At the Grand Tribunal, my Donna destroyed my first operation in front of every capo, soldier, and associate the Falcone Syndicate had ever claimed.

She withdrew her hand from the table. "Without your network, let's see how you survive on loyalty alone."

But what I heard was the voice inside her head, sick and frenzied:

With the operation gone, he's nothing. He'll have no choice but to cling to me, day and night. My little caged bird.

Descending the stone steps of the compound's main hall, her step faltered and she fell.

The voice surged again: Does it hurt him to see this? Hurry, come help me up! Just reach out your hand and I'll forgive everything. I'll even let you touch my face...

She pushed herself up, brushed off her black coat twice, and didn't look at me.

Gabriel Renard came over with a burner phone and pressed it into my hands. "Senior associate, the Donna is only doing this for your own good. Once you get used to working without resources, it's really no worse than running a full crew."

I took the phone and bowed my head. "The Donna's correction is just. I acknowledge my fault."

Back at the main estate on Sovereign Hill, Seraphina Falcone had my network of informants, safe houses, and escape routes dismantled and reassigned the revenue streams to Gabriel.

Cry. Just shed one tear. Beg me once, and I'd give you my life.

I packed my things into a duffel bag and moved to the servants' quarters at the back of the compound.

Seraphina stood in the doorway. Her left hand went to her wrist, rotating it slowly, as though adjusting a bracelet that was no longer there.

Why won't you beg me? Are you trying to make me die of heartbreak? Fine. Let's see how long that stubborn pride lasts. When you can't take it anymore, you'll come crawling back, crying for me to hold you.

She didn't know the extraction had been arranged.

Seven more days, and I'd be free of this lunatic. Home for good.

What I didn't expect was that the moment I truly vanished, that lunatic would appear in my bedroom drenched in blood, her fingers locked around my ankle like a vice, laughing.

...

I set the pot of antiseptic solution over the portable burner.

For a handful of medical supplies, I'd dragged my wounded body through the back lots of Falcone territory for four hours, scrounging from every contact who still owed me a debt too small for Seraphina to notice.

The wooden door exploded inward, kicked off its hinges. Splinters rained down.

A polished leather shoe came down on the pot.

The vessel cracked apart. Brown antiseptic splashed across the floor.

Scalding dregs hit the back of my hand, raising angry red welts.

Gabriel Renard stood in the doorway, grinning.

"Senior associate, that chemical stench is unbearable. What if it upsets my finch?"

Behind him trailed soldiers from the enforcement crew, every one of them men I'd once trained.

Now they stood with arms folded, hands near their holsters, not sparing me a glance.

Gabriel plucked the half-used vial of coagulant from the floor.

"Perfect. My finch has been off its feed. This stuff is common trash, but it'll do as a treat for a pet."

That was pharmaceutical-grade coagulant. Black market. Nearly impossible to source.

Five years ago, when Seraphina was gravely wounded after the ambush at the Hidden Port, I'd fought my way into rival territory and bled half my body dry to bring back that single supply.

She'd glanced at it once and said, "Adequate."

Now I was on my hands and knees in the back lots scrounging for scraps, and Gabriel was feeding them to a bird.

Before, I would have drawn on him and fought him over it. Now I just watched the countdown running in my mind.

Time remaining until extraction from this world: six days.

I stepped back, making room for Gabriel.

"If it pleases you, junior associate, take it."

Gabriel's smile froze. He hadn't expected compliance. He laughed, a half-beat too late, his eyes darting to the soldiers behind him to gauge their reactions before committing to his own amusement.

His fingers stroked the fur-lined coat draped over his shoulders.

That was Snowball's pelt.

My closest companion. Raised for ten years. Fed on my own protection and resources since she was small enough to fit in my coat pocket.

Yesterday Gabriel had mentioned he was cold. Seraphina had her killed and skinned.

Gabriel pulled the coat tighter and nuzzled his face into the fur collar.

"Senior associate, this pelt is so warm. I really must thank the Donna for spoiling me. Don't blame her, though. An animal getting to keep me warm? That's the best fate a beast could hope for."

A stab of pain in my chest. Then nothing.

I stared at the muddy water on the ground.

A few more days. Then this would be over.

Seraphina appeared at the courtyard gate in her black ceremonial coat, the one she wore for sit-downs and sentencings.

She stepped into the small yard, a crease forming between her brows. The smell of mildew, probably. The servants' quarters were a long way from the main house, and the compound didn't waste upkeep on rooms meant for the forgotten.

She looked at me.

"It was just a beast."

Seraphina's voice was frigid.

"Gabriel has a frail constitution. That the creature's pelt could keep him warm was its good fortune. If you harbor resentment over this, it only proves your heart is corrupt."

Then came the manic thoughts, bleeding into my ears.

