My sister has always dreamed of getting rich overnight.

Driven by her ambition, she orchestrated a deliberate accident, gravely wounding the only grandson of the Moretti Family, the most feared name in New York. A steel bar pierced the child's chest. She played the good Samaritan, rushing him to the hospital and even giving 800cc of her own blood, a blood debt repaid for a crime she herself had set in motion.

She looked selfless, doing a good deed without leaving her name. Yet the moment the child was out of danger, she slipped from the hospital, certain her act of "mercy" would shame the Family into a far greater tribute.

Not only did I fail to stop her, I stood watch in the corridor, making sure no one caught her.

In my previous life, I had seen her scheming down at the docks. I tried to talk her out of it, warning her that people like us could not afford to cross the Moretti Family.

She pretended to listen and even praised me for having sense.

But on the way back, she detoured to the warehouse yard and pushed me from the roof of the steel plant.

Steel bars ran me through, and I died with my eyes wide open, full of regret.

She pinned it all on me, swearing I had ruined her one chance at easy money.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the accident.

This time, I am going to let her dig her own grave.

——

The Moretti heir was being worked on behind the doors of the operating room.

Gemma Falcone, my sister, stood by the window, her blood running into the child to save him.

Her delicate face wore a perfectly arranged worry, and her expensive dress was smeared with blood.

To anyone watching, she looked like a selfless savior, not the one who had arranged the whole thing.

After the nurse drew her blood, Gemma pressed on, anxious:

"Is that enough? If not, take more! I'll give as much as he needs!"

"The boy's so young, you have to save him! Otherwise I'll never have peace the rest of my life!"

The nurse, swayed by her face and her apparent kindness, assured her the child needed no more, that what she'd given was already more than enough. Gemma made a show of deep gratitude, bowing her thanks.

When asked her name, she steered the question away with practiced ease. It was all part of the plan. Her details were already on the transfusion receipt. She wanted to seem like a woman who saved a life and asked nothing, knowing that would force the Moretti Family, a name that wanted for nothing, to press far more upon her in return.

After all, tribute and laundered cash were the one thing the Morettis never lacked.

The moment the nurse vanished behind the operating room doors, Gemma dropped the act.

She seized my arm, gripping hard enough to make me wince.

"From now on, keep your mouth shut. You know what to say and what not to say," she hissed.

"We're in this together. If the Moretti Family ever finds out what I did, you won't walk away from it either!"

She expected me to object, the way I always had before.

But this time I only loosened her hand from my arm and smiled.

"Don't worry. You're my sister. Who else would I stand by, if not you?"

"When the Morettis pay you off, start your own outfit. Just give me a front desk job so I can get by."

Gemma looked at me, satisfied, and gave a little snort as she wiped the blood from her hands.

"What Mamma and Papa say is true. You're useless. You'll spend your whole life working for other men. Without me you'll never set foot in a decent house, no matter how hard you break your back!"

I nodded meekly, playing the part of someone small and frightened.

In my last life, my resistance had bought me a gruesome death.

This time, I had a different plan.

Not only would I keep from stopping her, I would help her along.

I wanted to watch her ruin unfold the moment she crossed the Moretti Family.

Gemma, blind to any of it, smirked at the look on my face.

"Stop sniveling. Just looking at you makes me sick!"

"When I have my own outfit, I'll make you my secretary. I'll even put a driver on you. That ought to be enough to keep you comfortable the rest of your life!"

With that, she pulled me toward the elevator.

And sure enough, when the doors slid open, we came face-to-face with Lorenzo Moretti, the Don of the most feared Family in New York.

She glared at me with fierce intensity.

Panicking, I muttered something about a sour stomach and slipped behind the door of the bathroom.

What a joke. Now I was knotted into her scheme like a name on the same hit list.

When her trick came apart, wouldn't I be the one dragged down into the dirt with her?

Moments later, I heard my sister's sweet, practiced laugh drift down the sterile corridor:

"No need to thank me. Saving a life is simply the right thing to do. The boy is only five years old. I couldn't just turn away and let him bleed."

