At the Family's table,Gianna,the adopted daughter the Castellanos had taken in,pushed the heiress of the Moretti Family down the marble stairs.The Morettis sent word that night,and the word was not a request.They wanted someone handed over.

Gripping Adriana's hands tightly,the Donna pleaded,her voice trembling,"Gianna didn't mean it.She's terrified right now,crying so hard that her eyes are red."

Before Adriana could process her words,her mother added,"Adriana,since you're Gianna's sister,you should go to the Morettis and take her punishment for her."

Salvatore,Adriana's twin brother and a made man under the Castellano name,came into the kitchen just as their mother finished speaking.Despite the same blood in his veins,his words were devoid of compassion.

"Exactly.The Morettis are known across every territory for what they do to people who cross them.Father and I went to their estate and all but knelt on their floor,and they wouldn't bend.Five days,that's all they gave us,to hand someone over.If Gianna goes,who knows what they'll do to her?She wouldn't survive."

Even Adriana's childhood betrothed,the man bound to her by the old Fontaine pact,urged her,"If you're willing to take the punishment for Gianna,I'll honor the alliance and marry you at once."

Left with no choice,Adriana went to the Morettis as they wished.But they soon came back,begging her to return.

—

Back at the Castellano estate,everything had come apart.

In the kitchen,Adriana was carefully laying out the family's breakfast for the next morning.She was whipping cream with slow,even strokes when her mother came through the door,her eyes red and swollen from weeping.

Adriana froze,her hands trembling.The bowl of cream slipped from her grasp and struck the floor in a white splatter.Two fingers rose to her right ear,the deaf one,pressing there as if she'd missed some word that would make all of this make sense.

A girl from the household staff stood near the doorway,the corner of her mouth curling at the scene,her eyes glinting with quiet pleasure.

Every Family that mattered knew what the Morettis were.They had come back from a distant territory and risen fast,their hand in every business worth owning,their reach long enough to touch any throne in the city.For Gianna to put their heiress on the ground at a gathering full of witnesses was the same as signing her own death warrant.

Salvatore came into the kitchen just as their mother finished speaking.Despite the same blood between them,his words were devoid of compassion.

"Exactly.The Morettis are known across every territory for what they do to people who cross them.Father and I went and all but knelt on their floor,and they wouldn't bend.Five days,that's all they gave us.If Gianna goes,who knows what they'll do to her?She wouldn't survive."

Adriana's heart sank.So Gianna couldn't endure it,but she could.If she was sent in the girl's place and the Morettis learned the truth,their wrath might cost her life.Yet her own family seemed entirely indifferent to that possibility.

Adriana stared at her mother and her brother in disbelief.Were these not the people meant to love her without condition?They were her own blood.

She remembered her childhood clearly.The way her mother would cradle her,stroking her hair,whispering,"Mama loves Adriana the most.You'll always be Mama's little treasure."

That love vanished the year her mother lost the child she had carried so long.The grief of losing that unborn heir changed her mother completely.She stopped smiling at Adriana the soft way she once had,and spent her days weeping over the small clothes she had sewn in advance for a baby who never drew breath.

Later,the Underboss who had married into the Castellano name,the man called Vito Romano,brought home a little girl from an orphanage.Everyone said how strangely she resembled the second child who had died at birth.Her mother said it too.And so Gianna was formally taken in as the consolation daughter of the Castellano Family.The Donna treated her like something rare and precious,cherished her as if she were the air in the room.Gianna mended her mother's broken mind,and in doing so took every measure of love that had once belonged to Adriana.

At first Adriana held no resentment.If Gianna could ease her mother's pain,it was a price worth paying.

But one night changed everything.

One evening Gianna failed to come home after her lessons.The Castellanos turned every soldier and every contact loose to find her.Her mother was beyond consoling,pacing the halls and sobbing until Gianna limped through the door late that night.

The moment she crossed the threshold,Gianna threw herself into the Donna's arms,tears streaming down her face as she cried,"Did I do something wrong?"

"Why did Sister leave me alone in the woods?"Gianna sobbed."I was so scared."

It was at that moment that Adriana understood the malicious,provocative looks Gianna had always given her were not just her imagination.

Unfortunately,before she could explain herself,the Donna struck her hard across the face,a backhand heavy with the rings of the Castellano bloodline.

Her ear struck the corner of the dining table,and a gush of blood poured out instantly.The room,full of men who had killed for far less,went silent.No one moved to help her.

The Underboss kept cursing at her,the gutter still raw in his voice no matter how fine his suit,while the Donna held Gianna the whole time,not sparing her even a glance.

It was one of the household staff who pitied her and took her to a back-alley doctor the Family trusted.But they missed the window,and her right ear permanently lost its hearing.

The Underboss sent her away,banished to a remote outpost at the edge of the Family's territory.

Before she left,only Salvatore held her hand."Don't worry,Adriana.In a few months,I'll beg Mamma and Papàto bring you back."His thumb worked against his right knuckle as he said it,as though already sensing the weight of a promise he wouldn't keep.

At first,Salvatore called her every week.But later,the calls became monthly,then once every six months,and mostly they only revolved around Gianna.

"Gianna took first place at the craftsmen's showing today!"

"If only you had half her gift."

"Gianna says she's already forgiven you,but I think you need to reflect a bit more."

And so,Adriana was abandoned at that distant outpost for ten years.It wasn't until she turned twenty that she was finally brought back inside the Castellano walls.

She thought her family still loved her after all.

For that insignificant sliver of blood affection,she humbled herself every day,trying her best to please them,hoping to be loved the same way in return.

