Her words struck like a blade between the ribs.
For a moment, rage consumed me—a wildfire that burned through every nerve, every thought, every shred of restraint I'd ever possessed. No sound escaped my throat. Only fury, raw and blinding, coiling in my chest like a serpent preparing to strike.
Then I snapped.
I lunged at Piper.
Fists clenched. Nails sinking into flesh like talons.
I seized her hair, wrenched her down, clawed at her face, her throat—anywhere I could reach. The silk of her gown tore beneath my fingers like the lies she'd woven around my life.
"You monster! Give me my mother back, you stronza!"
But before I could draw blood—before I could carve the truth into her treacherous skin—agony exploded through my spine. Then my ribs. The soldiers were on me in an instant, their polished shoes connecting with bone, their fists driving me to the cold marble until I curled into myself like a broken marionette.
Gasps rippled through the gathering like wind through dead leaves.
Colino shoved past the crowd, his face carved from granite.
He didn't spare me a glance.
He went straight to Piper—sobbing, trembling, performing the role of wounded dove with practiced perfection—and gathered her into his arms as though she were spun from Venetian glass.
When his eyes finally cut toward me, they held the warmth of a midwinter grave.
"You've gone too far." His voice was quiet. Lethal. "Kneel. Apologize to her. Now."
I stared at him through blood-matted hair, disbelief clawing at my throat.
He wasn't finished.
"Your mother was weak. She got cast aside and died chasing scraps. Now you're blaming Piper for your own blood's failures? Everyone here witnessed what you did." His lip curled with disgust. "Are you proud of yourself, Anneliese? Is this the respect you bring to our union?"
The room hummed with whispers, growing louder and uglier with each passing heartbeat—vultures circling carrion.
"I heard her mother once lifted jewelry from Donna Carmela's collection," one woman murmured, her voice deliberately carrying across the marble hall. "Word is she died during some botched snatch job—turned up with her organs harvested like livestock. Honestly? Sounds like she had it coming. Disloyal blood runs true."
"And the daughter's cut from the same cloth," another voice added with venomous satisfaction. "Ungrateful little puttana. Raised to sink her claws into men above her station. Just like her whore of a mother."
I remained on my knees, the cold seeping through silk into bone. I wanted to scream—to tell them they were wrong. That my mother wasn't a thief. That Lucia Giordano had served the Marconi household with more loyalty than any of them would ever understand. That I wasn't some scheming woman trying to climb above my place.
But my throat was dust. My voice, stolen.
Colino's patience frayed like old rope.
"Apologize, Anneliese. I'll count to three." His words fell like hammer blows. "One... two—"
Disappointment seared through every fiber of my being—a betrayal more complete than any blade could deliver.
I gave in.
My knees cracked against the unforgiving marble. I lifted my chin—then drove my forehead down in a bow so violent I tasted copper flooding my mouth.
"I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"
Blood mingled with tears, blurring the world into watercolors of crimson and gold.
I raised my head with a smile that felt like broken glass cutting my own face.
"Is that enough, Colino? Did your precious comare receive sufficient tribute?"
He froze. Something flickered behind his eyes—a crack in the ice, a ghost of the boy who'd once held my hand in his mother's garden. His pupils contracted as though he finally saw me. Saw the ruin he'd made of us both.
He took half a step forward.
But Piper's fingers dug into his arm, her voice quivering with manufactured terror.
"Colino, I'm frightened... look at her eyes. She's lost her mind..."
He hesitated. The crack sealed over, smooth as fresh ice on a winter pond.
He stepped back. Drew her closer against his chest.
His gaze slid away from mine like oil on water. When he spoke again, his voice was hollow. Mechanical. The voice of a man already washing his hands.
"Go home. Try not to cause any more disgrace to this Family."
I rose. Somehow. My legs trembled like a newborn foal's, but I refused to fall. Not here. Not before these jackals in their designer gowns and hand-stitched suits.
I turned to face him one final time.
The man I'd loved for a decade. The heir I'd been promised to since girlhood. The future Don who couldn't recognize loyalty when it knelt bleeding at his feet.
Then I walked away.
The crowd parted before me like the Red Sea—not from respect, but from revulsion. As though my grief were contagious. As though my mother's murder might somehow stain their precious reputations.
Let them look.
Let them remember this moment when the reckoning came.
The night bit with savage cold when I reached the crematorium on the outskirts of the city. I stood in silence as my mother—Lucia Giordano, faithful servant, devoted parent, woman who'd once saved a Marconi heir from a rival Family's snatch job and received nothing but contempt in return—turned to ash.
The flames consumed her. Orange and gold and terrible.
When her remains scattered into the dark waters of the harbor, so did the last tether binding my heart to this world.
Gone. Just like that.
At midnight, I slipped the engagement ring from my finger—the three-carat symbol of a blood pact that had never been honored. I set it gently inside the nightstand drawer of the bedroom I'd shared with Colino's ghost for three hollow years.
No need for formal dissolution. His devotion had never been real to begin with.
How convenient.
I wheeled my single suitcase to the front door of the Marconi estate, my footsteps echoing through halls that had never truly been my home.
My phone buzzed.
Colino: [Did you get your wounds treated? Piper says she forgives you. Let's put this behind us and focus on tomorrow.]
Colino: [I picked up a new gown for the ceremony. Hand-beaded Venetian lace. Gorgeous. I'll have it sent over.]
No reply.
A moment passed. The phone buzzed again, more insistent.
Colino: [Asleep already? Why aren't you answering? It's our union ceremony tomorrow—the alliance between our Families becomes official. Be good, Anneliese. Don't embarrass me again.]
I blocked him. Every number. Every account connected to his name. I extracted the SIM card, snapped it cleanly in half between my fingers, and dropped the pieces down a storm drain as I walked to the waiting car.
Just like him. Discarded. Forgotten.
A black sedan idled by the iron gates, its engine purring like a patient predator.
I slid into the leather interior.
"To the private airfield."
The city lights raced past my window, smearing into ghosts against the rain-streaked glass. Ten years of memories—of stolen kisses in moonlit gardens, of whispered promises, of love that had rotted from the inside like a poisoned apple—dissolved into shadow.
I watched the Marconi compound disappear in the rearview mirror.
"We will never meet again, Colino." My voice was steady now. Cold as the harbor waters that held my mother's ashes. "And by sunrise, your wedding gift will arrive. Right on time."
The car merged onto the highway, carrying me toward a new life.
Behind me, a dynasty prepared to burn.
