bad luck off on this house too?"

"This is the Falcone bloodline, a line that has always healed and ruled. You go around dressed like a beggar every day, dragging my son's name through the dirt before the whole Family. Blood-bound to him for years now, and not only can't you give him an heir, you haven't even got the sense the Lord gave a stone. Did that dead mother of yours never teach you what respect is?"

Lorenzo wasn't blood to Gianna's father. He was the boy his stepmother had brought into the Family.

Afraid her stepson would be overlooked among the made men, she'd always wanted Lorenzo blood-bound to a woman of matching standing, someone whose name could lift his own.

Later, Gianna's father died in a car that left the road, and Lorenzo, on his own merit, rose to become the feared "Golden Blade" the whole syndicate spoke of in hushed tones, earning his father-in-law's trust, until the entire Family was placed in his hands.

Only then did Donna Abbatelli hold her nose and allow Lorenzo to be bound to me.

Because my blood had never given the Family an heir, and the Old Donna wanted a grandchild to carry the Falcone name, she had only grown more displeased with me.

Before, Lorenzo would have spoken up for me, said a word or two in my defense. Now his eyes held nothing but Gianna, and a longing he couldn't quite hide.

Gianna bounced up to him, hooked her arm through his, and cooed,

"Uncle Lorenzo, did you bring Gianna a present?"

He pinched her cheek, indulgent.

"Of course I did."

Twenty-eight couture gowns were wheeled into the great hall of the old estate, each paired with a set of jewelry worth more than most made men saw in a lifetime.

Twenty-eight. Gianna's age, this saint's day.

She kissed him happily on the cheek.

"Wow, Uncle Lorenzo really does love me best. All this jewelry is limited edition~ You're spending way too much, Uncle Lorenzo. What if certain people get upset?"

Her fingers drifted to the pendant at her throat, toying with it, a small triumphant caress.

Only then did Lorenzo seem to remember I was standing there. Beside those gowns, my plain dress looked more out of place than ever, a poor relation in a room built on laundered tribute.

In all these years, Lorenzo had never once remembered my birthday, let alone given me anything like a couture gown or a string of stones.

He looked at me, a little awkward, and took my hand, wanting to explain.

"Serafina, don't read too much into it. I'm Gianna's uncle, I just—"

Gianna suddenly clutched her chest, over the place where the scar lay, her brows knitting.

"Uncle Lorenzo, my heart feels strange, I don't know if my heart condition is acting up again…"

Lorenzo let go of me at once, turning to pull her into his arms, his face all alarm. The Golden Blade, the only hands in the city feared for both healing and killing, and they trembled now for her.

"Why would your chest suddenly feel like that? Does it hurt? No, I have to examine you right now."

And with that, in front of every relative and made man there, he swept Gianna up into his arms and carried her up the wide staircase without looking back.

The guests watched me with mocking eyes. The room seemed to close around me, the talk dropping to that low syndicate murmur that travels faster than any shout.

"No wonder the Don would rather drape Gianna in silk and stones than spare her even one. A woman of such low birth doesn't belong as a Falcone wife, let alone to own fine things."

"If Lorenzo weren't bound by being Gianna's uncle, why would he ever have taken this one into a blood-bound union? Maybe back then she used her own mother's death to pressure him into it. Shameless creature, climbing into the Family over her own mother's corpse."

The murmuring grew louder. The Old Donna felt the whole syndicate watching her shame, and her hand went to the heavy mourning ring on her finger. She began to turn it, slow and repeated, and snapped at me,

"You disgraceful thing, what are you still standing here for? Get yourself upstairs. Haven't you brought enough shame on this house already?"

"It was that dead mother of yours' good fortune that my son ever laid a blade to her at all. She wasn't strong enough and died, and what does that have to do with my son? You don't even have the decency to be grateful, and you still have the nerve to bleed us for tribute. You'll get what's coming to you, sooner or later."

Under my sleeve my fist clenched tight. I gave a weak smile. Yes. Knowing Lorenzo was the punishment coming to me.

I thought of the renunciation papers folded inside my bag, the ones that would dissolve a blood-bound union no Don's wife had ever walked away from. I said nothing, only turned and climbed the stairs to find him.

And there, on the second-floor loggia, where the sea wind came in off the harbor, I caught him and Gianna in each other's arms.

Gianna leaned back against the iron railing, her arms looped around his neck.

"Lorenzo, listen, tell me, is Gianna's heart still racing?"

"Gianna, we can't…"

He fought to keep his voice steady, the low measured voice that ended sit-downs and ordered men into the ground, but it cracked on the edges now.

Gianna kissed him first, her voice soft and coaxing.

