So much so that when we died miserably in my past life, he didn't shed a single tear.

If anything, he was relieved he wouldn't have to write up divorce papers after all.

This time, no matter what it took, I would change my daughter's fate and my own.

Valentina and I knelt at the gates of the Castellano compound. The guards couldn't bear the sight of us and sent word inside five or six times. Two hours later, my father finally came out.

"Reduced to this sorry state, and NOW you remember you have a father?"

He held a walking cane in his hand and raised it as if to strike me. I didn't flinch, didn't move to dodge. Instead, I stepped closer.

"Your daughter knows she was wrong. Beat me, kill me, do whatever you see fit."

"I regret not listening to you back then. I put my trust in the wrong man."

Tears streamed down my father's weathered face. He didn't strike me. He threw the cane to the ground and pulled me to my feet with trembling hands.

"You were so heartless back then. You threw away your own father and your Family for a man. But since you know you were wrong, cut those ties clean and come home where you belong!"

"As long as you sever that cursed bond completely, you are still Serafina Castellano, and this compound is still yours."

He told me to change out of my rags, but I shook my head.

His expression shifted. "Don't tell me you still intend to have dealings with that man?"

I smiled faintly. "He wronged me this deeply. You think I can just turn the page? I need to make him pay first."

That same day, I took Valentina to the Ferrante estate and sent word inside.

"Tell Dante Ferrante his wife has come home."

The soldiers at the gate took one look at my tattered clothes, wrinkled their noses, and moved to shove us back toward the street.

"Where'd you beggars crawl out from? This is the Ferrante house."

"The lady of the house is hosting a banquet for the most powerful families in the city. If you disturb her guests, you and your little brat won't have enough lives to pay for it."

"Go on, get. Get out of here."

I'd expected exactly this. I deliberately stepped back, dropped to my knees, and raised my voice for the whole street to hear.

"Someone help me get justice! Dante Ferrante married me six years ago in a proper ceremony. I bore him a daughter! He promised to bring me back within three years and make me his wife before the Family. But now that he's claimed the Ferrante territory, he left me and my child in a tenement on the waterfront eating scraps! Is that something a human being does?"

The estate sat on a busy street in the old neighborhood, where everyone knew everyone's business. The commotion drew neighbors from every direction, and whispers rippled through the growing crowd.

"They say the new Ferrante Boss is famously devoted to his wife. He's got two children with her and won't even keep a woman on the side. So where did THIS wife come from?"

"Probably a fraud. I mean, look at her. The Ferrante house is connected. She claims to be his wife, but she looks like a beggar off the road. Bet she's just some grifter trying to latch onto a Family name."

I listened without a flicker of emotion, then reached into the bundle I'd brought and pulled out a marriage certificate.

"Take a good look. This is Dante Ferrante's own handwriting. If he refuses to acknowledge me as his wife, I'll take this certificate straight to the Commission and demand justice."

The head steward, lurking in the shadows of the gate, caught a glimpse of the handwriting on the certificate from a distance. His brow furrowed.

He leaned toward the gate soldier. "Stay here and watch her. I'm going in to inform the Boss and the lady of the house."

I saw every bit of it.

Sure enough, before a quarter hour had passed, Dante Ferrante came striding out of the estate, and right behind him, draped in gold and silver, was Gianna Greco.

The steward pointed at me. "Boss, this woman claims to be your wife. If she's a fraud, I'll have her thrown out at once."

Dante looked down at me from the top of the steps. "Lift your head."

I tilted my chin up slowly, the ghost of a smile on my lips.

The moment he saw my face, every drop of color drained from his.

"Serafina, is it really you? What are you doing here?"

He strode over and lowered his voice to a hiss.

"If you wanted to see me, you could have sent word through one of the men. Why make a scene in front of everyone?"

"Besides, I told you in my letters not to come back on your own. When the time was right, I would have sent someone to bring you."

I held my daughter tight and stared at him in cold silence.

Five years apart, and Dante looked even more handsome than before. Younger, somehow.

His suit was cut from fabric that cost more than most men earned in a year, the cufflinks heavy gold, monogrammed with the Ferrante crest he'd stolen.

My daughter and I, by contrast, wore clothes so thin and patched they barely held together. The kind of clothes no one in this compound would use for rags.

"Husband, didn't you promise me yourself? You said within three years, you would send someone to bring me back. It's been five."

Dante's expression darkened, though a flicker of panic crossed his eyes.

"Serafina, I will bring you back. But not now. The house is hosting a sit-down for the Capos and their people. Important guests. Take the child and leave. We'll talk later."

He slipped a thick envelope of cash into my hands, expecting me to take the money, walk away, and pretend we had nothing to do with each other.

I smiled coldly, opened the envelope, and turned it upside down. Bills scattered across the stone steps, caught by the wind, drifting toward the shoes of the soldiers flanking the entrance.

"The head of the Ferrante family has done well for himself. And this is how you dismiss the wife who stood by you when you had nothing? A handful of bills?"

My voice carried just far enough for every soldier and household man within earshot to hear every word. Dante's face went darker still.

He clenched his jaw and leaned in close. "What do you want from me? I said I'd bring you back. Can't you just take the child and wait a little longer? Just until tonight—"

I turned away with a cold smile, shifting my daughter in my arms as I walked toward the front doors of the house.

