Chapter 1

The night of our alliance union was announced, my Nonna was taken to answer for a crime she never committed. The man who spoke the accusation was the Vitale Family's own consigliere. Lorenzo walked her in himself and gave his word against her, standing before the inner circle with his hands folded. In the end, he refused to settle it quietly, the way a made man settles things between his own.

"Ambra's necklace went missing," he said, his voice low and even, the kind of voice that made soldiers straighten against the walls. "Your grandmother was the only outsider in the room. The only one from the country. If she didn't take it, who did?"

Across the room, Ambra caught my eye and let her smile sit a half-second too long before it settled back into place, pleased with the machinery she'd set turning.

It was absurd. There was no proof, no dossier, nothing. Yet on Ambra's word alone, a Falcone daughter's word, my Nonna was handed over to the Family's justice and locked away.

"If the necklace doesn't turn up, she doesn't walk," Lorenzo added. Then he turned to me, adjusting the cuff at his wrist. "But this has nothing to do with us. The union stands. Next month, as arranged."

I looked down at the ring on my finger, the mark of a pact between bloodlines.

Suddenly, I felt exhausted. Marriage didn't feel necessary anymore.

——

The Vitale name carries weight in this territory, and so my Nonna was held fifteen full days without a single hand raised in her defense. When they finally let her out, her blood pressure spiked and she collapsed on the spot.

I got her to the hospital, one that took the Family's money and asked no questions, but all I got back were the doctor's words. Massive blood loss during surgery. They couldn't save her.

"Gianna… I didn't take it. I saw her. She threw the necklace into the flower vase…" my Nonna said. "Call Lorenzo… I'll tell him myself… He can't go on thinking you had anything to do with it…"

Even with her last breath, she clung tightly to my hand, refusing to let go. Tears rolled down my face as I dialed Lorenzo again and again to no end. My thumb pressed against the gold bracelet at my wrist, the one that had always been hers, and I held on to it like it could hold me together.

After countless rings, he finally picked up. He sounded more annoyed than concerned. "I'm carrying the Family and this union both, and you've been off the grid two weeks. Do you even want this marriage?"

"Lorenzo, please… can you come to the hospital? Nonna's dying… I'm begging you…"

I didn't care about pride anymore. I begged through tears with my voice shaking.

Lorenzo was taken aback for a moment before answering. "…Fine. I've got a sit-down first. Just wait for me."

My Nonna held on, barely breathing, from morning until night. My phone battery died from calling too many times, but even then Lorenzo never came.

A kind nurse brought me a charger and made small talk as she plugged it in.

"Did you hear? Mr. Vitale's throwing a celebration up at the estate on the hillside tonight. For his consigliere's woman, they say. More lavish than the union feast, even. I heard there'll be fireworks all night. Can you imagine?"

Nonna heard it too. Her eyes flickered like she understood everything.

She patted my hand gently, the way she did when I was little.

"Sweet girl… I dragged you into this mess." She added, "There's a pair of gold bracelets from your mother… I put them under your pillow. Don't fight with Lorenzo. Don't let this delay the wedding…"

Her hand slipped from mine as the monitor screamed and her heartbeat line flattened.

I collapsed in sobs by her hospital bed. Behind me, beyond the glass, fireworks exploded across the sky in a beautiful, obscene display, lighting up the hills where the Family drank to another woman's name.

My phone lit up again. A message threaded through the Family's circles: a photograph of Lorenzo with his arm around Ambra, whispering in her ear, the perfect match between two great houses.

I gripped Nonna's hand tightly, refusing to let go. "Nonna… please wake up… I don't want to marry him anymore… I'm not marrying him…"

I'd met Lorenzo right after his last betrothal fell apart. The girl promised to him had slipped beyond the reach of the Family, gone overseas to start over, and he was drowning it all at a bar on neutral ground. I handed him a bottle and he downed it.

Thanks to him, I made near forty thousand that night.

As I got up to leave at dawn, he caught my sleeve and held it tight. "Tell me how to forget her," he pleaded. "Please… help me forget."

Maybe it was the money. Maybe it was something else. But when the season turned, I brought him home to Nonna's house out in the country, far from the territory and its watching eyes.

There's an old saying. You do something long enough and it gets stuck in your head, even in your sleep.