My cousin had the kindest heart in the world.
She married my fiancé, the Don of the Falcone Family, then told me that the more power a man held, the more twisted he became, and that she was only walking through fire to spare me from him.
She quietly sold off one of her husband's safe houses and said I'd taken the laundered cash to keep a pretty boy on the side.
She bled the Family's tribute dry through accounts only she could touch and said it was to cover my gambling debts.
She got pregnant by her husband's own brother, the Underboss, hemorrhaged from the betrayal of the bloodline, and said I'd been carrying on with a string of kept men while she kindly tried to stop me, and that I'd shoved her down and caused the miscarriage.
In the end her husband shipped me across the border to atone for it all.
There her lover violated me and cut me to pieces.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day my cousin had her affair and lost the baby.
…
Every time Bianca Marino went off to meet her lover, she told her husband, Salvatore Falcone, that I was the one who'd called for her.
Sometimes it was that I'd been beaten by a jealous wife after getting caught as the other woman and needed comforting. Sometimes it was that men were hunting me for gambling debts and I needed protection. She even used the one about me getting some private work done by a back-alley surgeon and needing someone to look after me afterward.
If Salvatore hadn't shown up at my door in my last life, grinding his teeth as he listed off my crimes, I never would have known my own life was apparently so eventful.
Right now, his calls were blowing up my phone again.
The moment I answered, his furious voice exploded against my ear.
"Adriana Conti, it's this late and you've kept Bianca at your place again. For what?"
"I've put up with you long enough. Bianca is your cousin, not your mother. You're a grown woman. Can you stop clinging to her and sucking her dry?"
"She's married. She's pregnant. Have you got any shame at all? Quit dragging her into your messes day and night. Do you honestly not know how exhausting you are?"
"Or is this all because I cut you loose once, so now you're holding a grudge and trying to wreck my family? Bianca is a simple, good-hearted woman. If you keep using her like this, don't blame me for what I do next. Send her back to me. Now."
He went on like that, raging, the sheer volume of it hurting my ear.
The truth was, back when I'd been promised to Salvatore, I'd thought he was a gentle, decent man, the rarest thing in his world.
But every time he treated me well, Bianca would dig up some story about a man of the Family who'd buried his own wife in the marshes to warn me off.
Men in this life were liars by nature, she'd say. The more untouchable a man looked, the more dangerous he was.
And then, during the cold spell between Salvatore and me, she was the one who stepped in, tender and attentive, to become his confidante.
While she championed his side, she also slipped in plenty of stories about me, some on purpose and some made to look accidental.
With Bianca "helping," Salvatore and I drifted further and further apart.
If I hadn't happened to spot Bianca's lingerie sitting in Salvatore's private rooms, I'd still have been counting myself lucky to have such a clever cousin, one who'd helped me see a dangerous man for what he was.
Not long after, she married him, bound to the Family by blood and oath.
After that, I had the good sense to keep my distance from the two of them.
Salvatore didn't see it that way.
I got his roaring interrogations all the time.
My whole life, outside of my own quiet work, came down to explaining where Bianca was.
But I never actually knew what Bianca was doing.
I could only stick to whatever excuse she'd handed me beforehand and stall through the pressure.
It wasn't until the day Salvatore stormed into my home, tore into me in a blind fury, and then stuffed me into a sack and shipped me across the border that I understood I'd been the scapegoat all along.
When I thought back on his revenge in my last life, and on how Bianca and her lover had silenced me for good, a flame of anger rose up in me.
Salvatore, today I'm going to make you tear open every rotten thing your Family has done, with your own hands.
A cold smile tugged at my mouth as I spoke into the phone. "Bianca's busy unclogging a drain right now. She can't come back yet."
Then my face went cold, and I switched the phone off, done wasting another word on him.
But soon there was a knock at the door.
I'd barely turned the lock when a tremendous force slammed it open and sent me stumbling backward.
Before I could react, several of his enforcers seized me and pinned me down.
Salvatore came stamping in, heavy-footed, hunting roughly for any sign of Bianca.
He turned my little two-bedroom apartment upside down.
And found nothing.
"You said Bianca was unclogging a drain. So where is she?"
His face was red as he rushed up to me, demanding an answer.
Looking at all that rage on his face, the sweetness of revenge stirred to life inside me. I went very still, and beneath the grip of his men, my thumb found the bare place where a wedding ring should have sat, turning against skin that remembered everything taken from me.
I arched an eyebrow and answered at my own pace. "I only said she was unclogging a drain. I never said it was at my place. Maybe she's unclogging one over at your brother's. Why don't you go check?"
A cold light flashed in his eyes, and he grabbed a fistful of my hair.
"Don't get clever with me," he said, his voice low. "I'll ask you one last time. Where have you hidden Bianca?"
