An old woman and a young girl, holding together a crumbling household in a circle of wolves.

So I threw everything I had into learning the only currency that mattered in our world: knowledge. Codes, ledgers, the architecture of power. Desperate to shoulder the family's burden before the last of our name was swallowed whole.

Ivy Santoro came from nothing. No family name, no bloodline, no standing. At the gatherings of the Five Families, nobody gave her the time of day.

When I found out she was an orphan too, I felt for her. I reached out first, paid her way, brought her under the Caruso roof, and told her we'd get through the hard times together.

I never imagined she'd take my kindness as charity.

That she'd resent me for everything I had.

That she'd use every trick she knew to wrap my two blood-bound companions around her finger.

And then, together with them, destroy my life.

While I was still lost in those thoughts, we arrived.

What had happened in the car left both of them uneasy. They fell over each other to open my door and carry my things.

"Maxie, look. This is the overlook we used to come to as kids. Salvatore and I bought the whole hillside. From now on, it's ours. Private ground. No one sets foot here without our say."

Salvatore nodded. "I already had someone plant your favorite yellow roses across the ridge. By this time next year, there'll be a whole sea of them."

"Then the four of us can come up here together, drive around, watch the stars."

Their faces were bright with plans for the future.

I stood staring at the land in silence.

This really had been our secret place when we were little. Before blood oaths and Family politics turned everything sharp. It held every happy memory the three of us shared.

But I had never liked yellow roses.

I was allergic to pollen. All of it.

While I stood there turning that over, fireworks burst open across the sky above us. Brilliant colors spelling out my name.

Under that dreamlike canopy, Domenico produced a ring box lined in black velvet and held it out to me. Inside, on a bed of silk, sat a signet ring bearing the Falcone crest. Not his own. A woman's ring, smaller, older, the gold worn smooth by generations of Falcone brides.

"Maxie, this is the family heirloom. My parents told me to give it to the future lady of the Falcone house. I've wanted to give it to you for a long time. I just had to wait for the right moment."

"Be with me instead, Maxie. Don't you remember? When you nearly drowned as a kid, I jumped in after you without thinking. I'd give you my life, let alone some ring!"

In my last life, this was exactly what had fooled me. The two of them, performing devotion so convincingly.

Back then I was naive enough to believe it. Blood-bound companions, a happy ending waiting for us. My grandmother and the Caruso name would finally have someone to lean on.

I didn't learn the truth until the day I died.

Devotion that deep can be faked.

I was about to refuse.

Then Ivy spoke up. "Maxie, why did you tell people I've been spreading rumors about you? Now everyone's attacking me..."

She held her phone up to my face. Her fingers fluttered to the hollow of her throat as she did it, lingering there with the practiced tremble of a woman begging to be believed.

Under the Westbrook social feed, hundreds of comments called me shameless, said I'd sold myself for a seat at the Falcone table. The handful of people defending me became, in Ivy's telling, proof that I'd sent them to bully her.

Salvatore snatched the phone from her hand. His knuckles cracked once, pinky finger, slow and deliberate, before his voice came out shaking with rage.

"Serafina, how could you do something like this? Fine, you've got no shame. But why blame Ivy for it?"

Domenico, the calmer of the two, didn't explode. But his eyes pinned me with the same accusation.

I swallowed the storm inside me. "I didn't do it. If you don't believe me, go look into it yourselves."

Neither of them heard a word I said. They were already busy comforting Ivy.

"Don't worry, Ivy. I'll have our people scrub it by morning."

"Sweets always help. Come on, I'll take you for something."

One on each side, they flanked Ivy and walked away.

Neither of them looked back.

I let out a long breath and watched the ash drifting down where the fireworks had been. The Falcone ring box sat on the stone wall where Domenico had set it down, forgotten.

Compared to life and death, this much hurt was nothing.

At least I was still alive. I still had a brand-new life ahead of me.

I had no choice but to follow the three of them.

As I passed a thicket of old oaks, Salvatore's voice carried through the dark, impatient and unchecked.

"Babe, how much longer do we have to keep up this act? I seriously can't take it anymore. Serafina's been spreading her legs all over the Territory. Who knows what she's caught."