"I only lent a hand. I want nothing for it. In fact, I have other matters waiting, so I'll take my leave now."

When the Don's right hand stepped forward to press a thick envelope of laundered cash into her palm, she made a hasty exit.

But she made certain to leave behind a card with her name and her number, set down on the counter like a calling card for tribute.

I came out of the bathroom and pressed myself into the shadowed end of the hall, weighing whether I should simply disappear before anyone noticed me. Before I could move, I caught the low, even voice of Lorenzo Moretti speaking to his right hand:

"Find out whether this was an accident or whether someone planned it."

"Keep the law out of it. I'll handle this myself. If a man laid hands on my son, there are a hundred ways to make him wish he hadn't."

"Every soul who was at the docks when it happened, I want their names. The broken steel that ran through him, I want to know if it was loose by chance or by design. We'll see which holds up longer under pressure. The steel, or the life of whoever set it."

The right hand inclined his head, again and again, in agreement.

When Lorenzo's gaze settled on the card Gemma had left, I went still, bracing for whatever came next:

"And this Gemma woman?"

"Leave her be for now. My son comes first. I'll see to her when he opens his eyes."

After Lorenzo and his crew stepped into the elevator and the doors sealed shut, I finally let out a shaky breath.

The Moretti Family held this city by the throat. No one crossed them and walked away whole.

Gemma had dared to spill the blood of their only heir. Her future was already written, and it was a short one.

Once I left the hospital, I saw that Gemma's car was already gone.

I tried calling her. No one picked up.

With no other choice, I flagged down a cab and went home to the tenement.

The moment I crossed the threshold, my father hurled a glass ashtray at my head.

Blood began to slide down at once.

My mother's voice came right behind it, clicking her tongue, dragging her eyes up and down over me before the words even fell.

"Adriana, can't you show some ambition for once in your life? You're absolutely hopeless!"

"Your father breaks his back on the docks for the made men year after year. Crossing paths with Don Moretti and his boy is the kind of chance that comes once and never again. If you won't help your sister, at least don't ruin it for her!"

My father struck the open wound on my forehead, and I flinched, the pain white behind my eyes.

"Gemma told you to clear out of that hospital. Are you deaf, or were you trying to steal the credit for saving that child? How did I ever raise something this useless?"

"If Don Moretti goes looking for you, how do we finish what we started? How do we collect what's owed? You absolute fool!"

So they had known all along. This was a shakedown, a blood-debt squeezed out of a Don.

They didn't just know. They were behind Gemma's poison from the start.

In my last life they had blamed me for wrecking her scheme, and they hadn't even bothered to claim my body off the steel.

I no longer cared to keep the peace with them.

"Steal the credit for saving someone? Or take the fall for her nearly killing him?"

"I haven't got the stomach for either. Every part of this is rotten down to the bone."

My father, enraged, raised his hand to strike me again.

But Gemma, home early, stepped in.

"Don't waste your breath on her. She's just a useless piece of trash, no good to anyone for anything. Lucky for us I thought ahead and left my card behind at the hospital." She laughed a half-beat too fast and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

At that, my mother's scowl melted into a beaming smile.

"Gemma, you've always been the clever one. I've said it since you were small. You're meant for villas and easy money, destined for greatness!"

"Not like someone else under this roof, more trouble than she's worth. A lazy mule! Twenty years of feeding her, and all she's ever been is a drain on this house!"

Too tired to argue, I withdrew to my room and grabbed a fistful of tissues to press against the wound. My thumb found the inside of my left wrist and pushed hard, there at the spot where the steel had once run me through, and I did not even notice I was doing it.

In the front room, Gemma was still spinning her version of the story, basking in their praise.

When I heard them rehearsing the story about the boy falling, I couldn't hold back a sneer.

"Don't mistake Don Moretti for a fool just because you are one. 'Falling.' Is that the word you've settled on? Do you really think you can bury what you did under something that thin?"