But only now did she finally understand.No matter how hard she tried,people who didn't love her never would.

Since that was the case,she didn't want them anymore,either.

Seeing that Adriana remained silent,Salvatore grew annoyed."Adriana,are you mute?"

"All I asked was for you to take Gianna's punishment for her,not to die.What's there to hesitate about?"

"What's wrong?You've failed your duty to Mamma all these years,and now you won't even hear her out?"

Just as Salvatore moved toward her,one of the help burst through the door and cried out,"Something's wrong!Miss Gianna's on the ledge.She says she'll jump!"

The Donna turned pale with fright and rushed out without hesitation,the heavy mourning ring turning fast on her finger.

Salvatore held more of his composure,but his face was grim as he snarled,"If anything happens to Gianna,I won't let you off."

He seized Adriana's wrist and dragged her toward Gianna's room.

By the time they arrived,her wrist was red and swollen from his grip.Just as she tried to rub it,she saw someone familiar.Marco.Her childhood companion,and her betrothed.

The Castellano and Fontaine Families had stood close for generations,and the blood-alliance pact between them had been sealed long before either of them was grown.

Marco had come up alongside her,and through all her years in exile,he had been her one constant,her support.Without him,she might never have survived it.

Marco used to say,"To me,Adriana will always be the most important person.No one can compare."

"Your own blood abandoned you in a place like that,and your brother never came once.They'll regret it someday."

"Don't grieve,Adriana.When you're mine,I'll make you the happiest woman in any territory."

Back then,Adriana had carried a deep-seated fear that Gianna would take everyone who mattered from her.Clinging to Marco like a lifeline,she had begged,"Then swear it to me.You're never to see Gianna again."

Marco gently ruffled Adriana's hair,the doting smile of a man sworn to her since before either of them could walk."Alright,alright.In my eyes,there will always only be you.That Gianna,or whatever name she's wearing this week,she's not worth one of your fingers."

Finally,Adriana smiled.She thought,at least someone in this world would always choose her without hesitation.The pact between the Castellanos and the Fontaines had been sealed in blood before she was old enough to understand it,and for once that chain felt like something warm instead of something binding.

But all of that vanished after she returned to the Castellano estate.

Marco met Gianna.

Within half a year,Gianna once again succeeded in taking away the person Adriana cherished most.

Marco even brought up postponing the blood-alliance pact himself,turning the Fontaine signet slowly on his finger as he said it."Gianna depends on me a great deal.If I go through with our pact now,I'm afraid she won't be able to handle it."

Her memories were cut short by the Donna's desperate cries echoing down the marble of the great hall."Gianna,come down.Let's talk this out.What are you doing on the windowsill?Do you want to scare your mother into the grave?"

Gianna was perched on the edge of the second-floor window.Her feet hadn't even crossed the railing,but her eyes were swollen like walnuts.Her hand fluttered to her collarbone,that small wounded gesture,a beat too fast.

"Mamma,didn't you hear what the Morettis sent word?They said they'd throw me down the stairs the same way it happened to Bianca."

"If I'm handed over to the Moretti Family,they'll tear me apart.Better to die here at home.It'll hurt less."

Salvatore,his face dark with fury,struck Adriana across the cheek.The crack of it silenced the room."This is all your doing.If you'd just agreed to stand in for Gianna under Moretti protection and take her punishment,would she even be sitting on that ledge?"

"Gianna is your sister.How can you be this cold?Do you want to watch her die?"His thumb worked against his right knuckle as he said it,the hand that had once closed over hers in a childhood promise,though neither of them named it now.

The blow was merciless.It left a red handprint blooming across Adriana's face.Yet the Donna only stared at her with resentment and disappointment,her fingers circling the heavy mourning ring round and round."If something happens to Gianna,I won't go on living either.Adriana,if you still refuse to take Gianna's punishment at the Moretti house,then don't call yourself a Castellano anymore.Don't consider me your mother."

If Salvatore's words were angry accusations,the Donna's were a sentence handed down before witnesses.

Anger,fear,despair,sorrow,all of it swirled inside Adriana at once.She trembled uncontrollably,feeling as if her heart was being crushed in a fist.

At that moment,Marco stepped forward.

He gently touched the red mark on her face,and the tenderness in his eyes almost made Adriana believe the world had rolled back to what it once was.

But his next words shattered her last shred of hope.

"Adriana,I'm begging you."His signet caught the light as his hand lingered against her cheek.

"If you're willing to take Gianna's punishment,I'll seal our pact the same day.I'll marry you immediately."

In that instant,Adriana understood that in the depths of extreme pain,a person can no longer even shed tears.

She looked around the room,at her so-called blood and the man bound to her by oath,and not a single one of them stood at her side.The silence that followed was the silence of omertàclosing over a thing that would never be spoken of again,the truth of what they were to her sealed away where no one would ever have to look at it.

Then Adriana laughed softly."Alright.I agree to go to the Moretti Family and stand in for Gianna's punishment.Five days from now."

Perhaps her smile cut too deep,because Marco frowned and instinctively reached for her hand.

But before he could touch her,Adriana brushed his hand aside.

The gesture was light,yet it landed on his skin like a searing flame,and something twisted in his chest.

"Adriana..."

Adriana didn't look at him.Her gaze swept calmly across every face in the room,and she went on."But all of you will agree to one condition first."

Salvatore's brow knotted in displeasure,his thumb dragging once more over that knuckle."It's a small favor for your own sister,and you're sitting here making terms?Adriana,since when did you become this calculating?"

Adriana's lips curled into a faint smile.