Chapter 1

Adriana's POV

Every year, on the day the Family raised someone up in public, that honored one would soon be found dead. The higher the Falcone name lifted them, the more brutal the ending.

The Feds put a task force together each time, working the manhunt from the outside, but no matter how hard they pressed against the wall of silence, they never learned why it kept happening.

As fear spread through the ranks, some men deliberately kept their heads down, refusing any honor at all, terrified of being the next one lifted into the light.

But not me.

I worked harder than anyone, and in the end I stood higher than any Falcone before me, the most publicly honored name in the bloodline's history.

Because three years ago, it was my sister who was raised up, and I watched her die with my own eyes.

So I was going to make them pay for her.

——

My father died the year I was born. After that, my mother raised me and my sister alone. She took every filthy, back-breaking job the docks and the kitchens would give her, just to keep food in front of us and keep us close to the Family.

Plenty of men came to her, made men and soldiers alike, promising that if she'd take their ring, they'd help raise us. She turned them all down. She was afraid of what would happen to us if she brought another man into the house.

Because of her, my sister and I gave everything we had. We wanted to give her a better life.

Three years ago it was my sister's turn to be lifted before the Family. By then the pattern of the honored dying was a terror everyone knew and no one dared name aloud.

Every rising name was afraid, afraid of being raised too high and meeting the same end.

I remember warning my sister, begging her to stay low, to let someone else take the honor.

But she only smiled at me and said, "I've worked this hard for years so you and Mamma could have a better life. I'm not going to throw that away. Don't worry, I won't follow the others."

"And besides," she added, "I think all those deaths were just coincidence. I want to break the curse. I'm going to stand at the top this year."

And she did. She barely put a foot wrong, and the whole territory knew her name.

But on the very day she was raised up, my sister, who swore she would never take her own life, stepped off the rooftop without a moment's hesitation.

She said nothing before she died. She only looked at Mamma with this strange, heavy stare, and then she stepped off the edge.

She landed headfirst.

The scene was brutal.

Clutched in her hand was a bloodstained note with a single line on it.

[Adriana, whatever you do, don't let them raise you up.]

I held her broken body in my arms, screaming in agony.

But Mamma, who had loved my sister so much, only stood there, watching, without a single tear in her eyes.

I asked her why she didn't cry.

Her voice was cold and flat as she answered, "She wanted to be raised up. She has no one to point a finger at."

I didn't understand.

Mamma used to fall apart if my sister so much as ran a fever. Now, watching her own daughter die like that, she barely moved.

I couldn't forget the way my sister looked at Mamma right before she jumped. Something in that look haunted me.

It made me wonder if Mamma had a hand in her death.

But why would she?

And how could my sister, who loved her life so fiercely, suddenly decide to die?

So for the past three years I worked harder than anyone, all so I could step forward for this same honor.

This time, I was walking into the same trap on purpose, to drag the truth out from under the silence.

On the day the Family was to raise my name, I went into the kitchen where Mamma stood rinsing rice for supper, the faint smell of garlic already in the air.

"Mamma, if I died… would you cry?" I asked.

She stilled, just for a heartbeat. Then she turned to look at me, confused. "What kind of question is that?"

I let the silence sit a moment, then said, quietly and seriously, "I've already heard the whispers. If they're right, I'll be the one raised up this year."

I watched the light in her eyes fade, visibly, as if something inside her had simply shut its doors.

Her palm drifted up and smoothed the fabric flat over her heart. With barely a flicker of anything at all, she looked at me and said, "Oh. Congratulations."