"Steel doesn't bend the way you need it to. You believe a bar like that just happens to snap, and just happens to find the only child in the room? Lie to the neighbors if you must. Don't insult yourselves."

Their faces changed, and the Falcones came crowding into my room, agitated, the cheap floorboards groaning under them.

A hand cracked hard across my face.

"I always knew you were useless. From now on you keep that mouth shut. If you breathe one word that ruins your sister's arrangement, I'll break your legs myself."

"You remember this. It was an accident, nothing more. Your sister pulled the Moretti boy out of harm's way out of the goodness of her heart. It's only right the Family pays us our due. And if they don't, they're the ones with no honor."

I cupped my stinging cheek and let out a dry laugh. Their shamelessness turned my stomach.

"So I'm useless for trying to earn an honest wage at the docks. But if I won't shake down a Don the way she does, I'm worthless."

"If money has to cost me my conscience, I'd sooner starve in the gutter."

My father's face went crimson. He snatched up the cracked ashtray from before and hurled it at my head again.

"Honest wage? What can you do, you? If your mother and I leaned on you, we wouldn't have the cash for our own burials!"

"Bad enough you're worthless, and now you've got the nerve to run your mouth about your sister? Look at yourself. What have you ever amounted to? Had I known, I'd have married you off for whatever dowry I could squeeze out of you."

Blood from the ashtray wound slid down my face, the heat of the infection searing into my skin, but my heart felt colder than ever.

"I'm your daughter, not some piece of merchandise to trade for tribute. If you despise me this much, why didn't you stop at Gemma? Why bring me into the world at all?"

For one flickering moment, panic crossed both their faces.

But before they could swing again, Gemma cut in, smug, twirling on her heel. "Don't waste your breath on her. She'll be poor her whole life. At the hospital she was already groveling, begging me to take her on at the front desk once I've got my own place set up. What else does a nothing like her have to offer?"

She laughed a half-beat too fast and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "And did you catch the way Don Moretti looked at me today? That wasn't nothing. His wife's been in the ground for years. If he sends for me in the next few days, I just might catch his eye. And then forget a few thousand in tribute. I'll be set for life."

My parents burst out laughing, nearly bent double with it. They heaped praise on Gemma, calling her the pride of the family name.

But I was the only one who saw the truth. The way Lorenzo Moretti had looked at her was not admiration. It was suspicion, cold and patient, the look a man gives something he has already decided to dismantle.

If Gemma was reckless enough to cross the Moretti Family, ten lives wouldn't be enough to buy her back.

Blind to all of it, they kept singing her praises. They went and fetched the health tonics they'd laid in ahead of time, to help her recover from her "heroics."

Not once did their eyes drift toward me.

I stood there in silence, watching it play out, set on saying nothing more. My purpose was clear. I needed to cut the rope binding me to these people before it dragged me under with them.

Even as my lips curled into a mocking smile, my words cut deep:

"It turns my stomach, the way you look straight past the greed and the lies. Do you have any idea what you're setting yourselves up against?"

As I knew it would, the mood soured in an instant.

"Get out!" My father roared, the veins standing out in his neck. He grabbed the page that carried the family name, tore my name from it, and flung the scrap at me. "I won't keep a worthless daughter under this roof! Pack your things and go!"

My mother joined in, clicking her tongue, raking her eyes up and down me before the disappointment settled into her face.

Gemma, thumbing through her phone, didn't even glance up. With a scoff she added, "I was going to put you to work once my place is running, but seeing as you hate me so much, don't come crawling back when you've got nothing."

My goal was met. Smirking, I bent and picked up the torn scrap of the family name from the floor.

"One day you'll understand just how dangerous it is to meddle with the Moretti Family."

"When that day comes, we'll see who ends up on their knees, begging for mercy."

With that I walked out of the apartment and headed straight for the nearest pharmacy.

The clerk's eyes went wide at the sight of my bloodied head. She hesitated as she handed me the medicine, her voice trembling. "Miss, you really should let a hospital see to that."