His voice climbed several degrees, and he snarled:

"What did you say?!"

I didn't answer him. The word severance was out, said aloud inside the Marchetti walls where such words were never spoken, and I was ready to take my sister and go.

But as I dragged the suitcase past Lorenzo, he seized her wrist.

He yanked her in front of him with sudden force.

His eyes were bloodshot with fury.

"Sever the union? Because I took Carmela to the clinic instead of standing through some pact your people dressed up as a wedding, you want out? Are you out of your goddamn mind?"

"What's wrong with helping someone? What did I do wrong? And Carmela got hurt because of your mother in the first place! And now you're threatening me with severing the union?"

"Fine. Severed. I'll grant it! I'll grant it!"

The suitcase toppled to the floor, and Lorenzo brought his foot down on it, again and again.

The veins stood out on his neck. He cracked the knuckles of one hand against his palm, the soft pop swallowed by his own breathing, and then he stopped talking.

I quickly pulled my sister back behind me, shielding her.

She'd always been timid, and now her small body was shaking, on the edge of bursting into tears right there.

In that moment I finally understood how foolish I'd been to agree to let her be bound to Lorenzo.

A dozen stomps in, the suitcase finally gave out and split wide open.

Our mother's keepsakes scattered across the floor.

He couldn't pull his foot back in time. His polished leather shoe came down right on the clothes, and the faded fabric was marked with footprints in an instant.

A scream tore out of me, and I lunged a step forward and shoved him off.

"Don't touch them! Get away!"

Salvatore's face was cold to the bone, his voice pressed down over the anger, full of warning. The room had gone silent the way a room goes silent only when the Don decides it should.

"Adriana, my patience with you has a limit. Stop testing it over and over again."

I rushed in and crouched over our mother's things, guarding them.

The Marchetti brothers traded a look. Lorenzo caught his meaning at once and dragged me and my sister aside.

Salvatore handed the thermal box in his hand to Carmela.

He stood in front of the suitcase, reached down and lifted a few pieces of clothing for a glance, and a sneer curled at the corner of his mouth.

Then he tossed the clothes carelessly back onto the floor and reached for a cigarette.

He turned the heavy signet ring on his right hand once, slowly, and the lighter was clenched in his fist.

"Treating a pile of garbage like treasure? What's with the pitiful act? Have I ever failed to feed you or clothe you under this family's roof?"

"You knew perfectly well the union was just a contract between bloodlines. What are you making a scene about now? Is a paper pact worth more than a human life?"

"I said we'd make it up to you, so we will. Are you still not done? You love this pile of rags? Fine!"

Before I could even react, his hand went still around the lighter. He flicked it to flame and let go.

Fire caught on our mother's keepsakes in an instant.

A scream tore out of me. "No!"

I tried to rush over, but Lorenzo's grip clamped down on my neck and I couldn't move.

My always-gentle sister had gone mad.

Her eyes were red. Her hands fell open at her sides, no longer reaching to tuck the loose strand of hair behind her ear, and then she opened her mouth wide and bit down hard on Lorenzo's hand.

In the second his grip loosened, she spun and slapped him across the face.

For a beat everyone froze. No soldier moved. No breath broke the quiet.

Carmela quickly set the thermal box on the table and rushed over to wrap my sister in her arms.

"Don't panic, Lorenzo didn't mean any harm, he only wanted to settle things between you!"

But from somewhere my sister found the strength to break free of her hold and grab a fistful of her hair.

Carmela was knocked to the floor, and my sister sat on her, grappling and tearing at her.

Wretched, sobbing cries echoed through the room.

Lorenzo had me locked down, unable to break loose, and I could only keep crying out for his brother to stop.

Salvatore's eyes went red at the sight. He stepped up, fisted my sister's hair, and dragged her off Carmela.

He pinned her head and slammed it into the wall.

After three times, blood poured down my sister's forehead.

My frantic scream came out shaking.

And all I could do was watch her run out of strength to struggle.

In a few minutes, our mother's keepsakes had burned to ash in the flames, and the floor was stained with black smoke into a mark that would never come out.

