The entire time I was locked in that basement, I refused to apologize.
The sealed space made it hard to breathe. All I could do was curl into myself as tightly as possible, searching for some small scrap of comfort. The concrete floor leached the warmth from my bones. Somewhere above me, the compound continued its business. I could hear the faint percussion of footsteps, the distant closing of a heavy door. Down here, the air tasted like damp stone and something chemical, something old.
Then a pair of leather shoes appeared in front of me. Rocco stood over me, looking down. "Ready to admit you were wrong?"
I thought of the graves, leveled to nothing, and the stubbornness in me held. "I wasn't wrong. Rocco, you know that plot of land—"
He cut me off before I could finish. "I know."
"Gianna wanted it. So I gave it to her."
I stared up at him, eyes wide. "You gave it to her?"
In that moment, I felt like I was looking at a stranger. Not the Don of the Marchetti Family. Not the man whose ring I wore. A stranger with a familiar face and nothing behind the eyes I recognized.
Rocco shrugged it off. "Gianna is beautiful and kind. If she hadn't carried me out of those mountains, I probably wouldn't be alive today."
"Serafina, all you have to do is admit you were wrong, and I'll let you out."
The mountains? Gianna saved him?
Three years ago, when Rocco was stranded in the mountains after the ambush at the summit lodge, I was the one who hauled him out. Step by step, his weight on my back, through the snow. The assassins had scattered, but exposure would have killed him just as dead. He survived. I ended up in the hospital for two weeks. When I finally woke up, the first thing I learned was that he'd been cheating on me. That was what ended our marriage.
But how had the person who saved him become Gianna?
I opened my mouth. "Rocco, maybe you should look into—"
"Don Marchetti, please don't be hard on her. It's all my fault. I lost my footing and fell on my own. She absolutely did not push me…"
Gianna clicked over in her heels and positioned herself at Rocco's side, instantly pulling every ounce of his attention. Her voice carried that practiced tremor, the one calibrated to make a powerful man feel needed.
The moment I met her eyes, full of calculation and triumph, I understood. Gianna had stolen credit for what I'd done. She tucked a strand of hair behind her right ear, slowly, deliberately, and the lie she'd built settled into place like it had always been there.
Rocco wrapped his arm around Gianna's slim waist, his voice tender. "What are you doing out of bed? The doctor said you need rest."
Gianna leaned into him, her voice a syrupy whine. "I missed you. And it looks like she still hasn't realized what she did wrong. Maybe you should toss something in there with her. I hear people confess to anything when they're scared enough."
Rocco gave her an approving glance, then turned to the soldiers standing guard by the basement door. "You two. Go put my pets in there."
The word pets sent ice through my veins.
Rocco had a particular hobby. He kept centipedes, spiders, and snakes in glass terrariums in the lower level of the compound. Cold-blooded creatures, all of them. The enforcers called it his collection. Nobody joked about it twice.
The first time I'd seen them, I'd asked him, "They won't bite me, will they?"
Back then, Rocco had looked me in the eye and promised, with every appearance of sincerity: "Don't worry. As long as I'm here, I will never let them hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you."
I never imagined this day would come so soon.
When the centipedes and spiders were released into the basement, my scalp went numb. They moved as if drawn to me, locking onto my position with terrible precision, swarming up my body in a crawling, writhing mass.
Tiny, sharp stabs of pain, over and over, until I could barely think.
Rocco's expression wavered. For one second his hand tightened on the doorframe, knuckles going white against the wood. Then the second passed.
Gianna pressed her fingertips to her temple, her voice going faint. "Oh no, Don Marchetti, I think I'm feeling a little unwell…"
Without a word, Rocco scooped her into his arms and walked away.
I lifted my head just in time to catch Gianna peering back over his shoulder. Our eyes met. She mouthed the words silently: You deserve this, you worthless tramp.
I clenched my jaw and slammed my hands down on the insects, crushing every one I could reach.
Only one thought kept me alive: I am not dying here.
