The whole crowd laughed at me without a shred of restraint.
I kept my head down, turning my grandmother's signet ring once around my finger with my thumb, not bothering to trade words with people like this.
But there was one thing I was sure of now.
Lorenzo really was protecting me.
The alliance sit-down ended soon after.
Next came the part where the guests ate, drank, and worked the room, the way every made table in this city did once the ceremony was sealed.
Bianca led Lorenzo from table to table, raising a glass to each one, and every single person fawned over her.
I'd just used the moment to look into the Ferraro clan of Boston. Richest crew in the city, sure enough, but no real bloodline behind it. Upstarts with cash and nothing else, basically.
The Ferraros had risen because they had connections to the New York Families, then muscled into a string of profitable rackets in Boston and shot straight to the top of the city's earners.
Even so, the Ferraros had never managed to buy their way onto the Commission or into Boston's old-blood circle.
Which meant everyone here today was either a hanger-on of the Ferraros or a guest of Lorenzo's side.
As for Lorenzo's people, the Bianchis counted as one of Boston's old bloodlines, but a fading one, its respect thinner every year.
The Bianchi-Ferraro union was a matter of each side taking what it needed.
What the Ferraros wanted was a seat among the old bloodlines. Marry into an old-blood Family, and the seat was yours.
What the Bianchis wanted was laundered cash, nothing more, a chance to rebuild the Family on it.
I'd seen unions like this my whole life, so it didn't surprise me in the least.
Look back through the Families, generation after generation, and you'll find the same thing happening over and over.
A blood-alliance union was always its own kind of arithmetic.
Just then, a girl who looked no older than sixteen or seventeen sat down beside me.
She was sweet and pretty, still carrying a little baby fat, genuinely adorable.
And around the eyes and brows, she looked a great deal like Lorenzo.
"I'm Gia Bianchi. Your ex-man's little sister."
"Don't say a word from now on. Come with me."
She looked adorable, but her voice was ice cold.
Even as she spoke, she'd already taken my hand.
I didn't move. Instead I asked, "Your brother told you to help me?"
"What do you think?"
Gia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her eyes flicking toward the side door. "Just come with me, quick, or you won't get out at all!"
By then a few men in black suits had already closed in around us, enforcers reading the room, hands loose at their sides.
Gia let out a sigh, dropped my hand, and settled back into her seat, no longer meaning to leave, because she knew there was no getting out now either.
"You shouldn't have come."
She sighed again. "If it weren't for you, my brother wouldn't have to marry Bianca the Sow at all!"
For me?
I was startled, but before I could ask, a stir went through the banquet hall.
Bianca and Lorenzo were moving toward the entrance too, motioning for everyone to stand.
Then I saw them: seven or eight people walking into the hall.
Men and women, all young, all carrying themselves with a settled, unhurried poise, the kind that came from real weight behind the name.
The one at their head especially, barely past twenty, and yet there was real force about him. Conversations near the door died as he passed.
"Salvatore, you finally made it. Without you my sit-down was almost missing something."
Bianca rushed forward at once, hand out to shake his, her rings catching the light.
Salvatore didn't take her hand. He didn't so much as glance at her. He studied Lorenzo carefully, then finally spoke. "Your name's Lorenzo?"
Lorenzo blinked, then nodded.
Salvatore's manner eased a little, a trace of a smile on his lips. "She's hidden herself too well. Otherwise we'd have met long ago."
Bianca assumed the "she" meant her, and was still trying to work out when exactly she'd hidden anything.
She didn't dwell on it, though. She turned to the others, touching the diamonds at her throat. "Everyone, this is Salvatore Romano of the Romano Family of New York, the genuine heir apparent. And the Romanos are the greatest protection our Ferraro clan of Boston has!"
The others burst into applause on cue, oozing every kind of flattery, excitement written all over them.
But Bianca caught sight of me still sitting on the couch. She glared. "You little bitch, who gave you the nerve to stay sitting?"
Lorenzo spoke up at once too, his thumb pressing flat against his knuckles. "Adriana, get up. Now!"