A helplessness and defeat I had never felt before closed over my head.

I opened my mouth and no sound came out.

Tears spilled hot over my lashes, my eyes dropping to the black ash spread across the marble of the Marchetti estate floor, and what was left of my heart burned down with it.

Three years ago, when Salvatore first laid out the terms of the blood-union, I should have understood.

My sister and I were never anything but pieces he moved across the board to keep the matriarch quiet, two outsider brides bought to settle a debt.

The only one who had ever mattered to either of them was Carmela Vitale.

I just understood it too late.

Salvatore wiped the back of his hand with a folded handkerchief, disgust in every careful pass, the heavy signet ring catching the light.

Then he turned to comfort Carmela.

She sobbed her wronged little sobs for a while, and at last Lorenzo let go of my throat.

Not out of mercy. He was too busy pressing a clean cloth into Carmela's hands.

I watched the two Marchetti brothers close around her, their faces full of worry and tenderness, the soldiers along the wall keeping their eyes carefully fixed on nothing.

Under all that soothing concern, Carmela's crying slowly trailed off.

In that moment I felt how pitifully stupid these three years had made me.

I stepped toward my sister where she lay crumpled on the floor, wanting nothing now but to get her out of this place, past the guarded doors and the silent law that held them shut.

But Carmela still wasn't willing to let us go.

She was the one who had won, and yet the second I got my sister to her feet, she came toward us with the thermal container, all wounded innocence.

"Adriana, I'm so sorry... I really am, I never thought it would turn out like this. I know you hate me, but this is a little something I made for your mother. I hope you'll accept it for her..."

I lowered my head slowly and looked at the one who had sent my mother to her grave with her eyes still open.

In that instant something in me went past control.

I snatched the container straight out of her hands and slammed it down on her head.

The next second the thick soup ran down from the top of her head, matting her hair into clumps, the smell of meat tangled with shampoo turning my stomach.

My eyes were bloodshot. I screamed, "Get out! Stop playing the saint in front of me!"

Salvatore had been watching me the whole time, the warning hard in his eyes. The room had gone still, the way a room does when a Don has not yet decided.

The instant I moved, he was already across the floor and on me.

His shoe drove hard into my stomach.

Then he hurried to pull Carmela into his arms, wiping the soup from her hair with the sleeve of a shirt that cost more than most men earned in a year.

My lower back hit the wall hard, and I slid weakly down it to the floor.

By the time most of the mess was cleaned off her, Carmela's face was wet with tears.

Salvatore tore the dirtied shirt off and threw it aside.

He stepped forward, bent down, and gripped my face, hard enough that the bone of my jaw felt close to cracking.

He had just raised his hand when Carmela spoke through her tears.

"Salvatore, don't be angry, it's all my fault. I saw that your mother's travel papers were fake, so I thought she'd get here later. If I'd known she'd come like this, I'd have started the soup earlier. It's my fault their wedding was ruined. It's only natural Adriana is upset..."

She pressed a fragile hand to her chest as she said it, a half-second after the words, and Lorenzo rushed to hand her another cloth, thoughtfully bringing a towel to dry her hair.

Hearing it, my eyes flooded red and my temple throbbed.

To save the money for my sister and me, my mother had given up her seat and taken the slow road instead.

In Carmela's mouth it became a scheming lie.

"Shut your mouth! You don't get to talk about my mother!"

The words were barely out when Salvatore's palm cracked across my face.

Blood seeped from my lip, a salty sweetness rising in my throat.

But he only roared, "You're the one who should shut up! Say one more word and I'll tear that mouth apart!"

"This fake union of yours, Carmela set the whole thing up for you. What gives you the right to shout at her?"

"What do you think you even are? If your mother knew you'd used her illness over and over as an excuse to push for this marriage, don't you think she'd have dropped dead on the spot?"

The fury on my face cracked.

What was left underneath was nothing but contempt.

Thinking of that cheap little chapel they'd thrown together for the blood-union, my lips twisted into a cold smile.

No wonder everything had been so slapdash.