"Don't you want Gianna? I know there's only Gianna in your heart, and you're in mine too. Even if you took someone else for the sake of how the Family sees you, your body belongs to me. Just let us indulge ourselves this once…"

At last Lorenzo couldn't hold back. He caught the back of her head and kissed her, hungry and deep.

The sound of fabric tearing, threaded through with whimpers no one should have to hear. I pressed my flat palm hard against the center of my own chest, checking, the way you check a wound, that the heart inside was still beating at all.

Listening to Lorenzo pour out those sickeningly tender words from behind the balcony doors, the tears spilled over before I could stop them, and I clamped a hand over my mouth and fled the estate.

I don't know how long I sat there by the service door, beneath the cold eyes of a soldier who pretended not to see me, before a bowl of scalding broth hit me square in the chest, the heat sharp enough to make me flinch.

Gianna had changed her clothes at some point, and she came out into the courtyard swinging a bottle of aged liquor by the neck.

"Serafina, did you like the sounds we were making just now? That sorry little back of yours, scurrying off. You really did look like a dog."

So she'd seen me.

"I hear your body can't handle the mechanism in your chest. Coughing up blood every day, that ache where your heart should be. It must be awful. You can't even enjoy a man's love properly. Me, I'm different." Her fingers drifted up to the pendant at her throat, stroking the small ridge of scar beneath it. "We can try the rougher things and it's no trouble at all. You may be useless, but that heart of yours works just fine. I felt very good just now."

"And you actually dared to marry my uncle? Thought you could steal a piece of his affection for yourself? Keep dreaming. I'm the only one in his heart. You were nothing but a culture dish I used to grow a heart."

"Oh, and here's the thing." She let the pendant fall and smiled. "That day wasn't actually the first time your mother caught me and your betrothed together. The old hag had the nerve to call me shameless, so I made a point of having her dragged over, and I took your betrothed right in front of her. Worked her up until her heart gave out. And when it came time to give her your heart, I pretended my chest hurt. Sure enough, my uncle couldn't bear it. He wouldn't wait a single second. He gave your heart to me instead."

"Oh, that's right. You were unconscious at the time, so you probably didn't see your mother's face. She had her arm stretched out so far, eyes bulging, like she wanted to strangle the both of us. Pity. All she could do was watch, and in the end she died of pure rage. Serves her right. She cursed me, so I took her life!"

I stared, my eyes wide in disbelief, unable to fathom that this was the truth of how my mother's heart had failed.

The courtyard went very still. Even the soldier at the wall had stopped pretending. My body wouldn't stop shaking. How could these people murder my mother and then speak of it as though it were nothing more than tribute owed?

I raised my hand high, but Gianna got there first, dumping the liquor over her own head and breaking into a scream.

The next second, someone shoved me hard to the ground.

Lorenzo held Gianna against his chest and turned to roar at me:

"Serafina, what do you think you're doing?!"

Gianna spoke through her sobs:

"Uncle, I just saw that my aunt hadn't eaten, so I wanted to bring her something to eat and drink. But she said I'd worked her mother to death, knocked the food out of my hands, and threw liquor all over me. If you'd come any later, she would have killed me."

"I made that broth and brought that bottle with my own hands. I know it isn't anything fine enough for a feast like this, but it came from the heart. I even burned my hand on the boiling water..."

Lorenzo's face went dark in an instant. His sleeves were still rolled to the forearm, those surgeon's hands bare in the cold light, and not one man in the courtyard moved.

"Serafina, your mother's heart gave out because she couldn't take the strain. She had no business meddling in her children's affairs. Before a union, it's perfectly normal for one side to have a change of heart. Gianna felt the dishonor of you going unfed. Fine, you don't appreciate it. But how can you pin the blame on her?!"

I listened to him say these unthinkable things, disbelieving.

"Lorenzo, tell me. How did my mother really die? Did you truly give my heart to her?"

Lorenzo frowned.

"Of course. Didn't I already tell you? Your mother had a rejection after the surgery. Cutting a heart from one chest and setting it in another carries risk. That's the simplest truth there is. You don't even grasp that much, and now you'd insult Gianna's sincerity in front of the whole house. Apologize to her. Now."

A laugh came out of me, and with it, tears.

So this was the man I'd loved for seven years. The Golden Blade, who could read a body better than any priest could read a soul, and he wouldn't give me even one honest word.

As if to punish myself, I picked up the toppled bottle beside me, and never minding the shattered rim, I poured every drop that was left into my mouth, letting the glass cut my lips.

The moment the burning liquor went down my throat, the violent pain in my chest left me swaying on my feet.