Cry. Go on, cry.

The moment a single tear falls, I can collect it in the Jade Reliquary. A blood-tear from you.

The pelt of your beloved companion is right here. Surely it hurts?

Kneel and beg me. Once you're sobbing so hard you can't breathe, I'll reward you with a few pills and stroke your head.

Her fingers rubbed something hidden inside her sleeve. I knew what it was: a scrap of bloodstained fabric torn from my shirt yesterday when it snagged on the doorframe of the servants' wing.

Deranged.

Seraphina leaned forward, eyes locked on me.

She was waiting for me to break. Waiting for me to grab her sleeve and weep.

I picked up the push broom from the corner, bent down, and swept the crushed vials and medicinal dregs out the door.

"If it pleases my junior associate, then so be it."

My voice was flat.

"I wouldn't want to offend the Donna's sight. I'll have this cleaned up right away."

Seraphina's expression froze. Something ignited behind her eyes.

No pleading. No tears.

She flicked her wrist, and two of her soldiers stepped forward and snapped the broom handle across their knees. The splintered wood drove into my palms. Blood welled up between my fingers.

I didn't flinch.

Seraphina closed the distance. The two soldiers retreated without being told, pressing themselves against the corridor wall. The silence in the compound was absolute. Even the wind outside the servants' quarters seemed to hold its breath.

"Insolent wretch! It seems the servants' quarters have made you too comfortable. You haven't shown a shred of remorse!"

I kept my gaze on the tips of my boots.

"I acknowledge my fault."

"Acknowledge your fault?"

Seraphina let out a cold laugh.

"If you truly know your fault, then go kneel beneath the falls at the north ridge of the compound. You will remain there until you've reflected properly. Only then may you crawl back."

The north ridge falls were where the Falcone Syndicate punished its gravest offenders. The cascade hammered down from the cliffside behind the old estate, ice-cold even in summer, and the stone basin at its base was open to the mountain wind with no shelter for a hundred yards in any direction.

Before, I could have endured it. I had been the heir-apparent, with resources and men and the Donna's protection wrapped around me like armor. But my first operation had been dismantled, my standing in the family reduced to nothing. Going there now was a death sentence in all but name.

I raised my head and looked at Seraphina the way one looks at a stranger.

"Yes, Donna."

I turned and walked away.

Behind me came the ragged sound of her breathing, then the sharp crack of a porcelain cup crushed to powder in her grip.

The wind on the north ridge cut like a blade.

The waterfall plunged from the high cliff and hammered into my back.

Cold bored through every crack in my bones. I knelt on the stone at the center of the pool, my knees long since numb.

The pain in my body was excruciating.

Three years ago, Seraphina had faced a federal investigation that nearly brought the entire syndicate down. Her network of intermediaries collapsed, and I threw myself into the breach, taking on the exposure myself to shield her.

It had nearly destroyed me. The damage to my body from those months of sleepless extraction work, the beatings I'd taken when a deal went wrong on the docks, the cracked ribs that never healed right. Cold made them flare, every time.

Now the freezing water hammered the old wounds wide open.

My vision blurred white with pain, but I made no sound.

Seraphina was watching through the compound's surveillance feeds.

She was waiting for me to cry out, waiting for me to beg her for mercy.

She would be waiting a long time.

Countdown: 5 days.

Gabriel strolled over carrying a white ceramic bowl, steam curling from its rim.

It was a warming tonic. A single sip would have been enough to ward off the cold.

He stopped at the bank, polished shoes crunching through the frost. He laughed, half a beat after he'd already surveyed my face for a reaction.

"Senior brother. How does it feel?"

Gabriel looked me up and down. "The Donna says all you have to do is bow your head, and this bowl is yours."

I closed my eyes and focused on what little strength remained inside me. I didn't acknowledge him.

Gabriel turned his wrist. The dark medicinal broth spilled across the frozen ground, seeping into an ugly stain.

"Oops. Butterfingers."

The grin slid off his face, replaced by open satisfaction. "Take a good look at yourself. You're lower than a dog. You used to be the heir-apparent. And now?"

I opened my eyes. "You're done pouring. Leave. You're blocking the light."

Gabriel's expression curdled.

A crushing pressure descended from above. Seraphina appeared at the ridge with a grim face and swept Gabriel behind her. Two soldiers flanked her at a distance, hands resting inside their coats.

Her gaze fixed on me.

"Incorrigible."

She stepped forward and pressed two fingers against my chest, then my neck, then the base of my spine. Each point she touched went dead. Without warmth to resist, the cold tore through my organs in an instant. I coughed up a mouthful of blood onto the wet stone.

"Since you refuse to learn, you can go to the Serpent Abyss."

It was the syndicate's forbidden ground. The chasm below the eastern wall of the compound, where the mountain split open into darkness. It was writhing with venomous snakes.

