Chapter 2

After the last of them had gone, I took out the envelope I'd prepared and pressed it into the hired man's hand. "Thank you for your trouble. I've doubled what we agreed."

He took the money, then leaned in close, his towering frame carrying a quiet, deliberate weight, the kind of stillness men in our world learn to notice. "Signorina Bellucci, if you ever need a man who knows how to disappear a problem, you call me."

When the door of the private ward clicked shut, I let out a long breath.

Sunlight cut through the window. I inhaled deeply. The air reeked of antiseptic, but under it lived the faint scent of life.

In my past life, it was in this very room, in this very Falcone-owned clinic, that I signed the alliance pact while my memory bled out of me. I even placed the Bellucci rackets, our tribute rights, our territory, into Salvatore Calderone's hands with my own fingers.

This time, I won't make the same mistake.

My phone vibrated against the sheet. I answered.

"Adriana." My mother's voice came careful, testing the ground before she stepped on it. "The Falcone Family sent word today. They want to bind our bloodlines by marriage. Would you consider it?"

I clutched the phone tighter.

She had raised this in my previous life too, and I had refused without a second's thought.

"Your mother knows you were half mad for the Calderone boy, but arranged pacts between Families rarely hold. I only want you matched with someone stronger."

"Who told you I wanted Salvatore?" I laughed. "Mother, I was only ever measuring myself against him. For the sake of what our Family owns."

She went quiet, plainly caught off guard. "I'll accept the Falcone proposal," I said, calm. "They're disciplined, principled, and by far the wiser match."

"Truly?" Her voice brightened all at once. "The Falcone heir may be cold as a blade, but Dio, he's a hundred times the man that Calderone brat is. I'll tell your father now."

After she hung up, I stared at the ceiling, empty-headed.

The Falcone Family was the shrewder choice. They were feared, deeply rooted, their soldiers the most disciplined in the territory. And in my past life, when the whole Commission turned away under Calderone pressure, the Falcones were the only ones who stood by the Bellucci name.

Before my mother's name-day, I went alone to a private sale, the kind where the old Families bid on things that never see daylight.

The moment I stepped inside, I saw Salvatore with his arm coiled around Gemma's waist, the two of them close and warm as a lit match.

Gemma's eyes settled on my custom suit, and something ugly and envious flickered behind them.

"Interesting." Salvatore lifted a brow. "You following me now?"

"Don't flatter yourself. Coincidence, nothing more." I turned to go, but his hand closed around my wrist.

"Enough with the games," he murmured. "You think playing cold catches my eye?"

I wrenched my hand free. "Signor Calderone thinks far too much of himself."

Once the bidding opened, Gemma made a show of chasing anything I so much as glanced at.

Salvatore went further, tripling the offers.

"Five million." He threw me that smug look. "Care to go higher, Signorina Bellucci?"

A ripple of low breaths moved through the room.

That antique vase wasn't worth two.

I set my bidding card down gently and rose to leave.

Then a message lit up my phone:

"If you want to be the Calderone matriarch, start by learning your place. Right now you're not even fit to be my mistress."

I looked at it for two seconds. Then I blocked the number for good.

But three days later, I crossed paths with Salvatore again, this time in one of the luxury boutiques the Families used to launder their money clean.

Gemma's eyes brightened the instant she saw the shoes in my hand. Salvatore caught it at once, drew her against him, and said,

"Gemma, you want them? I'll buy them for you."

The clerk cut in then, careful. "Signore, forgive me. That pair is limited. Signorina Bellucci reserved them three months ago. It's the last one in the territory."

"I said," Salvatore's voice climbed, his eyes fixed on the clerk as his hand moved to straighten his watch and shoot his cuffs, "I want those shoes. Now."