Those words turned both their eyes red in an instant.
Marcello wrenched the wedding dress from my hands without a word and held it out to Gianna.
In the struggle, the rose jade hairpin fell to the floor and snapped in two.
Enzo kicked it aside without a glance and strode toward Gianna.
"Here, Gianna, try on the dress."
"No! You can have everything else, but not this dress..."
I clung to one corner of it, unwilling to let go of this last thing I had left.
"Serafina Valente, it's a dress. Would it kill you to let Gianna have it? She gave up a lifetime of happiness for you!"
The two of them flanked Gianna, shielding her, glaring at me like I was the enemy.
I looked at their eyes. The hatred in them, as if I were some stranger who had wronged them.
Whatever was left of my attachment died right there.
I grabbed the wedding dress back and threw it into the fireplace along with the jewelry box and every letter we'd ever exchanged.
I didn't want any of it. None of it.
Years of devotion, gone in a single moment.
"Serafina, what is wrong with you? Do you have any idea how valuable those things are?"
Marcello was livid.
But when he saw me reach for the portrait album, his fury turned to panic.
He shoved his hands into the flames and pulled it out, burning himself to save it.
"Fine. Those are just things. We can replace them when the Family gets back on its feet. But this, Serafina, this isn't something you throw away in a fit of anger."
He wiped the soot off carefully and pressed it into my hands.
He and Enzo had drawn every page themselves.
It was the record of all three of our lives.
From the day I was born, to my first stumbling words.
From the childhood betrothal promise to the formal alliance engagement.
The three of us, growing closer with every passing year.
So close to becoming family.
But the deepest bonds are the most fragile, and what rises highest falls the hardest.
That last small distance between us became an unbridgeable gulf, pushing us toward strangers who would never meet again.
After they left, I lit the album on fire.
Every feeling from all those years, burned to ash.
The compound was silent around me. The low crackle of the flames in the grate was the only sound, and even the soldiers posted outside the corridor knew enough to stay away. I watched the pages curl and blacken. Faces I had loved dissolving into nothing.
The next morning, when I went out to pick up supplies from the front business on Mulberry Street, every street corner buzzed with talk of the Cripple taking a bride.
"The Valente family are supposed to be old blood. Sending their trueborn daughter off in a subordinate marriage to a cripple. How far they've fallen."
"I heard that cold-blooded cripple spent a fortune having a whole set of jade-handled instruments carved. He's the type who knows exactly how to break a person. That Valente girl is in for a world of suffering."
The gossip jolted me, but the feeling passed quickly.
Could any of it be worse than what I was living through now?
There was no place left for me in the Valente family.
When the agreed-upon day came, I meant to slip away without troubling anyone.
But passing through the main hall, I saw Gianna curled against Enzo's chest, crying. Her left hand rested delicately against her collarbone, fingers splayed like a woman catching her breath from genuine grief.
"It doesn't matter if I suffer a little. What matters is that the Valente name isn't dragged through the mud. Besides, I already have someone I care for... Once I've helped the Family through this crisis, I'll prove my loyalty with my own life!"
Marcello and Enzo crowded around her, falling over themselves to comfort her.
One moment swearing they loved her, the next vowing to go put a bullet in Dominic Ravenna themselves.
I said nothing. I stood quietly, smoothing the folds of the embroidered silk pouch I'd finished stitching the night before. My right hand drifted, briefly, to the thin scar along my left wrist, then returned to the fabric.
I was no longer the pampered, adored trueborn daughter of the Valente house.
I would need to learn to lower myself and please my future husband.
Enzo shot me a look of disgust.
"Serafina, you have time to sit there embroidering pouches? Do you even know what people out there are saying about us? Gianna is an innocent girl. How is she supposed to bear this kind of humiliation?"
Gianna, the innocent girl.
The two families, rising and falling together.
So he cared about the Valente family's future. He cared about where Gianna would end up.
The only person he didn't care about was me.
When I didn't answer, Marcello reached over and snatched the pouch right out of my hands.
