So he turned his attention to me.
He deliberately let the other families discover my true identity as the Ferro heir, then rallied every crew, every capo, every soldier in the three tiers of the underworld under the banner of justice to pin me down. They called it a cleansing. They called it restoring order. What it was, was a hit sanctioned by every man who owed Aldric Valente a favor.
I was already pregnant by then. My body had weakened, and I had no strength left to fight back.
I begged him to spare me. Begged until my voice broke. But all he left me with was a single, weightless phrase: The family cannot harbor what threatens it. Then he tore the Ferro Ledger from my hands, stripped me of every alliance, every debt, every ounce of leverage I had ever held, and put a bullet through the life I'd built.
Even Mietitore was snapped in half and ground under his heel.
It was the child in my womb who saved me.
He sacrificed his own life to keep my shattered body from giving out completely, his tiny heartbeat holding mine together just long enough.
After a long silence, I reformed into a physical body, but only that of a two-year-old child. A girl with no name, no family, no blood anyone would claim.
My heart was full of hatred. I knew I was no match for Aldric, yet I still set out on the road to the Commission's stronghold to take my revenge.
But my bones had barely knit and my leverage had yet to coalesce. I couldn't even fend off a street thug looking for an easy mark.
Just as a man with a knife was about to finish what Aldric had started, a pair of large hands scooped me into a warm embrace.
The old man whose eyes already creased with wrinkles looked down at me, heartache plain on his face. "How's a little thing like you out here all alone with nobody looking after you?"
"Don't be scared, sweetheart. This old man will keep you safe."
I assumed his kindness was a passing impulse. I never imagined he would go on protecting me for years.
The year I pieced Mietitore back together, I was nine. I reforged the broken blade myself, heating the steel over a gas burner in the back of Massimo's shop, working the metal with hands too small for the hammer. Tore found me there at three in the morning and said nothing. He simply sat down, took the hammer from me, and held the blade steady while I shaped it.
I planned to make one last trip to the Commission's stronghold and drag Aldric down with me, even if it killed us both.
But the night before I meant to leave, my master brought me a beggar's chicken. It wasn't particularly good.
He had no idea I was planning to go. He just scratched the back of his head, embarrassed, and said, "Nara, you haven't been eating well lately. You're getting too thin. I went all the way across town to learn this recipe from a famous cook on Mulberry Street."
"Go on, try it. If it's no good, I'll go back and learn again."
"And if you like it, I'll make it for you every single day."
I blinked, caught off guard. Suspicion crept in before I could stop it. "Why are you so good to me?"
My master stroked his chin and smiled. "Because I think of you as my own daughter."
"If my little girl starved, what kind of father would I be? I'd be heartbroken."
"I'm already old. I don't want to spend whatever years I have left crying my eyes out."
In that moment, looking at the white hairs that had grown in from worrying over me, I felt the walls around my heart crack for the first time in years.
So there was someone in this world who loved me after all.
All at once, I didn't want revenge anymore.
I buried Mietitore beneath the fig tree in the courtyard and buried all my hatred along with it.
But Aldric shattered my hard-won peace with his own hands, all over again, and dug my hatred back up from the roots.
I lifted my gaze toward the balcony where his voice had come from and spoke, each word deliberate and distinct. "Aldric. It's been a long time."
Before the last syllable faded, the heavy doors of the Commission chamber swung open.
In the space of a breath, Aldric Valente descended the marble stairs with Elara Abbiati on his arm.
He looked exactly the same as before. That face, carved clean and cold enough to ruin empires, hadn't aged a single day. The suit was different. The ring on his left hand was not. I knew that ring. I had placed it there myself.
The woman cradled against him glowed with the same vitality.
Aldric looked me up and down, his brow furrowing. "I have never laid eyes on you. What do you mean, 'a long time'?"
Oh. I had almost forgotten. After my body reformed, my appearance had changed completely.
No wonder he didn't recognize me.
But my attention wasn't on him. Every ounce of it was fixed on Elara, and I had no patience to spare for Aldric.
I stared at Elara, unblinking. "You're looking well. Rosy cheeks, bright eyes. My master's bones must be serving you nicely."
Back then, the Ferro Ledger had only granted Elara passage in and out of the Valente compound, a guest pass to the world she craved. Without the Original Oaths, she still could not be elevated. She could attend, but she could not rule.
Aldric had once considered taking my own leverage instead, but the full weight of the Ferro dynasty's accumulated debts and blood oaths was far more than a civilian woman like Elara could wield. The network would have crushed her. He'd been forced to abandon the idea.
It had taken him all these years of searching to finally find my master's Original Oaths, the perfect instrument for Elara's ascension. A neutral elder's custody documents, clean enough for her hands, powerful enough to legitimize her permanently.
My words landed, and understanding dawned across Aldric's face.
