On the twenty-ninth day after Lorenzo Moretti recovered his memory, his mother came to find me once again.

"There's a satchel here. Thirty million, untraceable. You have three days to leave the country. I don't want to see you again!"

She threw the bundle of cash at my feet, her eyes brimming with contempt.

Calmly, I picked it up.

I didn't argue my case with red-rimmed eyes the way I used to.

Instead, I nodded obediently and said, "Fine."

Seeing me so compliant, Vittoria Moretti's lips curved into a sneer as she looked down on me from her height. She turned the heavy widow's ring on her finger in a slow half-circle, weighing me the way a woman weighs a debt she has already decided not to pay.

"A gutter girl who dreams of a made man's ring. Have you even looked at what you are?"

"Someone with no name, no blood, no Family behind her shouldn't dream of marrying into the Morettis in three lifetimes, let alone one."

"You're being sensible this time."

"Remember, you only have three days!"

"And one more thing." She slid the ring off entirely and set it against her palm, done with me. "I don't want Lorenzo to know I was ever here."

——

With that, she turned and walked out on her high heels.

The door of the compound closed behind her with a dull thud.

The room went eerily quiet, nothing left but the sound of my own breathing.

Slowly I crouched down and picked up the satchel that had been thrown to the floor, my fingertips trembling faintly. My thumb found the bare inside of my left wrist and pressed flat against it, the place where other women in this world wore a Family's jewelry and I wore nothing.

Thirty million. For someone with no name, more than several lifetimes of honest work could ever earn.

Yet in that moment it felt like a branding iron pulled from the fire, searing straight into my chest.

I left the Moretti estate and went back to the run-down rental by the water.

This was where Lorenzo and I had once lived together.

Paint peeling off the walls, cheap furniture, a ceiling that still leaked.

I walked to the bed and gently smoothed the creases left in the sheets.

Memories came flooding back like a rising tide.

Three years ago, in the winter, I ran into Lorenzo on my way home from work.

That night the snow was blowing hard, and he stood there in a thin, torn shirt, his forehead covered in blood.

Barefoot at the roadside, his eyes as hollow as a lost child's.

I meant to walk around him, but he suddenly grabbed my sleeve, his voice so faint I could barely hear it: "Help me…"

I hesitated, and in the end I still took him home.

Back then he remembered nothing, not even his own name.

We lived together for three years.

I taught him to cook, and he made a mess of the whole kitchen with his clumsy hands.

I took him to the pier, and he grinned like a child at the gulls wheeling overhead.

Every night we squeezed together onto the narrow, hard board bed.

He held me tight and said I was his only one.

Those days were poor and bare, but they were the warmest time of my life.

Until Lorenzo got his memory back.

He remembered his name, remembered that he was the eldest son of the Moretti Family, the one raised to inherit the whole bloodline.

And he remembered the night that had cost him his memory, the wound at his hairline that never fully faded.

He brought me back to the estate and gave me a life I wouldn't have dared to dream of before.

But from that day on, it was as if he'd become a different person.

Every day he wore suits cut in a language I didn't speak, a watch worth more than I'd see in ten lifetimes, moving behind the tinted glass of cars that never slowed.

He moved through the Family's clubs and back rooms, spoke of alliances and tribute in the same breath other men used for the weather, and stayed out night after night without coming home.

On the rare occasions we did meet, we barely exchanged two words.

At first I told myself he was the heir apparent now, the Don's chosen son, that it was normal for him to be pulled into the business of blood and money.

Until that night I came across the photographs.

Lorenzo, holding hands with a strange woman, the two of them chatting and laughing at a sit-down banquet, the kind where two Families measure each other over wine older than either of us.

When the image sharpened, I clearly saw the woman lower her head and murmur something against his ear.

And he turned his face slightly, a flicker of tenderness in his eyes that I had never seen before.

Everyone was whispering the same thing, that the Morettis and the Salvatores were a match sealed by God himself.

In that moment, my heart felt like it was seized by an invisible hand, squeezed so hard I could barely breathe.

