Chapter 3

The iron door clanged shut, sealing me in the estate's wine cellar.

My cheek still burned from where Angelo had backhanded me.

The bruises blooming on my neck and jaw were proof enough.

I sat beside a row of oak wine barrels, staring at the dim oil lamp overhead. My phone was gone. So was my Browning.

I was a prisoner on the land my father had left me. My wardens were my husband and the woman who'd called herself my "best friend" for over a decade.

Time crawled. With no windows, I could only guess at the hour by the shifting light of the lamp. My stomach began to cramp, a harsh reminder that I hadn't eaten since last night.

The lock on the iron door clicked.

Bianca walked in carrying a tray. She was pressing an ice pack to her cheek, but her eyes were bright, like she'd just won the whole pot at a poker table.

"Drink up," she said, setting the tray on a wooden crate. It was a vintage red from the Family's private reserve, the kind I used to drink to celebrate. The kind I used to like.

"Get out," I said, turning my face away.

"Oh, come on, Siena," she sighed, perching on a wine barrel across from me as if nothing had happened.

"Stop acting so tough. You need your strength. You look like a ghost."

"Get out."

"Listen," she said, her voice low and conspiratorial. "I know you want to kill me. But maybe we can solve this another way. A truce?"

I turned my head and stared at her. My bridesmaid. The woman who held me and cried with me the night of my first miscarriage.

"A truce?" The idea was so absurd I almost laughed. "You crawled into my husband's bed."

"So what?" she shrugged, playing with her wine glass. "We shared everything growing up, didn't we? A piece of bread, a magazine of bullets, a basement to hide from the cops... so why can't we share him?"

"We could have a new kind of family, Siena. The three of us. Ruling this place together."

Fighting her now would only get me killed in this cellar. Or make my life a living hell.

I took a deep breath of the damp cellar air and swallowed my nausea.

"And you think that would last?" I asked, my voice trembling despite myself.

"Why wouldn't it?" Bianca laughed. "Angelo loves us both, for different reasons. He's addicted to my... wildness. But he respects your bloodline and your brain. Together, we satisfy all his ambitions."

I wanted to vomit. But I nodded.

"Alright," I said softly. "Maybe you're right. I'm just tired of the fighting."

Bianca clapped her hands. "I knew you'd see reason."

She pushed the glass of red wine toward me and poured one for herself. As she raised her glass, a diamond the size of a pigeon's egg on her left ring finger blinded me for a second.

"New ring?" I forced a smile, my voice brittle.

"Angelo gave it to me last week," she said, flaunting it. "He said I deserved a real one. Four carats, pigeon-blood ruby. Paid for with Family funds."

I lowered my eyes to the small, dull ring on my own left hand. A fake he'd bought at a black-market stall the year we married. He'd promised to replace it with a real one once he was Made. Ten years later, he never had.

I smiled.

"It's beautiful," I said.

"Come on," she said, pressing the wine glass into my hand. "To family."

I raised the glass. In the dim light, the liquid was dark red, almost black.

I took a sip. It tasted metallic, bitter on the back of my tongue.

I swallowed, but a second later, a stabbing pain exploded deep in my abdomen. I doubled over as the glass slipped from my grasp, shattering on the stone floor and splashing red into the crevices.

"Siena?" Bianca asked, her voice distant.

"I don't feel well," I gasped, clutching my stomach.

The pain was blinding. I tried to use the barrel to stand, but my legs gave out. I collapsed onto the cold stone floor, wracked with dry heaves.

"Oh my God," Bianca gasped. She made no move to help, just watched me from the sidelines, taking an elegant sip of her own wine.

"Call... call someone..." I screamed, my vision turning black.

Darkness surged, swallowing my consciousness.

Footsteps echoed from the door.

In my final moments, I saw Angelo walk down and look at me as I convulsed on the floor.

For a second, his eyes darted around, as if weighing whether to let me die right there or call for help and deal with the mess.

Then the darkness took me.

I woke to the beeping of a heart monitor and the smell of disinfectant.

My eyelids felt like lead. I could hear a conversation outside the door.

"Is the bitch dead yet?" Bianca's voice. Cold, irritated.

"She'll live, for now," a man replied. It was the family doctor. "The poison caused a severe toxic reaction. It nearly destroyed her internal organs."

"Tsk," Bianca complained. "She's harder to kill than a sewer rat."

"Shut up," Angelo warned, his voice low. "Keep it down."

"What do we do now?" Bianca asked. "She's going to suspect the wine when she wakes up."

"We tell everyone she had a manic episode and tried to kill herself," Angelo said. "Her mind is broken. It fits the narrative we've been building."

"And... the other complication?" Bianca asked.

Silence. A silence so heavy it felt like it could suffocate the entire clinic.

"She didn't even know," the doctor said, his voice low. "She was eight weeks pregnant."

My heart stopped.

"Pregnant?" Angelo repeated.

"Not anymore," the doctor said. "The trauma to her abdomen, combined with the poison... she lost the baby."

I had been pregnant.

And I had no idea. After the first miscarriage, after the endless despair and doctor's visits, after I had given up on ever becoming a mother...

I had gotten pregnant. And they had murdered my child with their own hands.

Hot tears slipped from the corners of my closed eyes, sinking into the pillow.

I didn't move. I didn't scream. I just lay there in the dark like a corpse, listening to these demons celebrate the death of my child like it was a business deal.

"That's great news," Bianca said, her voice devoid of humanity. "At least that solves one problem. Now there are no heirs to complicate the transfer of territory."

"Exactly," Angelo agreed. "This is the cleanest way. After our little show at the masquerade ball on Friday, the Romano casinos and shipping routes will all be mine."

"I get a thrill just thinking about it," Bianca laughed. "All the elders watching her lose her mind on her own birthday."

No. I would never let them have that satisfaction. Before that day came, I would be long gone.