Seraphina looked at me.

Scared now, aren't you?

You've always been terrified of these cold, wet creatures.

All you have to do is grab my sleeve and beg me to save you, and I'll pull you out.

She stood at the edge of the pit, waiting for me to throw myself at her.

I wiped the blood off, braced myself against a rusted support beam, and straightened up. Then I walked to the edge.

"Thank you, Donna."

I jumped.

The air tore past my ears. In that brief fall, I heard her breathing stutter out of rhythm.

Countdown: 4 days.

The Serpent Abyss was pitch black.

The sub-basement ran three levels beneath the Falcone compound, a flooded drainage network from the original foundation that had been left to rot for decades. Water pooled ankle-deep in places. Rats moved in the walls. But the rats weren't what made the Abyss a punishment. It was the snakes. Copperheads and water moccasins that had colonized the tunnels over generations, breeding in the dark until the lowest level was more nest than corridor. The Donna kept it that way on purpose.

They crawled over my body. Fangs sank into flesh. The stench of venom and rot filled everything.

I dragged myself through the mire.

Five years ago, I'd stayed down here for half a month to protect Seraphina during a turf war, clearing the tunnels level by level so she could use them as an escape route, killing wave after wave of serpents until the swarm finally retreated.

Now it was just me.

Three days and three nights, and I didn't make a sound. Whenever I couldn't bear it anymore, I stared at the panel.

Almost over.

I clawed my way to the top of the pit at dawn.

Dried blood crusted every inch of me. The rags of my clothes hung in strips, and the wounds had turned black at the edges.

Seraphina and Gabriel were standing at the rim.

Gabriel shrieked and scrambled behind her. He laughed, a beat too late, trying to make it sound like disgust rather than fear. No one was fooled.

Seraphina went rigid. She took half a step forward, her hand rising before it fell back to her side.

She signaled the guards to clear the corridor and drifted further away, as though avoiding something filthy.

"You've dirtied the ground."

Her voice was raw. "Hand the venom sac to Gabriel for his training, then get yourself cleaned up."

I opened my hand. The serpent king's venom sac sat in my palm. In the syndicate's world, the extract was worth more than most men earned in a year. A concentrated toxin that, properly refined, became a leverage tool no rival family could trace.

Gabriel approached with a silk handkerchief, using it as a barrier between his fingers and mine as he reached for the sac.

The instant he took it, his foot slipped. The thick sole of his handmade Italian shoe came down on my right hand.

My index finger had already been half-bitten off in the Abyss. Now it separated completely.

Cold sweat soaked through my back.

I pressed my lips together, pulled my hand back, and didn't make a sound.

Seraphina stared at the severed finger. Her own fingers trembled, just once. Her left hand drifted to her wrist, rotating slowly, adjusting a bracelet that was no longer there.

She turned and walked away.

Her thoughts spilled over each other in a tangle:

Why didn't he cry out?

He used to come running to me over a scratch, begging me to take care of it for ages.

Does he... not care about me anymore?

No. He's just being stubborn. Trying to punish me.

I watched her retreating figure.

Who cares.

Countdown: 2 days.

The servants' quarters held nothing but straw.

I leaned against the corner and pulled out a bundle of yellowed letters tied with kitchen twine.

They were the only thing my parents had left behind.

The year the blood debt came due, they'd sent me to the compound and pressed these letters into my hands.

I smoothed the creased paper with my sleeve.

Two more days.

I thought about home. Warm milk, flowers on the balcony, Mom and Dad nagging me about nothing.

The light dimmed.

Seraphina stood a few paces away.

Her hand flicked out. The letters ripped free and landed in her palm.

"Give them back!"

I lunged for them.

Seraphina raised her arm high, turning the bundle over between her fingers as she examined it.

"So this is why your focus has been slipping." Her voice was dangerously low. "Omertà demands total loyalty to the family, and you've been clinging to these things."

I grabbed her sleeve, stretching for them.

"Please. Don't touch them."

The moment that word left my mouth, her grip tightened. Her left wrist rotated, slow, deliberate, the phantom bracelet turning beneath skin that remembered its weight.

That familiar voice slithered into my ears:

He's finally begging.

Destroy what he cares about, and he'll break.

Civilian garbage. Why keep it? From now on, your world will have only me.

Seraphina looked at me. Her lighter appeared in her free hand, the flame steady.

"Too late."

A sharp hiss.

The letters caught and curled, blackening in her palm, crumbling to fine ash.

She opened her hand. Grey dust drifted down over my face.

Cold. Bone-deep cold.

I didn't move. My arm stayed outstretched, reaching for something that no longer existed. The ash settled into my eyes. It stung.

I lowered my hand, sat back down in the straw, and closed my eyes.