So from the very beginning, Carmela had never intended for us to stand before the family and seal the pact at all.

Everything today had been her plan all along.

Seeing me silent, Salvatore actually thought I was repenting.

His voice was thick with disdain. "And to think Carmela went out of her way to arrange a proper ceremony to redo it for you, even pulled strings with the Family's own clinic to get your mother before a specialist. Looking at you now, I don't think there's any need."

"Apologize to Carmela right now, then take that sister of yours and get the hell out of my house!"

I grabbed his arm, my voice cold.

"Redo it? Don't you find yourself ridiculous? You could redo it ten thousand times and she'd ruin it ten thousand and one. We won't need it ever again. Let her hold a ceremony for the three of you instead. My sister and I aren't worthy of it!"

"Apologize? Not unless she kneels before my mother and kisses the floor to beg her forgiveness!"

The rage in his eyes ignited in an instant. The signet ring on his right hand went still beneath his thumb. He bit out each word through his teeth.

"Adriana, have I been too easy on you? Can't you understand plain speech?"

"This sham of a union is something you knelt and begged two days and a night to get! What, now you don't want it? Or are you afraid of being exposed, that your mother's illness was faked all along?"

"Three years ago she was dying, so you had to bind yourself to me. Three years later she's dying again, so you have to hold a ceremony. Your mother's a tough one to kill—"

I never imagined he would turn my mother's illness into proof I'd married into the Family under false pretenses.

For a moment all the blood in me froze, and I clenched my fist with everything I had, my knuckles trembling.

"Shut up! You're not fit to mention my mother! You're not fit!"

"Salvatore, sever it. Sever the blood-union right now! I never want to see you again! The three of you cheating dogs can stay chained together for the rest of your lives!"

The instant he heard me say sever it again, both his hands clamped around my throat.

The pressure grew heavier, my face going purple.

Carmela had just finished picking the bits of food out of her hair. Seeing this, she rushed over and pulled at Salvatore's hands.

Salvatore couldn't bear to go against her. He let go just before I blacked out.

Carmela came toward me, tears of grievance brimming in her eyes.

When she bent down to help me up, my sister, who had just come to, shoved her away.

The push was too hard. Her hand struck the corner of the cabinet behind her, and she let out a muffled cry of pain.

Lorenzo immediately pulled her into his arms, lifting her hand to inspect the injury with aching tenderness.

Then he turned on my sister, the knuckles of one hand cracking against his palm, his voice furious.

"You never learn your lesson, do you? I've clearly let you get away with too much! Now you've learned to threaten people with severing it. Fine, then severed it is! I've had enough of your mother's three-year act! If she dies with her eyes still open, that's no business of mine!"

Salvatore's face had gone as dark as it could get.

I had just pulled my sister to her feet and was limping toward the door when I heard him grind out:

"Can't you hear me? The two of you, apologize to Carmela!"

Everything that had just happened had crushed the last shred of hope in me.

Hearing his voice now, I only sneered. "We're nothing to each other anymore. Who are you to make me apologize? The one who should apologize is this bitch who'll make my mother die with her eyes open!"

"No, the three of you are exactly as low as each other. A famiglia made in heaven, really!"

I had just stepped through the door when Salvatore seized the back of my neck and yanked me back.

My sister couldn't reach me in time, her face frantic.

Salvatore forced me down to kneel in front of Carmela, his shoe pressing hard into my shin so I couldn't move.

He dialed his right hand while he threatened me.

"Apologize now, or I won't mind giving your mother a funeral while she's still alive!"

The call had gone through, and the threat in his eyes only grew heavier. The ring on his finger no longer turned. In a room full of his men, no one drew a breath.

I clenched my teeth and spat at him.

The next second, he said coldly, "Cancel the whole ceremony. Turn it into a funeral for Adriana's mother instead! She's dragged this out three years—now I'll make her really die! Cancel the appointment Carmela arranged at the clinic too!"

The voice on the other end answered at once. "Don Marchetti, Miss Russo's mother has already passed away. At the ceremony this morning—"