Chapter 2

In my previous life, I had also wept tears of joy when the lot fell to me, only to turn and find Salvatore Vitale's face pale as death. His eyes had gone to his adopted made-sister, not sparing me so much as a glance.

Now that I had been reborn, I refused to be the pathetic fool I once was.

At the head of the room, Salvatore suddenly flared, pulling Giuliana tight against him. He said in a cold, level voice that they were "leaving together," then walked out without a backward look, and the enforcers along the wall straightened as he passed.

With the principals gone, the remaining ninety-eight women scattered like startled birds.

I was turning to gather my things when Donna Vitale dragged me into a corner beneath the balcony.

Before I could react, a stinging slap landed across my cheek. "You wretched girl," she hissed.

"Didn't I tell you Salvatore would draw your number? Why did it come out an empty lot?" Another slap followed.

"You're just like that broken-down father of yours, shameless. I am your blood-mother, not some stranger off the street. I told you to listen and you threw my words to the dogs."

My face burned from the blows, but not as much as my heart did. "The day you married into the Vitale Family alongside that scheming little cheat Giuliana, that was the day you stopped being my daughter."

Donna Vitale's eyes turned vicious. She stroked once at the pearls at her throat, slow and even. "If anything happens to Giuliana because of you, I swear on the Family you will pay with your life."

In my previous life, they had nailed me into a box and given me the marsh justice, burial for a supposed betrayer. Only in that dark did I understand the arranged-union draw had been rigged from the start. Of course Donna Vitale had wanted Giuliana wed into power. But she also needed to bury a secret Giuliana carried. And me? I had been the sacrifice that secret demanded.

Now I wanted nothing more than to sit back and watch them cut each other to pieces. Their secrets were no concern of mine any longer.

I rubbed my swelling cheek, my gaze flat and empty. "I'll be marrying Arthur Corvo. Consider it the Family's cut repaid, for the tribute you spent keeping my father breathing all these years."

Her expression wavered.

Arthur Corvo was a name spoken carefully in every corner of this city's underworld, the Don they called the Angel-Faced Devil, a man rumored to answer to no code but his own. His temper ran unpredictable, and the whispers said he took men and women alike to his bed.

He was infamous for his lovers, some claiming as many as eight hundred had passed through his hands.

And now, word had it, he was looking to bring home a wife.

If I did not choose for myself, Donna Vitale would see me handed off to some brute soldier or some broken debtor she owed a favor.

So I chose Arthur Corvo first, because I already knew he was far from the simple animal everyone believed him to be.

Donna Vitale smiled coldly. "All right, good daughter. Then wait quietly to be married off."

She turned and swept away, her hips swaying with each step.

I let out a breath. My room sat at the far west end of the Vitale compound, past the garden inside the walls. And the garden, just then, was in an uproar.

Giuliana had a hand pressed to her mouth, sneezing softly. "Salvatore, brother," she whined, "who planted all this lavender? Don't they know I'm allergic?"

Salvatore held his handkerchief gently to her nose, all tenderness. Then he turned to the groundskeeper and gave the order. "Cut down every stalk of lavender in this bed. Take out that swing while you're at it, and clear any bird nests in the way."

That patch of lavender had been gathered from the roadside by my father, back when he was still sober, still whole, before the machines.

He used to say, "When I'm gone, the flowers go too."

I stared at the shovel in the groundskeeper's hand, my eyes wide. "Wait." I said it loud.

Everyone stilled, glancing nervously toward Salvatore. He frowned, his expression unreadable, the signet ring turning slow against his thumb.

"You think this is your home?" he said.

"You plant whatever you please? Or are you doing it to set off Giuliana's allergies on purpose?"

When I was five, my father had fallen gravely ill. I had run to the Vitale estate and begged Donna Vitale to help him. She had wanted me thrown out into the street, until old Vitale himself intervened.

He had cleared his throat, low, the way that alone once ended arguments in that house. "She can stay," he had said. "We can afford to keep a few charity cases under our roof."

And so I lived in the Vitale Family's shadow for twenty years. Salvatore had once been the quiet, withdrawn boy who let me play among the house soldiers' children. He had even told me, "The Vitale Family will always be your home."

Right beside the lavender stood a small wooden plaque, faded and worn. Salvatore had carved it himself as a child. It read: "A place that belongs only to Bianca Falcone and me, a home forever."