"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."

"Being seen with him would drag his blood standing down."

One of the young men reached out and patted my shoulder, the pressure neither light nor rough, the casual touch of someone who'd never once feared consequence.

"Cinderella, this isn't a place for the likes of you. Get lost."

Then the three of them turned and walked away, arrogance in the very set of their backs, the way only men born under a Family name could carry themselves.

The banquet was halfway through when a sudden commotion shattered the calm.

Camilla Salvatore stood in the center of the crowd, her face pale.

"My rosary is gone! The Salvatore heirloom, the one my mother left me!"

The room erupted in an instant.

A dozen soldiers moved from the walls without a word, sealing the exits, and began searching every guest at the sit-down.

My heart dropped hard, a sense of dread rising in me.

Sure enough, a moment later two enforcers crossed the floor straight to me, their voices flat and cold. "Ma'am, cooperate with the search."

Before I could react, a hand had already reached into my bag.

The next second, it pulled out the heirloom signet and rosary, the chain snapped clean into two pieces.

The whole room drew a single breath.

Camilla rushed over, and the instant she saw the broken pieces, her eyes reddened.

She cradled them in trembling hands, her voice choking.

"This is the only thing my mother left me!"

"Why would you break it?"

The stares around me stabbed like knives, and the whispers rose from every side, low and venomous, the murmur of a room that had already passed sentence.

"I thought there was something off about her from the start. A woman with no name, no Family, wouldn't speak to anyone, just sat in the corner the whole night."

"So she's a thief. No wonder she was skulking around the walls."

"You can tell just by looking she's no good."

"How did an outsider like that even get through the doors at a Family banquet?"

"Stealing is bad enough. But seeing she couldn't slip out, she goes and destroys it. That's beyond forgiving."

My mind went blank, a ringing in my ears.

Just then, Lorenzo came back.

He pushed through the crowd, took in the scene before him, and once he understood it, his face went livid in an instant.

He strode up to me and slapped me hard across the face.

"Serafina!" His voice was cold to the bone, low enough that the whole room leaned in to hear it. "You've disappointed me beyond words."

My cheek burned, but it was nothing next to the pain in my chest.

I looked at him, searching his eyes for a shred of trust.

Even just a shred.

But all I found in his gaze was anger and disgust.

"Apologize to Camilla."

Camilla stood off to the side, the corners of her mouth curving up a half-beat too fast.

I knew that no matter what I said now, in this room bound by their code, no one would believe an outsider over a Salvatore.

Still, I drew a deep breath and spoke slowly. "I didn't do it. Why should I apologize?"

Lorenzo let out a cold laugh. "The proof is right there in your hands. You still want to argue your way out?"

I looked at him, and he felt more and more like a stranger. I pressed my thumb flat against the inside of my bare left wrist, where every other woman in this room wore a Family's gold, and I wore nothing at all.

I turned, pushed through the crowd, and walked toward the exit.

Behind me came Lorenzo's furious roar. "Serafina! Stop right there!"

I didn't look back. My steps were steady and resolute.

This time, I would not stop for him again.

But just as I was about to walk out the doors, Camilla's two soldiers suddenly closed on me and smashed a chair hard against my legs.

Caught off guard, I dropped to my knees, curses screeching in my ears.

"You broke the heirloom your mother left her, and you think you can just walk off without even an apology?"

One of them swung a club down against my back.

"There's no getting off that easy in this world, not in ours."

The blows rained down, and I curled up, hands clamped over my head.

A pain like snapping ribs tore through me, and warm liquid slid down my forehead, blurring my vision.

The crowd burst into cries of alarm, yet not one person in that room of made men and their women stepped forward to stop it.

Instead, plenty of gloating jeers drifted my way.