I sat up and looked straight at him.

Luciano flinched, a flash of guilt behind his eyes, then steadied into irritation.

"Avery was raised with everything she ever wanted. She's the Don's real daughter. She can't handle hard things the way you can."

His tone got impatient. "Nina, you've been through the rough stuff with me. You know how hard I worked to get here. Just be smart about this. Don't make it harder than it has to be."

Be smart.

I had been smart for four winters. Hands cracking, healing, scarring over again and again. While he strategized indoors, I hauled freight, ran accounts, took insults, froze in the cold.

The third time he failed to move up and said he had no money for the next bribe, I knelt in front of that broker and sold myself. The day I signed, the broker grabbed my wrist like he was appraising merchandise.

He knew all of this. But all he ever said was: "Nina, once I make my position, I won't let you down."

He made his position. And what I got was be smart.

My eyes burned. I tilted my head up and stared at him.

"You should be grateful, Nina!"

He snapped to his feet, like my stare had embarrassed him into fury. "Avery is the Don's daughter — old money, real class. I'm about to run the north territory. We're a match. That's how it works."

His voice went up, contempt sliding into his eyes. "And you? A street girl. I'm offering to take care of you, and that's more than you deserve after four years."

A street girl.

I looked down at my hands and felt my heart being squeezed dry.

Four years ago, in that beat-up chapel, the weak candlelight played across his face. He'd smiled, nervous and earnest at once, and held my hands and said: "Nina, I'm honored you'd have me. When I've made something of myself, you'll be my wife. One life, one loyalty, I swear it."

I'd carried that for four years. Through winter chilblains. Through hauling cargo until my arms couldn't lift. Through being hit in the face with a stiletto heel by the Don's daughter at the Moretti mansion. I'd held on to that promise.

Turned out I was the only one who had.

I spoke, and my voice came out so flat it surprised me.

"You're right. I got ahead of myself."

He blinked. "Really?" His eyes were suspicious.

I pulled up a smile. "Really. I'm just a street girl, Luciano. That you took an interest in me was already more than I deserved."

He exhaled and launched into his monologue: "Once I'm settled I'll raise your status," "I'll never let you go short," "Avery may be the wife but you're first in my heart."

White noise. I didn't hear a word.

When he left, a draft crept through the door and knocked the candle stub off the table. It hit the floor and snapped in two.

I bent down and picked up the pieces, held them in my palm. Outside, the night was heavy. I went to stand in the doorway.

Three days earlier, Avery had decided my coffee wasn't hot enough and poured the entire pot over my arm. The burn still hadn't healed. Wind hit the wound, cold and painful, but my head finally cleared.

They wanted me dead. I wasn't going to die. They wanted me as a pawn. I was going to blow up the whole board.

I needed to find my brother. Find the Shadow King.

First thing the next morning I put on the old coat Avery had thrown out, my "gift" from the Moretti estate since being brought back to the family. Nice fabric, worn through at the cuffs. She'd gotten tired of it.

I fixed my hair in the mirror. The face looking back was pale, but the eyes were unnervingly steady.

Out in the main hall, the orders had already come down. Luciano was having afternoon tea with Avery in the garden.

Don Moretti sat at the head of the table. When I walked up and volunteered to take the assignment, something lit up in his eyes.

"Nina. You mean that?"

I kept my head down. "Godfather, you've given me everything. Avery is my sister. If I can share her burden, it's an honor."

Only I knew that every word of that came out through gritted teeth.

Don Moretti turned the ring on his finger and nodded, like he was checking a piece of equipment.

"You've always been sensible." He smiled. "I thought I'd have to talk you into it. Nice to see you understand the bigger picture."

He didn't know that the Shadow King was my brother.

I kept my head bowed, hid my face, kept my voice soft.

"I've had a hard time out there. Being brought back to the family is already more than I could ask for. If I can spare my sister any trouble, that's what I should do."

Smooth and seamless. When you spend years as someone's servant, the thing you learn fastest is how to say exactly what they need to hear.

Luciano came in late, still glowing from his time with Avery. He got one foot in the door, heard my last words, and the look on his face went strange. He'd probably expected crying. A scene. Accusations. Not this.

Avery let a flash of satisfaction cross her face. She tucked herself under his arm and laughed, sharp-edged. "A servant's always a servant. Some people are just born to their knees. It's in the bone."

She barely glanced at me when she said it, the same tone she'd used when she'd made me jump into a freezing pool to fish out her earring, the same tone she'd used when she'd made me take the blame in front of the family elders.

Don Moretti gave her a token look. She pouted prettily. He chuckled, indulgent. Luciano's expression flickered. He started to say something but Avery tugged his arm, and he let himself be pulled into the Don's planning conversation.

I was the only outsider here. I stood in the cold while every person in that room circled around how to use me up.

I closed my eyes and pressed the weight of their looks into my memory until it was bone-deep.

They thought I was walking into my grave. They didn't know the Shadow King was my brother. Once he brought me back, I would become the most protected woman in the most powerful family in this city, and nobody would ever lay a finger on me again.

After the meeting broke up, Luciano came and found me.

He blocked my way, voice low and tight. "Nina. Why'd you agree? Did you change your mind about me? I told you I'd take care of you — don't do something stupid."

He still thought I didn't know the truth, that I was just sulking, going along with it out of spite. The fact that he'd lost control of the situation was clearly eating at him.

I stopped and looked up at him. My face was still.

This man, handsome and warm-eyed, the face I'd known for four years, and I had never once seen through him.

I smiled. "I'm doing it for you."

Something in his expression cracked. He grabbed my wrist. "I don't buy that. You said you'd wait for me. You said—" His voice shook. He was trying to keep it together and not quite making it.