I couldn't stop myself from calling him, and he explained impatiently: "The Salvatores and the Morettis have an arrangement. Camilla and I are only bound by Family business. People love to make something out of nothing."

"The alliance was something my grandfather arranged before the old Don passed. I never gave my word to it."

"But I'm a son of the Moretti bloodline, and keeping peace with the Salvatores is my burden to carry."

Burden.

That single word cut like a knife, severing the last of my hope.

The moment I pushed open the heavy doors of the Moretti estate, I saw Lorenzo and Camilla Salvatore sitting together on the drawing room sofa.

There was a plate of cannoli on the low table between them, and he was gently dabbing the corner of her mouth with a linen napkin, their bodies nearly pressed together.

At the sound of the door, Lorenzo whipped his head around.

A flicker of something crossed his eyes, and his thumb rose briefly to the pale scar at his hairline before he mastered himself.

He shifted his body slightly away from Camilla.

"You're back?"

He set down the napkin, his tone as flat as if he were speaking to a stranger who'd wandered onto Family ground.

I nodded, but my gaze drifted to Camilla on its own.

A faint, elusive smile hung at the corner of her lips, half a beat too quick, and her eyes carried a trace of contempt.

"Camilla only came to collect a document for her Family. Don't read into it."

Lorenzo stood and strode toward the study, his retreating figure moving faster than a made man ever should.

Only Camilla and I were left beneath the tall windows of the drawing room.

"So you must be Serafina. Lorenzo's spoken of you." She picked up a cannolo and held it out to me. "Care to try?"

I was about to refuse when a deep scorn surfaced in Camilla's eyes.

"A gutter rat like you, born with no name and no Family, isn't fit to eat off my plate at all."

She suddenly turned the pastry upside down onto her own expensive coat.

Hearing the commotion, Lorenzo came back down the stairs and crossed straight to Camilla's side.

"What happened?"

Camilla spread her hands. "Maybe the sight of me here upset her."

I was about to explain, but anger was already blazing in Lorenzo's eyes.

"Serafina, I already told you."

"Camilla and I are bound only by an arrangement between the Families. Those rumors are things people whisper to make trouble between the bloodlines."

"Why do you have to act crazy like this?"

The words rose to my lips, and I forced them back down.

Camilla gave a faint smile, casually pulled off the coat, and let it fall to the floor. "After all, she's your woman. It's only natural she'd be jealous." Her fingers had tightened around the fabric before she released it, the knuckles going white for just an instant. "So the coat got dirty. It's no great matter."

Lorenzo stiffened for a moment, then turned to me with a cold face. "Serafina. Apologize."

"Then go wash the coat clean."

After a few seconds of silence, I bowed my head to Camilla and said I was sorry.

Seeing me lower my eyes and yield, Lorenzo's expression finally eased, and he said, "Go wash the coat."

As I bent to pick it up, Camilla waved her hand with the ease of a woman who'd never wanted for anything. "Never mind. I have plenty of coats. I can do without this one."

Lorenzo nodded. "All right. I'll take you to buy a new one. Consider it my apology on her behalf."

He didn't spare me a single glance, taking Camilla's hand and leaving.

I stood where I was, holding the coat Camilla had ruined, numb as a puppet.

I still remembered two years ago, on a cold February night, when I'd spent half a month's earnings on a fine wool coat for Lorenzo, and he'd taken it, delighted.

The next day he'd quietly returned it and come back with a secondhand icebox instead.

Afraid I'd be hurt, he'd pressed his face to my cheek and consoled me, saying that as long as he had something on his back it was enough, that money should be spent where it truly mattered.

Back then, his eyes had been full of me.

I carried the coat to the bathroom and washed it carefully clean, then went back to the bedroom to pack my things.

My papers hadn't come through yet, so I decided to go back and stay a few days at the rented rooms before I left the territory for good.

As I pushed open the estate's front door, a rush of hurried footsteps in leather shoes came from behind me.

