I struggled to prop myself up and pulled a box from beneath the bed. Inside lay the Body Collector's Iron Medallion, cold and heavy in its velvet lining. I pressed it into Ruby's hands.
"Ruby, take this into the Valente compound. Give it to Don Valente himself and tell him Penelope Mancini is calling in her favor. Tell him I want annulment papers."
Years ago, when the Old Don had traveled to Millhaven personally to bring Frederico and the Rossetti boy back from the river, he'd been so grateful for my saving their lives that he promised me one request. Anything I asked. A blood debt, sworn on his name.
I had never dared waste that chance. Now, finally, it had a purpose.
Omero didn't return with Dr. Pastore until the following afternoon.
By then, the physician Ruby had summoned was already on his way out.
Omero caught the physician by the arm. "How is my wife?"
"She'll live. But I'm afraid..."
Omero's voice dropped low, unsteady in a way I'd rarely heard when it concerned me. "Afraid of what?"
The physician shook his head with a heavy sigh. "Her body is ruined. She'll spend the rest of her life in pain."
Something like guilt flickered across Omero's face. His right hand moved to the inside of his left wrist, pressing hard against the pulse point for just a moment before he gathered me into his arms, my body limp as a threadbare rag. "I'm sorry, Penny. It's not that I didn't want to help you, but Chloe Volpe is carrying the Valente heir. I couldn't afford the delay..."
I gritted my teeth against the pain and pulled myself free of his embrace. I shook my head. "It's fine. You were up all night, Omero. Go rest."
His hands hung frozen in the air where I'd been. His voice came out scraped raw. "Are you angry with me, Penny?"
I closed my eyes. My answer was flat, toneless. "This outsider wouldn't dare."
"Outsider?"
Omero caught the shift instantly. He stared at me as though I'd spoken a foreign language.
Before, I had always called myself "your wife" in his presence.
Now I'd changed the word. The line between us, drawn clean.
"Yes. This outsider was born lowly. From the old neighborhood. Naturally, I can't be compared to the Don's daughter-in-law. So you did the right thing, Omero. This outsider wouldn't dare hold it against you."
A violent cough tore through me, and blood splattered from my lips. Omero saw it, and for once, he asked nothing more.
He rubbed slow circles on my back, his voice softening. "You've always been the most sensible one, Penny. I was overthinking it. Rest now. Your husband will stay right here. I'm not going anywhere."
I didn't know how long I slept before the noise from the courtyard dragged me awake.
The moment I opened my eyes, I saw Ruby sprawled in the center of the yard, a rod cracking down across her body again and again.
Her clothes were soaked through with blood. Each breath she drew looked like it might be her last.
Chloe Volpe sat nearby in a wrought-iron chair, watching with cold, disinterested eyes. Her fingers traced the edge of her rosary with slow, almost loving precision.
When Omero saw me stir, he didn't bother explaining. He simply pressed my shoulders back down. "The Don's daughter-in-law is disciplining a servant. Don't interfere, Penny."
I had braced myself for some grave offense. But the crime, it turned out, was nothing more than this: after delivering the annulment petition to Don Valente, Ruby had taken it upon herself to summon a physician for me.
The Old Don and his wife already carried guilt over Frederico breaking off his blood-bound union with me. When they learned what had happened, they'd rebuked Chloe harshly.
Called her vicious. Said she'd shown callous disregard for another woman's life.
Chloe couldn't touch me, not with the Don and his wife shielding me. So she'd turned her fury on Ruby instead.
I watched Ruby's broken body twitch with each blow, barely clinging to life, and the tears wouldn't stop.
I seized Omero's sleeve and begged. "Omero, please save Ruby. Every fault is mine, all of it."
"She was only worried about me."
Omero's expression pinched with reluctance. "Penny, she's just a servant. Let the Don's daughter-in-law vent her anger and it'll blow over."
I stared at that handsome face of his, so perfectly composed, so perfectly human, and could not fathom the rottenness it concealed.
Because we were born lowly, our lives simply didn't matter?
Mine didn't. Ruby's didn't. And neither had the hundred-some families of Millhaven.
I couldn't hold it in any longer. The words ripped out of me, raw and bleeding. "Is that what you told yourself when you slaughtered Millhaven, Omero? That they were just a bunch of lowborn nobodies?"
Omero flinched as if I'd driven a blade between his ribs. His hand shot to my throat and squeezed, his eyes splitting red with fury.
