Chapter 2

The basement sat right next to the wine cellar—damp, dark, and cramped, with nothing but a narrow cot that barely fit my body.

When my mother first married my stepfather, she'd volunteered me to the housekeeper to prove how humble and well-behaved she was. "Vera's small. She can sleep by the wine cellar and help keep an eye on the bottles. That's enough."

That was seven years ago. I'd long since grown taller, my limbs too long for this bed now—but no one ever replaced it.

I curled up on that tiny mattress in an awkward, twisted position, and the tears just started spilling down my cheeks.

Truth is, I used to crave my mother's love.

I used to take on every dirty, backbreaking chore in the manor, ran errands for the low-level mafia thugs, and saved up a few hundred dollars.

With that money, I bought Sofia the limited-edition hairpin she'd been eyeing for months—hoping it might help me belong.

But Sofia took one look at it, knocked it out of my hand, and crushed it under her heel. "A thing bought with money reeking of some gutter rat's sweat? It'd just dirty my hair."

Then she ran to my stepfather crying, saying I'd stolen from the family vault and blown it all on myself.

No matter how much I tried to explain, my mother wouldn't believe me.

That night, it was snowing like crazy.

She made me stand outside the manor's iron gates and forbade me from eating or sleeping for three days straight.

I was too young to survive that kind of cold. I passed out and tumbled down the icy steps.

When I woke up, I was in the hospital with over a dozen stitches across my forehead.

But my mother just stood by my bed, looking annoyed. "Sofia's younger than you and she's not this fragile. Stop playing dead."

That incident left an ugly scar on my temple.

To avoid "shaming" the family, my mother made me grow out heavy bangs to cover my forehead—and to this day, I'm not allowed to show it.

After she remarried, the one line she kept drilling into me was: "Vera, Luca took us in and gave us his name. You need to be grateful. Repay him with your life. Understand?"

I used to believe that. I groveled and tiptoed around, trying so hard to be invisible.

And all I got in return were endless accusations and Sofia's schemes.

When it came to Sofia, I could never do anything right.

I pulled the Harvard acceptance letter out of my backpack and smoothed it against my knee.

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