Chapter 5

“Eh?” Lorenzo’s voice came through the phone, warm with a delight he didn’t bother to hide. “And your husband? How does a woman take a prize like Harlington out of her own Underboss’s hands and lay it in front of an outsider like me?”

I pressed down the exhaustion and the hatred both, and let my voice go cold. “That’s not your concern, Lorenzo. Run the racket clean. You won’t come out short.”

He clicked his tongue. “All right. I’ll take your generosity, Donna.”

Lorenzo had been at my side since the day I buried my father and took the reins of the Family. With his instincts, he could have stood as my blade years ago, second only to me in the whole Vellano crew. But my husband never liked him, so I kept the richest territories out of his hands.

Now I understood how foolish that had been.

“You treat me well, Donna,” Lorenzo said, and I could hear the smile in it. “A man ought to answer a gift with a gift.”

A gift? Before I could ask what he meant, he’d already said, “Ciao,” and the line went dead.

The next morning Rosaria announced, all of a sudden, that some urgent sickness had taken her and she needed a few days away from the estate. I had no wish to watch the old woman drift through my halls, so I let her take the leave.

I took my daughter to see the doctor who read troubled minds, and afterward we went out among the shop fronts together.

When Sofia stood staring at a little cake behind a bakery window, I told the girl at the counter, “I’ll take every small cake you have.”

But when they were set in front of her, she shook her head, again and again. “Mama, the cakes cost too much. I don’t want to eat…”

I lifted one gently to her lips. “Everything Mama earns is for you, my little treasure. From now on, whatever you want, it’s yours. You are the blood of this Family, and you are Mama’s little princess.”

Only then did she take a small, timid bite, and her eyes lit up all at once. “Mama, it’s so sweet!”

Seeing her smile like that, I couldn’t help but smile back.

I bought her a heap of little princess dresses and toys. I had just arranged for the whole lot to be carried back to the estate when Lorenzo’s man rang me.

“Donna, there’s something rotten in the big territory your husband’s been running. I’ve found it. A hole in the tribute, and not a small one.”

He sent the papers through. As I read, my palms went numb.

When Vincent took Harlington, he swore on his life he’d keep it in order so I could turn my attention to the houses across the water.

And this was how he answered.

Over two years, he had skimmed at least three million from the Family’s cash flow.

And what had all of it paid for?

At that moment my phone lit with a news alert everyone in the city was passing around.

“A mystery millionaire hires an entire cruise liner, spending a fortune on a birthday party for his little boy.”

The photograph showed a tall man with Marco in his arms, his other arm wrapped around a woman built to be looked at.

Even from behind, that familiar shape went through my heart like a thousand needles.

My daughter had just come out of an ambush on the heir’s convoy, broken in body and in spirit, and here was Vincent, spending my Family’s money on a birthday party for another woman’s son.

And with Sofia’s own birthday nearly upon us, he hadn’t spared her so much as a word.

Every year, when I wanted to hold a party for her, Vincent would murmur, “We shouldn’t spoil the child. Throw money at a birthday and the whole Family talks. What will they think of us?”

And like a fool, I had believed him.

My eyes drifted over Rosaria, grinning ear to ear as she folded a handkerchief into neat little squares, and something cold curved at the edge of my mouth.

I drew out my phone and dialed the Captain.