Matteo scooped her up without a second's hesitation and ran for the doctor the Family kept on retainer two blocks over. I screamed after his retreating back until my throat gave out, but he never once turned around.
The house staff carried me back. I had barely been bandaged when he stormed in, face dark with fury.
He accused me of drugging Viviana's horse, said it was my fault she'd been thrown.
He didn't ask a single question. He ordered the beating on the spot.
The men carrying out the punishment had their own instructions. Two or three strikes in, they broke both my legs.
From then on, every grievance Viviana suffered, Matteo laid at my door.
I was heartbroken, furious, but I told myself he only treated me this way because Viviana had deceived him, twisted his mind.
Now I saw the truth.
He had never cared about me. He never would.
I shook my head with a hollow, dazed smile. Something in it seemed to reach him; he started to lift his hand toward the top of my head.
Then Viviana's voice cut in.
"Cousin, you don't understand how a woman thinks. She's only angry that you're good to me, so she's putting on this pitiful act to make you feel sorry for her..."
"We're both women. Leave her with me. Let me talk some sense into her. Maybe she'll come around?"
"But..."
Matteo's gaze swept between the two of us, uncertain. His thumb drifted to the leather band of his watch, smoothing it once, twice.
"Cousin! I'll be entering the Moretti heir's household in a few days. After that, it'll just be the two of you here. If I don't straighten things out with Josie now, and my being here drives a wedge between you, I'll never have a moment's peace..."
Matteo could never stand to see Viviana upset. He nodded, got up, and left.
A sly little smile curled at the corner of Viviana's mouth.
"Now it's just the two of us. I can finally drop the act..."
"I haven't even thanked you properly. Without you, Lorenzo Moretti would never have noticed me. It's not the position of his wife, but for someone of my background, serving at his side is already more than I could have hoped for..."
"The problem is, keeping you alive is a threat. If the Moretti heir ever found out..." She stopped herself short, voice going hard. "No. I will never give him the chance to find out."
"Until I leave for the alliance ceremony, you're not going anywhere. Not until I've secured my footing inside the Moretti compound. And if you ever get another chance like that day to catch Lorenzo's eye, I'll have Cousin kill you."
She dropped that threat like a blade, turned, and walked out. The locks clicked shut, every one of them, inside and out. The sound of each deadbolt was deliberate, the way a man counts rounds into a magazine.
I lay on the bed and let the tears soak into the pillow.
Three full days. No one came except the servant who brought meals. The silence was suffocating. I drifted in and out of consciousness, fever rising and falling, images flashing through my dreams that I couldn't tell from memory.
Warhorses and iron blades, bodies collapsing before me one after another.
Then someone gripping my hand, calling me sister.
I was about to make out the face when the dream shattered. My eyes snapped open to the empty room. Through the high window, the distant hum of the city felt like another country. A single thought rose through the fog.
If brushing against death triggered visions like these, then maybe if I tried enough times, I could find out who I really was.
I dragged myself upright and pulled a length of white silk from the cabinet.
I flung it over the crossbeam and tied a dead knot.
The moment I pushed my neck through, the fabric bit into my throat.
Agony and suffocation hit at the same instant. Everything went black.
Consciousness began peeling away, and the face in my vision sharpened inch by inch.
I was so close to seeing it clearly.
BANG.
The door was kicked open.
Viviana stood in the doorway, two older house women behind her, one of them holding a bowl of broth.
"Oh, still alive?"
She strolled in with a smile, crouched down in front of me. Her fingers rose to touch the pearl at her throat, a quick, satisfied brush. "Trying to die? Did you ask my permission first?"
I lifted my head. My throat hurt too much to make a sound.
