Aria POV
The next morning, the grand courtyard of the Family Estate was overflowing with Made Men, their Soldiers, and their bejeweled wives.
The annual Feast of the Patron Saint was the most important, and most treacherous, day of the year.
I stood on the fringes of the lavish estate, my arm a brace for my father's frail form.
Arthur's breathing was a harsh, wet rattle that sounded like the tearing of cloth.
His former Soldier's pride was the only thing keeping him upright in his faded, poorly-fitting suit.
Across the courtyard, awash in sunlight, Silas stood by the massive stone fountain, his posture a study in proprietary arrogance.
He was smiling—the same dark, possessive smile.
In full view of the assembled families, he reached out and intimately pinned a glittering diamond brooch onto Bianca's expensive silk dress.
A contagion of whispers spread among the lower-ranking Associates around us.
They aimed pitying glances at me and laughed behind their hands.
I reached into the pocket of my cheap, worn dress and my fingers brushed the cold, solid silver beads of the Vendetta Rosary.
Drawing a breath that did little to calm me, I pulled it out just far enough for the silver cross to flare in the brilliant sunlight.
Bianca's sharp, watchful eyes locked onto the glint of metal almost immediately.
She nudged Silas and pointed a single, manicured finger at me, her scarlet lips curling into a wicked, assured smirk.
Silas turned his head with an air of theatrical boredom.
But the moment his dark eyes landed on the silver chain laced through my fingers, the smug smile vanished from his face.
In its place, a storm of lethal rage gathered as he shouldered his way through the crowd, marching directly toward me.
"Put that away," Silas ordered, his voice a low rumble of contained violence.
He stopped so close I could feel the heat of his body. His expensive cologne—a cloying blend of bergamot and the cigars he favored—masked the scent of tobacco, but it could not hide the innate cruelty that seemed to emanate from his very pores.
I kept the silver rosary wrapped around my knuckles, the metal links digging into my skin.
"I am drawing the Crimson Rose today, Silas," I said. My voice was unnaturally steady.
Silas let out a harsh, mocking breath.
"You wasted your money on a beggar's trinket?" he sneered, his gaze sweeping over me with disdain. "You cannot even afford a decent dress for this Feast, yet you buy a Vendetta Rosary? You are irresponsible and unfit for the duties of this Family."
He leaned in closer, dropping his voice to a venomous whisper meant only for me.
"A woman of your station should be on her knees, grateful that I am willing to keep you. Do you think any other Made Man would touch you? You are a charity case, Aria."
My father's body was seized by a coughing fit that tore through the charged air.
He doubled over, clutching his chest as though to hold his own ribs together. His face turned an alarming shade of purple as he struggled to pull oxygen into his ruined lungs.
I grabbed his arm, my heart hammering against my ribs like a frantic, caged thing.
Silas did not even flinch. He looked at my dying father as if he were an unsightly stain on the manicured view.
"Throw the rosary away, Aria," Silas commanded, his voice devoid of all empathy.
He reached into the inside pocket of his bespoke suit jacket and pulled out a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills. There were dark, dried stains blooming on the edges of the paper—a grim testament to the currency of his trade.
He held the money out to me.
"This will pay for Arthur's medication for the next month," Silas said. "But you only get it if you drop that silver trash on the ground and submit."
As if summoned by the sound of my father's suffering, Bianca materialized beside him. The diamond pin on her chest caught the sun, a flash of light that momentarily blinded me.
"Take the money, Aria," Bianca cooed, her voice dripping with a counterfeit, sugary sweetness that made my stomach clench. "Don't be stubborn. Your poor father is dying. You should be grateful Silas is so generous to a family that offers him nothing in return."
I stared at the blood-stained cash, my jaw set.
I remembered the three days my father went without oxygen last winter, his lips turning blue. I remembered kneeling on the freezing pavement outside Silas's car, begging him for an advance on the medical money while he rolled up the tinted window in my face.
I reached out, the joints in my arm stiff as rusted iron, preparing to swallow my pride one last time for my father's sake.
Silas smirked, a triumphant gleam in his dark eyes.
But the second my fingertips brushed the paper, he deliberately opened his hand. The entire stack of bills caught the breeze, fluttering away into the dirt.
"Pick it up," Silas sneered.
The money had scattered across the cobblestones like dead leaves.
My jaw ached from the pressure of my teeth. I slowly knelt, the rough stone biting into my knees, and gathered the stained bills with fingers that shook not with fear, but with a cold, contained fury. I clutched them to my chest. But as I stood, I refused to let him see me broken.
I turned my gaze, now burning, to Bianca.
"You'll be buying your own favors soon, Bianca," I said, my voice carrying above the faint music of the courtyard. "And you will have to spend a fortune to convince anyone in this Family that you are a legitimate wife."
Bianca gasped, her hands flying to her mouth in a pantomime of horror.
Silas's face turned a deadly, blotchy crimson.
The veins in his neck bulged against his starched collar. He stepped forward, his chest bumping against mine in a crude display to physically intimidate me.
"You ungrateful bitch," he snarled, spittle flying from his lips. "You are ruining Bianca's reputation."
He turned his head and signaled to his massive bodyguards who had been observing from a distance.
"Let Bianca draw her token first!" Silas shouted to the now-silent crowd. "And make sure my fiancée stands right here to watch how a real woman is honored." A cruel smile twisted his lips, and in his eyes, I saw the promise of my complete annihilation. I did not yet understand how thoroughly he intended to deliver on that promise.