"Serafina's pathetically stupid. Can't even tell a real alliance from a setup. No wonder some older man talked her into bed with a few pretty words. A woman like that doesn't deserve to stand beside the Falcone name. The family heirloom bracelet, the real one, only you deserve to wear it, Ivy."

Ivy gazed up at them with that wounded, fragile look of hers.

"Serafina has done a lot of awful things, that's true. But she helped me once. How could I just abandon her? If you two don't do what I say, I'll never speak to either of you again!"

At that, both of them, heirs who answered to no one, sons of the two most dangerous families on the Eastern Seaboard, fell over themselves apologizing to her.

They'd have trampled me into the dirt if it meant lifting her higher.

Over a decade of knowing each other, of growing up side by side, of bread broken at the same table and oaths sworn on the same saints, and none of it weighed as much as a few words from Ivy Santoro.

I forced the tears back and turned away.

The night stretched endless around me as I walked toward the Caruso house, every step heavy with exhaustion. The streets were empty. Even the soldiers who used to patrol our block when I was a child were long gone, reassigned to families that still mattered.

By the time I reached the house, my twisted ankle had swollen beyond recognition.

Nonna's face crumpled when she saw it. She brought out liniment and knelt to rub it in herself, her hands shaking but sure, the way they'd always been.

I didn't want her worrying, so I told her about the invitation from The Order instead.

Her expression shifted from shock to pure joy.

"My Serafina's really made something of herself! Nonna's getting old. You're the only one left who can carry the Caruso name."

I nodded, blinking hard against the sting in my eyes.

"It's been so many years since this family had anything to celebrate. Nonna's going to throw you a proper feast. A real celebration!"

The smile on her face was identical to the one she'd worn the day she sent me off to my wedding in the last life.

Back then, she'd believed I'd found a good man. She'd been so happy.

Then Domenico fled the ceremony, and the shock killed her right there at the venue.

This time around, I would never let either of us walk that road again.

Nonna was too frail for the work, so I handled every detail of the feast myself. I booked the private dining room at Caruso's, the old restaurant on Mulberry Street that still bore our name even though we hadn't owned it in years. The current owners let us have it for nothing. They remembered my grandfather.

When my two blood-bound companions heard about the feast, they both showed up volunteering to help.

They even brought a strawberry cake, my favorite since I was little, as a peace offering.

"Serafina, you haven't answered a single message in days. Are you still upset about what happened?"

"We weren't trying to blame you. We were worried you'd go down the wrong path. For people in our position, reputation matters."

I didn't forgive them. But I let them stay and help.

In our last life, they owed me more than they could ever repay.

No settling that ledger.

All I wanted in this life was to never see them again.

After my parents died, the Caruso family declined until no one bothered to pay respects at all. The old alliances dissolved. The seats at our table stayed empty.

Now that I'd finally done something worth celebrating, this was our chance to show the Five Families that the Carusos still had an heir. That we were no longer a bloodline anyone could push around.

Nonna understood that. She treated this feast like the most important evening of her life, refusing to cut a single corner. She pressed her thumb against the worn silver crucifix at her neck as she oversaw the preparations, not in prayer but in purpose. This night had to be perfect.

The night of the feast, the venue filled with every name that mattered in the Territory.

Ivy glided in behind both Domenico and Salvatore, wearing a gown that cost more than anything a girl with no family name should have been able to afford, perfectly at ease.

She took in the lavish room, the crystal, the white linen, the old Caruso crest mounted above the fireplace, and jealousy burned behind her eyes.

"Serafina really does have all the luck."

"But so what if you were born into a bloodline and caught the eye of The Order? I can still make sure you spend the rest of your life wishing you were dead."

The words had barely left her lips when the screen at the front of the hall lit up with my photos.

One after another. Every single one showing me naked in bed with a different man.

"Isn't that the Caruso heiress? Dio, she really gets around. Figures. No parents to raise her right."

"No wonder everyone says Serafina spread her legs to get that invitation. Looks like it's true after all."

"The Caruso family is finished. They're pimping their own daughter out as some made man's mistress."