"Serafina."

Lorenzo's voice carried a suppressed fury.

I stopped walking, but I didn't turn around.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He came around to stand in front of me, his brow furrowed, his gaze dropping to the suitcase in my hand.

"Running away now?"

"How old are you? Still pulling this kind of stunt?"

I looked at him in silence.

His face was as handsome as ever, only the tenderness I'd once known was gone from his eyes. Whatever the snow had given back to me the night I dragged him out of it, this world had taken again.

"You deliberately ruined Camilla's coat, she didn't even hold it against you, and now you're the one throwing a tantrum?" He let out a cold laugh. "Have I been too good to you? Made you forget where you came from?"

Where I came from.

Those words made me grip the handle of the suitcase until my knuckles went white. A girl with no Family, no name behind her, no blood standing in a world where blood was everything.

"Say something!" His voice rose. "Who's this mute act for?"

I answered quietly, "I want to stay at the rental for a few days."

"The rental?"

His expression froze for an instant, then quickly settled back into that cold indifference the Morettis wore like a second skin.

"Fine. Let's see how long you can keep this up."

"Once you walk out that door, you'd better not come back."

"Spend the rest of your life in that filthy, run-down dump."

That last line drove into my heart like a knife.

My body trembled faintly. I pressed my thumb flat against the inside of my bare left wrist, the place where a woman claimed by a Family would wear its gold. I wore nothing there. I never had.

I said nothing and walked straight out the door.

Rain began to fall, striking my face, cold enough to cut to the bone.

As cold as the night I found him.

Slam.

The door crashed shut behind me.

Like a period stamped on the end of what we'd had.

Early the next morning, a sharp, insistent knocking woke me.

I dragged my exhausted body to the door and opened it. Lorenzo stood there.

Dressed in an immaculate black tuxedo, striking and handsome, the kind of man other men straightened up around without knowing why.

"Get ready. Put on a gown. I'm taking you to a banquet."

His tone wasn't as sharp as the day before, but it still carried that command that left no room for argument.

I shook my head.

"Stop being difficult." He said it impatiently. "It's a sit-down. Every Family that matters will be there, and men from every walk of life. As my woman, you should go and see a little of that world."

"So you'll stop letting your mind run wild all the time."

I still wanted to refuse, but he simply reached out and seized my wrist, his grip too strong to break free from. His thumb brushed once, absently, against the healed scar at his hairline, then dropped.

"Hurry up. The car's waiting downstairs."

A few minutes later, I had changed into the one gown of mine that still looked halfway presentable, and he took me down to the car.

The banquet was held on the top floor of a hotel the Families owned through three layers of clean paper.

The glare of the crystal chandeliers stung my eyes. The guests all around were dressed impeccably, laughing and murmuring low, every gesture full of grace and the quiet confidence of people who never had to fear anyone in the room. Or almost never.

I stood in a corner like an outsider who'd wandered into some other world, even my breathing out of place among them.

Lorenzo was quickly surrounded by several men, associates of the Family, their voices dropping when he drew near. He moved through them with ease, a polished smile in place, the successor everyone was measuring.

Now and then, he'd glance my way.

Before long, he took a phone call and told me hurriedly, "There's something I have to deal with. Stay here on your own for a bit."

He turned and left before I could answer.

I was about to find some out-of-the-way corner to sit in when a familiar voice rang out behind me.

"Well, if it isn't Serafina."

Camilla came sauntering up, a wineglass in hand, the corner of her mouth curling. The Salvatore heiress, promised to Lorenzo by a pact sealed between the two bloodlines before either of them was old enough to object.

Two young men from Family stock trailed behind her, hangers-on or admirers, most likely.

"What are you doing standing here all by yourself?"

I looked at her in silence, unwilling to get tangled up with her.

Seeing that I ignored her, she shook her head with feigned regret, and the smile came a half-beat too fast. "Lorenzo really is something. How could he just leave you here all alone?"

"Then again, a woman like you really doesn't belong at an occasion like this."