I just looked at him. Four years, and this was the first time I'd seen him like this, eyes reddening, jaw tight, like a scared kid.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" I said quietly.

He froze.

"You want to marry Avery, don't you?" My voice sounded like someone else's, too calm and too distant. "You want to be the Don's son-in-law. You want a wife who's your equal in status."

"I—"

"I'm doing this for you." I cut him off, and even laughed a little. "What's the alternative — I make a scene? Scream that you can't marry someone else? Embarrass you in front of the Don, blow up everything you've worked for?"

Luciano's mouth opened. Nothing came out.

His hand went slack around my wrist and dropped to his side. He seemed to deflate, shoulders caving in. "Nina..."

"Don't worry." I stepped back. "I won't cause you any trouble once I'm gone."

He stood there watching me, something in his eyes: guilt, unease, and underneath it a shadow of loss, like something was slipping through his fingers.

But my eyes were cold. He had the nerve to look like he was about to cry.

Avery had appeared in the doorway without either of us noticing.

She was wearing a scarlet evening dress that made her look stunning, and she was watching us with open contempt. Her eyes moved back and forth between me and Luciano, then settled on his hand still near my wrist.

Luciano startled and pulled back like he'd touched something dirty, stepping quickly to her side. "Avery, I was just—"

Avery walked toward me instead.

"Nina." She stopped in front of me, looking down. "Forget who you are?"

"Miss Avery—"

Crack. The slap was loud and clean. My head snapped sideways and my ear started ringing.

"You trash." She wiped her hand on a silk cloth and smiled. "Get them."

Two guys came in fast, one on each side, and they drove me to the floor and started working on my face like they'd done it a hundred times before. Luciano went still, surprised or pretending to be.

My hair was everywhere. Blood at the corner of my mouth. I turned away so I didn't have to look at him.

He probably didn't know that since the day I sold myself into this house to help him, every day had been something like this.

Avery was jealous, said I was prettier than her, and that was reason enough. My body always had bruises somewhere. I used to tell Luciano I'd fallen.

There are still whip scars on my back from the time she accused me of breaking a vase she'd broken herself. In a family like this one, giving the order didn't even require a second thought.

Luciano finally opened his mouth. "Avery, she's leaving in a few days anyway—"

Avery's eyes went shiny and tears came like a tap being turned on.

She pressed herself into his chest, voice going small and hurt. "Luciano, I came to check on Nina. I thought I'd be kind. But my mother's diamond ring is missing — the one she left me before she died. I think Nina took it to get back at me."

She shook against him, wracked with sobs.

I stared at her. I had never touched her ring.

Luciano wrapped an arm around her waist and looked down at her. His eyes were full of tenderness, but calculating. He'd been through hard years with me. He knew I was the kind of person who'd walk three blocks back to return a five-dollar overpayment.

I watched his face. Avery sobbed harder.

Luciano held her, panicked, running his hand along her back. Then he lifted his head and looked at me, and the look landed like a blade.

"Nina." His voice was tight with controlled anger. "Avery came to see you in good faith and this is what you do? That ring was her mother's. Do you have any idea what that means to her?"

I felt like I'd been dropped into ice water. No matter whether I'd taken it or not, he'd already decided.

Blood at the corner of my mouth. I tilted my head up and looked at him.

"I didn't take it."

"Stop lying." He cut me off, voice going colder. "Avery is not the type to make something up. You took advantage of her being soft-hearted and now you want to play innocent?"

Avery sobbed louder in his arms. Her fingers twisted into his tie. Her face was buried in his chest and her shoulders heaved, but I saw her head tip up for just a second and glance at me. She was smiling.

Trash. She mouthed it at me, clear as anything.

My teeth were chattering. I wanted to lunge across the room and tear her apart. But I couldn't. Luciano hadn't seen any of it.

He was focused on the woman in his arms, voice going soft enough to melt. "Don't cry, Avery. The ring is gone, it's gone — I'll get you a better one. Not worth ruining your eyes over something like this."

"But it was the only thing my mom left me..." Avery whimpered.

"I know, I know." He stroked her back. "It's not your fault. I'll apologize on her behalf. Okay?"

I was on my knees. The pain came in waves from the floor, from my knees, from somewhere deeper, a hollow ache that hurt more than any of it.

It's not your fault.

He hadn't asked if my knees were bleeding. He hadn't even looked down to see what I was kneeling on: broken glass, the pieces of a shattered drinking cup.

I let out a sound that was almost a laugh. Tears slid down my face, not from grief but from a final, clear-eyed reckoning with my own stupidity.

I remembered once, years ago, when Luciano got cornered by a rival crew and took a bullet. In the dark of an alley, I used my bare hands to knock out two men twice my size, then carried him three city blocks to an underground clinic.

The doctor said another half hour and he wouldn't have made it. When he came around, he held my hand and said, "Nina, I owe you my life."

Now, over a ring, knowing exactly who I was, he didn't believe a single word I said.

"You've really let me down." He turned to face me, voice flat with disappointment and disgust. "I thought you were different. Guess I was wrong. Avery came in good faith and you put her through this. Do you feel anything?"

I opened my mouth, closed it. The words dried up in my throat.

Avery lifted her face right on cue, eyes still red-rimmed, voice gone soft. "Luciano, my head hurts."

He was instantly alarmed. "What's wrong? Is it the old thing again?"

"Mm." She folded into him. "Hold me and it'll pass."

He pulled her close with the careful hands of someone holding something irreplaceable, then looked back at me like a knife.

"Nina, if you have a single shred of conscience left, you get on your knees and apologize to Avery right now."