"Our daughter hasn't eaten in three days. I'm afraid she can't wait."

"Tell me, Dante, why are you so desperate to keep your own wife from stepping through the door? Is there something in there you'd rather I not see?"

I knew exactly why Dante didn't want me inside. The private dining room was filled with the most powerful men in the Commission's orbit, and among them sat Rosalia Valenti, wife of the Boss of All Bosses.

Every guest seated comfortably at those tables believed that Gianna Greco, his dead brother's widow, was the rightful lady of the Ferrante household.

A wife appearing out of nowhere was a problem Dante had no idea how to explain.

And that was precisely why I was here. To make sure he couldn't.

Dante stared at me, his face drained of color, scrambling for a way out.

Gianna's eyes darted, and then she stepped forward with a warm smile, reaching for my arm.

"Sister-in-law, what are you saying? You're Dante's wife, which makes you family. You and the child arrived so suddenly that Dante was simply overwhelmed with joy and didn't know what to say. He would never hide anything from you!"

She tried to steer me toward a side room off the main hall.

I pulled my arm free. "You must be the elder sister-in-law."

Gianna's smile froze for a heartbeat before she forced it back into place with a nod. Her fingers drifted to the hollow of her throat, a gesture so practiced it looked like modesty. It wasn't.

In my previous life, I had pitied Gianna for losing her husband so young. I never thought to guard myself against her. So when she led me to that side room and offered me cannoli from a silver tray, I never once suspected her intentions.

I had no idea that the poison in those cannoli was what killed my daughter and me. And the hand that placed it there was Gianna's.

"I think I'll skip the side room. Didn't my husband just mention there's a sit-down going on? My daughter and I are starving. We'll eat there. And while we're at it, my husband can introduce us to everyone."

"Serafina!"

Dante's voice dropped to a sharp growl. "You want to walk into that room dressed like that? You'd humiliate the entire Ferrante name on purpose?"

"At least change your clothes first. Gianna, would you take her to—"

Dante froze the moment the words left his mouth. When I said nothing, he rushed to explain.

"Serafina, don't misunderstand. Gianna is the only family I have left in this house. I think of her as my own sister. That's why I call her that."

"There is absolutely nothing between us!"

His frantic explanation only made my stomach turn.

I would never forget what I saw in the moments before I died.

Gianna had wept and lied, claiming that my daughter and I had been greedy and eaten cannoli laced with poison by mistake, and that was how we'd died.

Dante hadn't shed a single tear for us. Instead, his face had softened with tenderness as he pulled Gianna into his arms, slipped the clothes from her shoulders, and held her close.

He kissed the tears from her cheeks, murmuring comfort.

"Dead is dead. Even if she hadn't died, I would've had the union annulled in a few days anyway."

"For years now, the only people in my heart have been you and the two children. There's no room for anyone else, and I won't let anyone disturb our life in this house."

From that moment on, everything I'd ever felt for him was gone.

Gianna brought me back out once I'd changed. Dante was crouching in front of Valentina. "Don't you remember your father?"

Valentina stared at him in terror, shrinking back step by step, then ran to me and clung to my leg. Both small fists gripped the fabric of my skirt, but she didn't make a sound.

"She was only a few months old when you left. You didn't come back for five years. How would she possibly remember you?"

Valentina was only five, but with the grime washed from her face, she looked like a little porcelain doll.

Dante scooped her up and tried to coax her. "Be a good girl, Valentina. Say 'Papa.' I'm your papa."

She only found him strange. Her small lips pressed into a thin line as she studied him with wide, cautious eyes.

He hadn't raised her. After a few more attempts with no response, his patience ran out.

"Serafina, you've come and you've been seen. When are you planning to go back?"

I stared at him, stunned. Then I laughed.

"You mean you want me to take our daughter back to that miserable tenement and keep waiting, day after day, for you to come get us?"

Dante's brow furrowed, a shadow of irritation crossing his face.

"I told you, when the time is right I'll bring you both home. The time isn't right yet."

"I know this place looks grand, but there are a lot of people living here. There really isn't a spare room for you and Valentina. Once the guesthouse wing is finished, I'll send for you..."

I cut him off, my voice flat and cold. "Give it up."

"My daughter and I have stripped nearly every scrap of food from that neighborhood. Then the waterfront flooded, and even the dockworkers can't find a meal. We were on the verge of starving to death. I wouldn't take her back to that place if you made me a servant in this house."

It was laughable, really. The Ferrante compound had rooms enough for a small army, crawling with soldiers and household staff.

And Dante claimed he couldn't spare a single room for his own wife and daughter. Did he truly think I was that stupid?

In my last life, I never told him, not even on my deathbed, that my father was Don Enzo Castellano.

I had believed that standing by love meant something. That my devotion proved my worth.

In the end, I was nothing but a joke to them.

Five years rotting in that tenement on the wrong side of the waterfront, and none of it had mattered at all.

Dante's face went white. "What are you talking about? You were scrounging for food? I had money sent to you every month. Enough to live well."

I stared at him. "When did you ever send money?"

"In five years, all I received were your letters every few days. Not a single coin."

Dante whipped around, his eyes locking on Gianna.