I had no choice but to follow the three of them.
As I passed a thicket of old oaks, Maeve's voice carried through the dark, impatient and unchecked.
"Babe, how much longer do we have to keep up this act? I seriously can't take it anymore. Tommaso been spreading her legs all over the Territory. Who knows what she's caught."
"Tommaso pathetically stupid. Can't even tell a real alliance from a setup. No wonder some older man talked her into bed with a few pretty words. A woman like that doesn't deserve to stand beside the Vale name. The family heirloom bracelet, the real one, only you deserve to wear it, Ivy." Daphne ran his thumb slowly along the inside of his signet ring as he said it, the way he did when a decision had already been made and only the blood remained to be spilled.
Ivy gazed up at them with that wounded, fragile look of hers.
"Vera has done a lot of awful things, that's true. But she helped me once. How could I just abandon her? If you two don't do what I say, I'll never speak to either of you again!" Her ring finger drifted to her bottom lip, brushing it once, soft as a benediction over the lie.
At that, both of them, heirs who answered to no one, sons of the two most dangerous families on the Eastern Seaboard, fell over themselves apologizing to her.
They'd have trampled me into the dirt if it meant lifting her higher.
Over a decade of knowing each other, of growing up side by side, of bread broken at the same table and oaths sworn on the same saints, and none of it weighed as much as a few words from Lydia Everett.
I forced the tears back and turned away.
The night stretched endless around me as I walked toward the Ashford house, every step heavy with exhaustion. The streets were empty. Even the soldiers who used to patrol our block when I was a child were long gone, reassigned to families that still mattered.
By the time I reached the house, my twisted ankle had swollen beyond recognition.
Nonna's face crumpled when she saw it. She brought out liniment and knelt to rub it in herself, her hands shaking but sure, the way they'd always been.
I didn't want her worrying, so I told her about the invitation from The Order instead.
Her expression shifted from shock to pure joy.
"My Tommaso really made something of herself! Nonna's getting old. You're the only one left who can carry the Ashford name."
I nodded, blinking hard against the sting in my eyes.
"It's been so many years since this family had anything to celebrate. Nonna's going to throw you a proper feast. A real celebration!"
The smile on her face was identical to the one she'd worn the day she sent me off to my blood-bound union in the last life.
Back then, she'd believed I'd found a good man. She'd been so happy.
Then Daphne fled the altar, and the shock killed her right there in front of the gathered Families.
This time around, I would never let either of us walk that road again.
Nonna was too frail for the work, so I handled every detail of the feast myself. I booked the private back room at Ashford's, the old restaurant on Mulberry Street that still bore our name even though we hadn't owned it in years. The current owners let us have it for nothing. They remembered my grandfather, and what the Ashford name had once meant on this stretch of the Seaboard.
When my two blood-bound companions heard about the feast, they both showed up volunteering to help.
They even brought a strawberry cake, my favorite since I was little, as a peace offering.
"Vera, you haven't answered a single message in days. Are you still upset about what happened?"
"We weren't trying to blame you. We were worried you'd go down the wrong path. For people in our position, reputation matters." Daphne's thumb moved once over the inside of his ring, then went still.
I didn't forgive them. But I let them stay and help.
In our last life, they owed me more than they could ever repay.
No settling that ledger.
All I wanted in this life was to never see them again.
After my parents died, the Ashford family declined until no one bothered to pay respects at all. The old alliances dissolved. The seats at our table stayed empty.
Now that I'd finally done something worth celebrating, this was our chance to show the Five Families that the Ashfords still had an heir. That we were no longer a bloodline anyone could push around.
Nonna understood that. She treated this feast like the most important evening of her life, refusing to cut a single corner. Before she gave each instruction to the kitchen, she folded her hands over the worn silver crucifix at her neck, not in prayer but in purpose. This night had to be perfect.
The night of the feast, the back room filled with every name that mattered in the Territory.
Ivy glided in behind both Daphne and Maeve, wearing a gown that cost more than anything a girl with no family name should have been able to afford, perfectly at ease.
She took in the lavish room, the crystal, the white linen, the old Ashford crest mounted above the fireplace, and jealousy burned behind her eyes.
"Vera really does have all the luck."
"But so what if you were born into a bloodline and caught the eye of The Order? I can still make sure you spend the rest of your life wishing you were dead." Her ring finger touched her lip again, that single reverent press, blessing the thing she was about to set loose.
The words had barely left her lips when the screen at the front of the room lit up with my photos.
One after another. Every single one showing me naked in bed with a different man.
The room went very still. A glass was set down somewhere too carefully.
"Isn't that the Ashford heiress? Dio, she really gets around. Figures. No parents to raise her right."
"No wonder everyone says Vera spread her legs to get that invitation. Looks like it's true after all."
