That old gold ring was never just the mark of the Moretti Family's Lady of the House. It was the ring Vitale had slipped onto my finger the night he swore himself to me.
He gave it to me when he asked for the alliance to become something real, promising me forever in front of God and famiglia. To prove he meant it, he'd had the name "Adri" cut into the band with his own instruction.
But that was all buried now, like so much else in this life.
My eyes locked on that same ring, and it felt like a knife straight through my heart. The old engraving had been filed away. In its place, fresh and gleaming under the chandeliers, was a new name: "Sera." A short for Serafina.
I swallowed the bitterness burning in my throat. I was just about to speak, to tell every made man and every wife in that hall exactly who I was.
Then Vitale stepped in front of me. His words cut in cold and even, the way a Don speaks when the matter is already decided. "Adriana is dead. This woman is some beggar off the street. Anyone who dares slander Serafina again answers to me."
The room understood him. Conversations died where they stood. I froze, staring at him in disbelief.
"Vitale…" I said, my voice shaking. "Say that again. Say it to my face! Who am I?"
Vitale hesitated for a second. His eyes moved across the crowd, weighing every witness, before he leaned in and lowered his voice so only I would hear.
"Adriana, you heard them. If I admit you're alive now, Serafina's name is finished. My brother left her in my hands. I can't let her be shamed in front of the whole Family. You've always been the sensible one. Please. Just endure this. For me. Be good."
Then he stepped away. He didn't even look back.
He lifted a hand toward the old steward and told him to "see to me." Said they would let me eat the leftovers from the banquet, some scrap of charity thrown to a stray. Said it would bring his newborn son good fortune.
Across the hall, the celebration picked right back up. Laughter, applause, the thin ring of crystal touching crystal.
Everyone poured their blessings over him and Serafina. Called them a perfect match. Said the two of them were meant to be, as though the whole thing had been ordained.
All I felt inside was nothing but cold.
The old steward, Don Ricci, who had served the Moretti Estate since the days of the old Don, knew me the instant he saw my face. He sent for clean clothes and walked me to a guest room so I could wash the road off my skin.
I couldn't help but wonder, why the guest room?
Ignoring the gentle way he tried to stop me, I walked straight to the door of the master bedroom. Without hesitation, I pushed it open.
This had once been our room. Vitale's and mine.
Now I couldn't find myself in it anywhere. Not a single trace of me was left. Everything had been rearranged to suit Serafina's taste. Even our wedding portrait had been taken down and replaced with photographs of the two of them.
The man who once swore he would look at our wedding photo every night before he slept and never take it down, not even when he was eighty, had clearly become someone else.
I stared at the picture of Vitale and Serafina, their smiles mocking me from behind the glass. The tears fell quietly, without sound.
So this was why no soldier ever came for me, why no rescue was ever sent through enemy lines. Was he afraid I'd get in the way of him and Serafina?
Don Ricci sighed. He smoothed the front of his waistcoat with both hands, and I saw him searching for something to say to me. In the end, no words came.
I stood there, numb, my eyes drifting to the baby crib in the corner of the room. I asked, almost in a whisper, "Where's my daughter? Where is she?"
The old steward hesitated, plainly unwilling to answer. But my questions kept coming until they wore him down. At last he told me my daughter was out back, in the shed beyond the compound wall.
That place was cold, damp, and filthy, the kind of hole where the Family kept things it wanted forgotten. What could my daughter possibly be doing there?
When I found her in that shed, I felt a surge of hot blood rush to my head, then a chilling cold that crept up from my feet.
I couldn't believe my eyes. My five-year-old daughter was clutching my memorial photo-card tight against her chest, locked inside a massive dog cage with a half-grown wolfhound that towered over her.
Once round-cheeked and healthy, my little girl was skeletal now. Her small body looked more fragile than a bird's.
Her clothes were torn open, showing bruises and wounds along her arms, her legs, even her face. Some of the cuts ran so deep I could see bone.
The wolfhound, a beast bred for violence, lay sleeping soundly beside her, its muzzle caked with dried blood.
My daughter, who once cried at the smallest pain, didn't shed a single tear. She only watched the sleeping animal, frightened but desperate. Slowly she crawled to the food bowl and began eating the spoiled scraps in it, swallowing them down with no thought for the filth.
I couldn't stop the image of Serafina from rising up, cradling her fat newborn son only minutes ago in that bright hall. Hatred surged through my chest.
