I gave my in-laws a monthly allowance of ten thousand dollars. I handled every household expense, every meal, every errand. I ran the legitimate fronts, the restaurants and the import-export operations, that generated the tribute keeping the Mancini name alive. One hundred thousand dollars a month, laundered clean through Ferrante channels. I was the financial backbone of an empire that existed only because I held it together.

I never felt like a daughter-in-law. I felt like a servant. A servant who paid her own wages and still wasn't permitted to sit at the table.

And despite all of it, despite every dollar and every hour and every sacrifice scraped from the marrow of my loyalty, they still treated me as less than an outsider.

Rosalia crossed the room toward me. Her steps were unhurried, her smile polished to a shine that didn't reach her eyes. She stopped close enough that I could smell her perfume, something floral and cheap beneath the pretension.

"I'm sorry, Camilla." Her voice dripped with a sweetness so manufactured it could have come off an assembly line. "If I hadn't decided to join at the last minute, you wouldn't have lost your seat in the convoy. Honestly, I almost skipped the whole thing when I heard there were no spots left. But Enzo insisted he'd handle it. I had no idea he'd make you take the long road." She pressed a hand to her chest in mock sympathy. "I even offered to take the drive myself, but Enzo wouldn't hear of it. He was so worried about me traveling alone for that long. So I suppose I should thank you for taking the inconvenience."

Nicoletta hooked her arm through Rosalia's and leaned against her shoulder. "Exactly. Can you imagine Rosalia on some back road for thirty-six hours? All kinds of people out there. If some lowlife targeted a girl like her, what would we do?" She looked at me, and her lip curled with something that lived in the cruel space between amusement and contempt. "Camilla, on the other hand, has that look about her. Like a soldier. She'd scare them off before they got within ten feet."

The two of them dissolved into laughter, bright and careless, their voices ringing through the foyer like bells in an empty cathedral.

Enzo must have seen the fury settling across my face, because his tone softened. A calculated retreat, not an apology.

"Look. I know this arrangement isn't ideal. But it's the best solution we have." He paused, reaching for something he thought would placate me. "Last week you were eyeing that bag at the boutique on Fifth. Why don't you go ahead and get it?"

I held out my hand, palm up. "Fine. Five thousand."

His expression curdled. "Five thousand? I already said you could get it. Now you want me to pay for it too? Don't push your luck."

I let my hand drop. A smile crossed my face, thin and sharp as a stiletto.

"Since when do I need your permission to spend my own money, Enzo? Tell me. How much do you bring in each month?"

The flush hit his face like a slap. His jaw tightened. His eyes cut away from mine.

"That's not fair," he muttered.

It was perfectly fair.

Enzo Mancini earned three thousand dollars a month from minor protection rackets, pocket change that barely covered his cigarettes and his vanity. I generated one hundred thousand a month through the Ferrante-controlled fronts and operations I managed single-handedly. His salary didn't cover his own expenses. I had been funding this household, this family, this entire charade of a crime dynasty from the very beginning.

When we married, there was no dowry. No gift from the Mancini side. Nothing. I had absorbed the five hundred thousand dollar blood debt, added thirty thousand as a wedding tribute, and purchased the compound we lived in with Ferrante money. Every comfort they enjoyed, every meal on the table, every dollar in their pockets, every thread of respectability still clinging to the Mancini name, all of it came from me.

If they loved Rosalia Vitale so much, if she was their true daughter-in-law, their old neighborhood darling, their precious returning queen, then they could have her.

Let her fund the operation. Let her run the fronts. Let her keep the Feds at bay and the creditors satisfied and the household fed.

Let them see how long the Mancini name survived on Vitale money.

"Camilla, get to the kitchen and start dinner. It's late, and everyone's hungry." Donna Agata's voice cut through the sitting room like a dull blade, more habit than authority behind it.

I didn't spare her a glance. Instead, I turned to Rosalia with a smile so polished it could have graced the cover of a society page. "Rosalia, you and Enzo grew up together in the old neighborhood. I imagine you used to eat here all the time back then?"

"Of course!" Rosalia's voice lilted with practiced sweetness. "Back in those days, Enzo and I had practically every meal together. His mother's cooking, Sunday dinners, all of it."

"So after all those years away, you must really miss Donna Agata's cooking." I let my gaze drift to my mother-in-law, my tone warm as honey poured over a razor. "Mamma, shouldn't you get started on dinner for your guest? She's come such a long way."

I crossed the room, settled into the leather sofa, and reached for the remote. The television hummed to life, filling the silence I'd left behind me. I could feel the temperature in the room shift, the quiet recalibration of everyone's expectations.

It didn't take long. Enzo appeared beside me within minutes, jaw tight, irritation simmering behind his dark eyes. "How could you make my mother cook? You know her health isn't what it used to be." His voice dropped low, meant to sound commanding but landing somewhere closer to petulant. "Get up and handle dinner."

I widened my eyes, letting just the right amount of concern bleed through. "Mamma, you're unwell? Is it serious? Why didn't anyone tell me? We should call Dr. Ferraro immediately."

Donna Agata's face twisted. "Who's unwell? There's nothing wrong with me! Don't you dare try to put a curse on this house with that kind of talk."