I'd lived through mockery like this twice in my last life.

Once at my wedding. Domenico fled the ceremony for Ivy, and the humiliation killed my grandmother. The Caruso name became a punchline across the entire Territory.

Once at my funeral. My body wasn't even in the ground before Salvatore proposed to Ivy right there at my service. My entire life, reduced to a joke.

The memories hit me and I turned to find my grandmother. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes bloodshot as she stared at the photos on the screen. "My Serafina would never do something like this!"

Something was wrong. I could see it in the way she swayed, and my heart seized. I begged the people around me to help get her to a hospital. Every single one of them backed away, terrified of being associated with a woman like me. Men who had once sat at my grandfather's table, who had kissed his ring and sworn loyalty to the Caruso name, turned their backs and stepped into the crowd like strangers.

In the end, it was the two blood-bound companions who stepped forward.

Domenico drove. Salvatore and I held my grandmother between us, and we raced to the hospital.

"Good thing you got here when you did. Any later and we might not have saved her."

I thanked the doctor over and over.

Then I sat at my grandmother's bedside and pulled up the venue's surveillance footage. Just as I'd expected, there was Ivy on camera, swapping the photos herself. Every single one of them was a fake. Fabricated composites, all of them.

I took the footage and headed out to call the Feds.

The two of them blocked my path.

"It was just a prank. Do you really have to blow it this far out of proportion? Do you have any idea what you'll do to Ivy?"

I stood there, stunned. Then something inside me snapped loose and I screamed.

"What about me? My grandmother almost died! Didn't Ivy think about destroying me? Destroying the entire Caruso family?"

Salvatore shoved Ivy behind him and pushed me hard enough to stagger. The hallway light caught the signet ring on his hand as he straightened.

"Give it a rest, Serafina! Your grandmother's fine, isn't she? Besides, where there's smoke there's fire. You must've done something shady first for rumors like that to spread!"

None of it could hurt me anymore. I pushed past them both, numb.

Domenico caught my wrist. His expression was unreadable. He was still. Perfectly, terribly still, the way only he could be, the kind of stillness that made soldiers lower their voices and consiglieri choose their words with surgical care.

"Serafina. Don't make this harder on yourself. You know the kind of power our families have. No one in this Territory would touch this case."

When I still wouldn't let go, his grip tightened.

"Don't forget your grandmother is still in that hospital. One word from me, and the doctors stop treating her."

The ring on his right hand was motionless. Not turning. Not restless. Already decided.

"I'll count to three. If you don't hand over the surveillance footage, I'll have them pull her off the ventilator."

He dialed a number right in front of me.

"Three."

"Two."

"I was wrong!"

I dropped to my knees, tears streaming down my face. I didn't dare. I didn't dare gamble with my grandmother's life.

Salvatore snatched my phone and hurled it at the ground. It shattered. Shards bit into my skin.

He looked down at me, cold. "As long as we're here, don't even think about hurting Ivy."

I sat crumpled on the floor, and it wasn't until their backs disappeared around the corner that the pain finally broke through. Two lifetimes of grief tore out of me at once, and I sobbed until I couldn't breathe.

The childhood promises were lies. The blood-bound oaths were lies. Only the pain was real.

I don't know how long it was before I dragged myself back to the hospital. Terrified that Domenico or Salvatore would tamper with her care, I stayed at my grandmother's side for days without leaving once.

The only messages I received were from Ivy. The two of them had taken her traveling, bungee jumping, doing every single thing they'd once promised me and never followed through on.

I blocked her number.

When I looked up, two men in crisp bearing stood at the foot of my grandmother's bed. They saluted me.

"Miss Caruso, we've been sent by The Order as medical personnel. Please rest assured. While you're away, we will guarantee your grandmother's safety and health."

Only then did it hit me. It was time to go.

I went back to the Caruso house and threw away everything connected to those two men. Every photograph. Every token. Every memory that smelled like gunpowder and broken promises.

Then I boarded a plane and never looked back.

Neither Domenico Falcone nor Salvatore Vitale was someone I could depend on. I would depend on myself. For my grandmother, for the Caruso family, I would carve out a future worth having.