Chapter 4

Through the gap in the door I saw Salvatore pull Bianca into his arms.

His voice came hoarse, trembling with the bitterness of a love he'd bled for.

"No… Bianca, you owe me nothing. I did all of it with my own two hands, and gladly. Now that you carry my blood… there's no greater blessing this famiglia could give me. And Adriana was always good to me. You don't need to carry any guilt for her."

Beyond the ward the man and woman held each other, kissing without shame, as if no code, no oath, no watching soldier could touch them.

His voice thick with sobs told me everything. He truly loved her.

They were going to have a child. The pain tore through me like an old wound ripping open all over again.

Tears spilled silently down my cheeks.

So I was nothing more than the extra. The unnecessary one. From the first day to this one.

I tried to shut out their voices, to silence the intimate sounds bleeding through the door.

But they wrapped around me like a curse and would not let go. I buried my face in the coarse blanket and bit down until my gums bled. I don't know how long I lay there like that.

Until the door creaked open and the soft scent of powder drifted across the room.

Before I could react, a pair of slender hands closed around my chin.

"Don't be frightened, Adriana," the voice said. "It's only me. Bianca…"

Her name made me flinch and thrash against the leather straps in the dark.

She laughed softly and, unhurried, began to unbuckle my restraints one at a time.

"Adriana. The proud girl the whole neighborhood used to admire, reduced to this. What a joke. The men of the Vitale bloodline. Either of them would take me over you without a breath of hesitation. Salvatore most of all. He gave up everything for me…"

Her voice turned cold, threaded with pride. For half a second her smile froze before it settled into something soft and maternal, one hand drifting to rest flat against her belly.

"He's such an honorable man, isn't he? And yet, for me, he drove his own mentor into the grave, just to buy me a place at that girls' front and see our union blessed. What kind of love do you imagine that is?"

I stared at her, stunned.

"After your father died, you begged Salvatore to look after you. Your pitiful mother must have thought he was the savior of your bloodline. So sad. But it was Salvatore who scattered your father's remains with his own hands, and never gave him the burial a made man is owed."

Her words struck me like lightning.

I had always believed my father died by his own despair, a man broken and hollowed out.

But no. Salvatore, the man my father had raised in the life, the one he'd loved like a son, had driven him to his death.

Fury exploded in me. I shot up and wrapped both hands around Bianca's throat.

But before I could squeeze, the door slammed open.

The instant she saw Salvatore, Bianca threw herself into his arms, sobbing.

"Salvatore! I only wanted to help Adriana. I felt sorry for her, so I loosed her restraints. And she said I'd stolen everything from her and tried to choke the life out of me!"

I opened my mouth to explain.

The slap came before a single word could leave it.

"Adriana!" Salvatore's eyes blazed. "People try to help you and this is how you answer them? Why lay every sin at Bianca's feet? You've lost your mind completely!"

He gave me no chance to speak.

He simply left me there, trembling on the cold floor, while he folded his arms around her like a shield.

As the door closed, Bianca looked back at me with a slow, mocking smile.

She had every reason to smile.

I was a failure. A discarded thing.

But what neither of them understood. Even a cornered rabbit bites.

After they had gone, I forced myself to stand.

I signed myself out and walked from that place under no one's protection but my own.

And once I was home, I followed the instructions laid out in my aunt's letter, every line of it in Vivian Ferraro's steady hand.

With everything set in its place, I left. Without looking back.