"Then why don't you want to cook for Rosalia?" I tilted my head, amusement threading through every syllable. "You don't feel like it?"

The old woman's expression curdled like milk left in the Sicilian sun. Her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. "Who said I wouldn't cook?"

She pushed herself up from her chair and marched toward the kitchen with the stiff pride of a woman who still believed the Mancini name alone could fill a room. For the next two hours, the sounds of clattering pots and sizzling oil drifted through the estate. The smell of garlic and braised meat filled the hallways, and for a moment, the house almost felt like a home that functioned on something other than resentment.

When the table was finally set, Nicoletta took Rosalia by the arm and guided her into my chair at the head of the family side. The girl didn't even look at me as she did it. "Sis, Rosalia is our guest. You don't mind giving up your spot, right?"

Donna Agata materialized beside me, pressing a bowl into my hands the way one might hand scraps to a stray. "If sitting at the edge of the table is uncomfortable for you, why don't you take your plate to the kitchen? You can eat there. And while you're at it, clean up a bit."

I stared at the bowl in my hands. So now I wasn't even permitted at the table. The table I paid for. In the house my family's money kept standing. Eating food bought with tribute from Ferrante-controlled fronts.

I set the bowl down on the counter with a quiet, deliberate click.

"No need. You all enjoy yourselves." My voice was flat, stripped of everything but finality. "A friend invited me out tonight. I'll eat with them."

Enzo's brow furrowed, that familiar crease of irritation forming between his eyes. "We're leaving for the coastal villa tomorrow, and you're still going out? Have you packed your things yet?"

"Don't you have hands?" I met his gaze without flinching. "Pack your own bags, Enzo."

The silence that followed was exquisite. He stood there, mouth half-open, as though the concept of self-sufficiency had short-circuited something fundamental in his brain. I didn't wait for a recovery. I picked up my coat and walked out the front door.

The night air hit my skin like cold silk. I drove myself to Ristorante Luca, a place tucked behind an unassuming facade on the Upper East Side where the wine list ran longer than most novels and the clientele knew better than to ask questions. I ordered a bone-in ribeye, a half-bottle of Barolo, and a whole Maine lobster. I ate slowly, savoring every bite with the quiet satisfaction of a woman spending her own money in a world that wanted her to be grateful for crumbs.

With my own tribute, my own earnings, I could dine wherever I pleased.

I stayed out well past midnight, lingering over an espresso and a second glass of wine, watching the city pulse through floor-to-ceiling windows. There was no rush. There was nothing to rush back to.

When I finally returned to the estate, every light was out. The house sat in total darkness, silent as a mausoleum. Despite me being gone for hours, not a single call. Not a single message. No one had checked in. No one had wondered if I was safe, if I'd been followed, if I'd driven off a bridge. They had simply gone to bed, each of them, without a second thought for the woman who kept the roof over their heads and the wolves from their door.

I navigated the darkened hallway by memory, my fingers trailing along the cool plaster walls until I reached the bedroom. I pushed the door open, crossed to the bed, and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

A scream shattered the silence.

"Ah!"

My hand found the bedside lamp. Light flooded the room in a warm, merciless glow, and there she was. Rosalia Vitale, lying in my spot, her dark hair fanned across my pillow, the sheets pulled up to her collarbone as though she belonged there.

Something detonated behind my ribs. Five years of swallowed fury, of bitten tongues and clenched fists and quiet, corrosive patience. It all converged into a single, white-hot point. Before I could think, before reason had any chance of intervening, my hand connected with her face. The crack of the slap echoed off the bedroom walls like a gunshot.

Rosalia crumpled, clutching her cheek, tears spilling instantly. Enzo shot upright beside her, his arm sweeping around her shoulders like a shield. "Why did you hit her? We were just talking and must have fallen asleep. It was an accident."

"An accident." I tasted the word, and it was ash. "So you accidentally ended up in bed together. Holding each other. In my bed. That's the story you're going with."

"We were waiting for you!" Enzo's voice rose, defensive and loud, the volume compensating for the weakness of the argument. "You were out until God knows when, so Rosalia stayed to keep me company. We talked for a while, and then we fell asleep. It's perfectly normal."

"Then why didn't you call me? Why didn't you send a single message?" I held up my phone, the screen bare of notifications, and let him see it. "Too busy catching up with your old neighborhood flame? And the two of you couldn't wait in the living room? You had to come to the bedroom, to my side of the bed?"

Enzo's face darkened, his jaw set in that stubborn, cornered expression I'd come to know so well over five years. "You're being unreasonable, Camilla."

I was done. Done arguing with a man who couldn't see what was right in front of him because he refused to open his eyes. I turned to Rosalia, who was still curled against the headboard, tears tracking mascara down her cheeks in thin, theatrical lines.

"I'm back now. So why don't you leave?" My voice was quiet, controlled, each word placed with surgical precision. "Or were you planning for all three of us to share the bed?"

Rosalia didn't acknowledge me. She didn't even look in my direction. She pressed her palm to her reddened cheek and turned her face toward Enzo, her lower lip trembling. "Enzo, it really hurts."

Enzo's entire body softened. The anger, the defensiveness, all of it dissolved in an instant, replaced by a tenderness he had never once shown me. He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing the tears from beneath her eyes. "I'll get you some medicine."