Chapter 2

I packed a few changes of clothes, took Sofia's hand, and went back to the Lucchese estate.

Fifty-seventh Street on the Upper East Side. The townhouse where I'd grown up.

Every other time I came home, before my heels even touched the front steps, Isabella would be sweeping out in her cashmere shawl, smiling.

Vittorio would stand under the portico, arms spread wide.

"*Mia principessa.*"

But this time—

The mahogany doors opened slowly.

Isabella stood under the crystal chandelier of the foyer. Not a trace of a smile on her face.

"What are you doing here?"

Her voice was colder than the December wind off Long Island.

"*Mamma…*"

My throat tightened.

"I don't have anywhere to go right now. I was hoping to bring Sofia here just for the night."

Isabella let out a cold laugh.

"The Lucchese estate is not a shelter."

"Don't drag your *disgrazia* through my door."

Something inside my chest constricted.

Sofia hid behind me, timidly poking her small head out.

"*Nonno! Nonna!*"

Her voice was soft, still carrying that careful, fragile hope.

Just like every other time she'd come home—waiting for her grandfather to sweep her up over his head, waiting for her grandmother to kiss her forehead.

But this time—

Vittorio stepped out of the study and stood on the landing of the staircase.

Cigar smoke curled around his face.

He looked at Sofia. Coldly.

"Don't address us like that."

"The Lucchese family has no *sangue* of unknown parentage."

I felt like I'd been struck across the chest with a lead pipe.

I stood there, numb.

A few days. Just a few days—

And we'd gone from being the apple of his eye, his beloved daughter and granddaughter, to something not even worthy of being called *famiglia*?

Memories flashed through my mind, one after another.

Vittorio, on Christmas Eve, lifting me up onto the dining table and, in his booming Italian, introducing me proudly to every visiting *Capo* —

"This is my Chiara. The brightest diamond in the Lucchese family."

Isabella, at every family banquet, walking arm in arm with me, boasting to anyone who'd listen—

"My daughter—the finest businesswoman in Manhattan."

But since Elena had been "found"—

It was as though God had reached down and stripped every ounce of their love for me away overnight.

The pieces of the family business under my management were peeled away, one by one.

The Atlantic City casino shares I'd worked countless sleepless nights to secure were transferred, bit by bit, to Elena's name.

The port connections I'd cultivated for years were erased with a casual, "Elena is the true Lucchese blood."

And back then, I actually consoled myself with such stupid, hopeful thoughts—

Elena was the real daughter, lost for twenty years.

Compensating her was fair. Right.

But now I understood.

It wasn't compensation.

It was hatred.

Hatred for the adopted daughter, the cuckoo in the nest, who had occupied Elena's rightful place for two whole decades.

Marco's words from that night in his study still echoed in my ears—

"Don Vittorio and Donna Lucchese both signed off on the fake DNA report."

To give Elena her satisfaction.

The adoptive parents who had raised me had knowingly allowed a public execution—had watched me and my daughter be ground into the dirt.

I drew in a deep breath and forced the churning emotion back down.

I tried, testing the waters:

"What if… that DNA test was wrong?"

"What if it had been tampered with?"

Isabella paused.

She didn't even lift her eyelids.

"The evidence is solid. You're still trying to squirm out of it?"

Vittorio ground his cigar out in the bronze ashtray.

There was a soft hiss.

"Every *Capo* in the family was there that night."

"You have dragged the Lucchese *onore* through the mud."

"One DNA report isn't enough for you?"

"Do we have to catch you and your lover *in flagrante* before you'll admit it?"

A chill crawled through me, bone-deep.

They knew.

They knew all of this was a lie.

And still, right now, they were using the most vicious tone imaginable to nail me to the pillory as a *puttana*.

Vittorio raised his hand in a gesture, and the *Consigliere* stepped out from behind him, holding a folder.

"Since you still want back into this family—"

"Tomorrow morning. Family press conference."

"You will make a public statement—"

"Admit to marital infidelity. Admit Sofia is not of Marco's blood."

"Then step down from every Lucchese business venture. Every share under your name gets transferred to Elena. Unconditionally."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My voice shook.

"You want me to admit *what?!*"

"Sofia is not a *bastarda!*"

Isabella didn't even look up.

She pulled a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the corner of her mouth, unhurried.

"What comes out of a counterfeit—"

"—if not more counterfeit?"

Something in my head roared.

Something inside my chest shattered completely.

That was when—

Light footsteps drifted down from upstairs.

Elena descended the marble spiral staircase.

She was wearing a soft cream knit dress, her eyes rimmed red, playing frightened and delicate.

"*Papà, Mamma*, don't be like this…"

She stepped between us, all pitiful grace.

That face—so much like Isabella's—was etched with meticulously performed "kindness."

"Chiara."

She turned to me, her voice as sweet as honey.

"I know this is hard for you."

"But *Papà* and *Mamma* are getting older."

"You know better than I do what the Lucchese name means among New York's Five Families."

"The family's *onore* cannot be dragged through the mud because of one woman's private life."

Then she bent down to look at Sofia, who was clutching my skirt tightly.

Her eyes brimmed with meticulously staged pity.

"As for whether Sofia is Marco's child—it doesn't really matter."

"Marco is such a good man—"

"He won't hold it against you."

I opened my mouth to speak again.

But Vittorio raised his hand, dismissing me with a gesture.

"*Basta.*"

"We raised you for twenty years. We were prepared to leave you with at least a scrap of dignity."

"Since you refuse to see reason—"

"From this moment on, never set foot in the Lucchese house again."

At his command, Alfonso the butler snapped his fingers, and two footmen appeared.

My few changes of clothes, along with Sofia's tiny suitcase—

*Thud.* Tossed down the front steps.

December in Manhattan.

The wind swept snow flurries down my collar.

Sofia tilted her face up at me. Her wide, hazel eyes—so identical to my own—filled with confusion and fear.

"*Mamma*… do we still have a home?"

I crouched down.

I took her small, cold hand and squeezed it tightly in mine.

I couldn't speak.

Not a single word.

Behind me, the great door—

*Slammed shut.*