Chapter 3

“Adriana! Why the hell did Salvatore add you?! Were you trying to get your claws into him?!”

Madonna. Her eyes were bloodshot, her voice low and enraged, the kind of low that made the neighbors pull their shades.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I snapped, prying her hands off me.

She chased after me down the hall like a rabid dog, demanding an explanation. “Answer me! Why did he add you?!”

I was going to ignore her. Then I paused. Knowing her temper, I figured I’d toss her a scrap to chew on.

“It might be because his outfit wanted to buy the ledgers on my book. But I already swore the pact to another house, and they’re trying to talk me into switching allegiance.”

“Why didn’t you just say that earlier? I almost misunderstood,” she huffed, smoothing her skirt. “I knew it. There’s no way a man like Salvatore would look twice at someone like you.”

Right. She always looked down on me.

Back in the old neighborhood, she was the one the elders favored, the one who ran with the connected girls, while I was just the quiet Fiore daughter with a good memory and nothing else going for me.

I suppose she kept me around as her “sworn sister” for one reason only: so I could be the shadow that made her shine brighter.

I didn’t bother answering her mockery. I just picked up my smashed phone and walked away.

“Tch. Scribbles some trashy little book and thinks she’s made. What a freak?!”

She didn’t even try to keep her voice down. It carried clean across the room, meant for me to hear.

In my last life, I would’ve brushed it off as her just being upset.

But now I know better. My “sworn sister” has always been this rotten, all the way to the bone.

Two days later, the pact arrived by courier from the Atlas house, sealed and waiting for my mark.

That night, Carmela knocked on my door.

“Adriana, don’t swear your ledgers to Atlas. Swear them to our outfit instead. I know we can’t match their tribute, but hey, we’re sworn sisters, right? You’ll do this for me, won’t you?”

Just like that, she plucked the pact off the table and dropped it in the trash like it was nothing.

This one’s so certain I’ll roll over for her.

“Carmela, I already gave them my word. I can’t help you on this one.”

I kept my head down to hide the annoyance in my eyes and fished the pact back out of the bin.

“Don’t forget who’s got Salvatore’s eye. Once I’m married into the Blanco bloodline, you’ll be lucky if I let you lick the plate. Don’t be stupid, cara.”

“Sorry, Carmela. I really can’t break the oath.”

She opened her mouth to blow up again, then something crossed her face and she made herself go still, swallowing it down.

“Forget it. I’m going to bed. Go take your shower.”

I smirked to myself, gave a small nod, and carried my nightclothes to the bathroom.

When I came out, she was gone.

So was the pact.

Then I saw her message.

[Had to leave early. Don’t worry, I sent the pact off for you.]

“She really is that desperate. Dio.”

I copied the footage off the security feed I’d had installed, pulled the real Atlas pact from my drawer, pressed my thumb hard against the inside of my left wrist for the space of one breath, then signed it clean and sent it out myself.

The next morning, a girl from the old neighborhood called.

“Hey, Adriana, did Carmela come into money or something? Her feed’s nothing but designer these days. She land herself a made man?”

I blinked, a little surprised. I opened the page to see what she meant.

Carmela’s wall looked like a shop window on Fifth Avenue. Doing it to catch Salvatore’s eye, no doubt.

“I don’t really know. She hasn’t said a word to me.”

“Listen… that men’s jacket she posted… doesn’t it look like—”

After the call, I scrolled back to a photo Carmela had put up two days earlier.

It was a man’s suit jacket. Stained with coffee.