"Don't tell me you can't even afford to pay!"
"Oh, what a shame. You know what happens when someone can't settle their bill, right? They get detained and hauled off to the station. Sound familiar? You did the same thing to me once."
Adriana pulled a slim cigarette from her clutch, placed it between her lips, and lit it.
She blew the smoke straight into my face, that smug expression so insufferable that I swung my hand at her before I could stop myself. The table between us went crashing sideways, silverware scattering across the marble floor of the private dining room, the sound sharp enough to make two soldiers near the entrance reach inside their jackets.
Rocco rushed to shield Adriana, barking at the enforcers behind him. They charged forward and threw me aside.
"Bianca, knock it off!"
"What's the matter? You're allowed to toy with people, but nobody's allowed to hit back?"
I glared at Rocco, my eyes burning red. The Ricci Family's meteoric rise through the territory rankings in just three years had been built entirely on my back.
I had leveraged my family's power to clear every obstacle in the Riccis' path. Even the rival crews who wanted to cause trouble for the Ricci operation backed off out of respect for me. Capos from neighboring territories who would have bled the Riccis dry had swallowed their grievances because my name, the name I had never spoken aloud to Rocco, carried enough weight to keep them quiet.
I had planned to tell Rocco the truth tonight, on my birthday. That I wasn't some nobody.
That I was the heir to the most powerful of the Four Founding Families.
I had planned to bring him home to meet my parents. I just never expected a person's heart could turn this fast.
I had misjudged him. Overestimated who he was.
"Rocco, are you really going to make me walk out of this club covered in humiliation?"
Rocco let out a scornful laugh. "What did you expect? You think I set all this up just for decoration?"
With the enforcers at her back, Adriana stepped forward and punched me square in the face. "You cheap little tramp. Either you sit here broke and get hauled off to a cell, or you strip naked, get on all fours, bite down on this steak, and bark your way out of here like a dog."
"Oh, and just so we're clear, the difference between the two options is simple. The first one, you get to keep your clothes. The second one, no clothes and no dignity. Ha! Hurry up and pick. I can't wait."
Dozens of eyes watched the show with undisguised glee. I clenched my fists until my knuckles went white, and looked at Rocco without a shred of emotion.
"Fine. Since this is the path you've chosen, when the Ricci Family goes under, that'll be on you."
The words had barely left my mouth before Adriana's laugh arrived, bright and brittle, a fraction too quick, and the rest of the room followed.
"Ha! Did she really just say that?"
"Has this woman been reading too many novels? Does she think she's some secret Donna?"
"She must be so desperate she's lost her mind."
Rocco glared at me too, fury in his eyes. He was certain I was bluffing. His hand dropped to his cuff and he jerked the watch straight with a hard tug.
He grabbed a plate of food off the table and hurled it at me. "Save the big talk. You think you can bring down the Ricci Family? You're not worth that much."
"Worry about how you're going to get yourself out of this mess."
"Manager!"
The manager caught the cue and walked over with security flanking him. His voice was cold. "Signora Moretti, will you be paying in cash, or would you like someone else to cover the bill?"
Professional courtesy on neutral ground was the only reason he hadn't made it worse. Even a club manager knew better than to lay hands on a woman whose last name still carried weight in certain rooms, no matter what her husband's people were saying tonight.
I scanned the room and locked onto a woman I recognized, a protected associate I'd worked with before. I had met her while closing arrangements on behalf of the Ricci Family.
I walked toward her. The moment she saw me heading in her direction, she shot to her feet and backed away.
"Bianca, don't come over here. I can't afford to pay for you..."
"Relax. I'm not asking you to pay. I just need to borrow your phone."
"Please?"
"I'm just going to call a friend to bring money and settle the bill."
"Ha! She's still keeping up the act! Who in this entire city would dare bring money here to bail you out?"
"Go ahead, let her make the call. We'll give her another half hour. If nobody shows up with the cash by then, I'll have every man in this room rip that dress right off her. If she was good enough for the most powerful heir in the city, she can't be half bad, right?"
