"Don't tell me you can't even scrape together enough to settle the tab."
"What a beautiful disgrace that would be." Silvana's lips curled around the words like a snake savoring venom. "Detained by the Feds for skipping out on a bill—isn't that exactly the kind of public humiliation you once arranged for me?"
She withdrew a slender cigarette from a silver case, placed it between her painted lips, and struck a match. The flame illuminated the cruel satisfaction in her eyes before she extinguished it with a flick of her wrist. She exhaled slowly, deliberately, sending a plume of Turkish tobacco smoke directly into my face.
Her expression dripped with the arrogance of a woman who believed herself untouchable.
I couldn't stop myself. My hand shot up and connected with her cheek—a crack that echoed through the private dining room like a gunshot.
The table went flying. Crystal shattered against marble. Chaos erupted.
Enzo rushed to Silvana's side, cradling her face with a tenderness he'd never shown me. Then his eyes found mine, cold as obsidian, and he snapped his fingers at his enforcers. Before I could react, two men in dark suits grabbed me by the arms and threw me to the ground.
The impact drove the air from my lungs. The cold floor bit through the silk of my dress.
"Celestina, that's enough!"
"Oh, so your goomah can torment people all she wants, but no one's allowed to fight back?"
I glared up at Enzo, my eyes burning with a fury I'd suppressed for three long years. The Gambetti Family's meteoric rise from small-time operators to one of Cresthaven's most respected syndicates? That was me. I'd leveraged every connection my bloodline commanded to clear their path. The rival clans who wanted to carve up Gambetti territory backed off. The Feds who sniffed too close suddenly found themselves reassigned. The protection agreements that should have taken decades to secure fell into place within months.
All because of who I was.
Tonight, on my birthday, I'd planned to finally tell Enzo the truth. That I wasn't some orphaned nobody he'd taken as a trophy bride. That I was the hidden heir to the Valente throne—the most feared of Northport's Four Founding Families.
I was going to bring him home to meet my parents. To formally unite our bloodlines.
I never imagined his loyalty could rot this fast.
I'd misjudged him. Overestimated his honor.
"Enzo." My voice was steady despite the enforcer's grip bruising my arms. "Are you really going to make me walk out of here humiliated? On the anniversary of our blood pact?"
Enzo let out a cold laugh that held no warmth, no recognition of the woman who had built his empire from the shadows. "What else? You think I arranged all this just for show?"
Silvana, emboldened by the wall of muscle surrounding her, stepped forward and swung her fist into my face. The copper taste of blood bloomed across my tongue.
"You worthless kept woman." She crouched down to my level, her perfume sickeningly sweet. "Here are your options: get hauled off by the Feds for failing to pay, or strip naked, hold this steak in your teeth, and crawl out of here on all fours like a dog begging for scraps."
She grinned, revealing teeth too white, too perfect. "Oh, and the difference? Option one, you keep your clothes. Option two, you lose your clothes and every shred of dignity you've ever possessed." She checked her diamond-encrusted watch with theatrical impatience. "So hurry up and pick—I'm getting bored."
Dozens of eyes watched me from the shadows of the private room—made men, capos from allied families, their wives dripping in blood money jewels. I was tonight's entertainment. The fall of the Gambetti Don's ornamental bride.
I clenched my fists until my knuckles went white, my gaze fixed on Enzo without a shred of emotion.
"Fine." My voice cut through the silence like a blade. "If this is the path you've chosen, then when the Gambetti Family loses its protection—when your territories are seized and your alliances crumble to ash—that's on you."
The moment the words left my mouth, Silvana burst out laughing. The sound was shrill, mocking.
"Ha! Did you hear that?"
Murmurs rippled through the assembled guests.
"Does she think she's living in some fairy tale? Playing the secret Donna?"
"She's clearly lost her mind."
"Three years as a trophy wife and she thinks she has power?"
Enzo's eyes flashed with cold fury. He thought I was bluffing too—a desperate woman grasping at phantom leverage.
He grabbed a plate of braised veal and hurled it at me. The porcelain shattered against my shoulder, sauce streaking down my ruined dress like blood. "Stop talking nonsense. You're going to bring down the Gambettis? Who do you think you are?"
I wiped the sauce from my cheek with deliberate calm. "Worry about your own problems first."
Enzo's jaw tightened. "Manager!"
The restaurant's manager materialized from the shadows, flanked by security in crisp black suits. His tone was cold but professionally neutral—the voice of a man who knew better than to take sides in Family business.
"Signora Gambetti, will you be settling the account in clean cash, or is someone coming to cover the tribute?"
I scanned the room, my gaze cutting through the sea of hostile faces until it landed on a woman I'd worked with before—a minor player in the shipping business I'd helped negotiate on behalf of the Gambettis.
I started walking toward her, my heels clicking against the marble like a countdown.
The second she saw me coming, she scrambled out of her velvet chair and backed away, nearly knocking over a waiter.
"Celestina, stay back—I can't pay for you—I don't have that kind of access—"
"Relax." I kept my voice low, controlled. "I'm not asking you to pay. I just need to borrow your phone."
She hesitated, fear warring with something else in her eyes—perhaps a distant memory of the respect my presence once commanded.
"Please. I'm calling a friend to bring the money."
Silvana's laughter cut through the room like breaking glass. "Oh, this is rich! Who in all of Cresthaven would dare come to your rescue now?"
She waved dismissively, settling back into her chair like a queen on a stolen throne. "Fine, let her make her little call. We'll give her thirty minutes." Her eyes swept across the room, landing on a cluster of heavyset capos who'd been watching the spectacle with undisguised hunger. "If nobody shows up with the tribute by then—"
She gestured at them with a lazy flick of her cigarette.
"—these gentlemen can strip her themselves. A woman who's shared the bed of Cresthaven's most powerful Don must be worth sampling, wouldn't you say?"
The men's laughter was low and predatory.
I took the phone from the trembling woman's hand, my fingers steady as I dialed a number I'd memorized years ago but never thought I'd need.
Thirty minutes.
That was all the time in the world.
