1

The blood was coming fast.

I pressed a hand to the wound and dragged myself, inch by inch, toward the safe room door.

"Help... help us..."

The words caught in my throat. Only a few hoarse breaths came out.

Nonna and the others had been dead for only 15 minutes.

If someone opened the door now, maybe they could still be saved.

Someone outside heard me pounding on the door.

"Was that something in there?"

Footsteps came closer, and a hand closed around the door handle.

Another man stopped him.

"Did you forget Miss Bianca's orders? No matter what you hear in there tonight, nobody opens this door."

"But that was a gunshot just now. What if Luca's wife did something stupid..."

The other man snorted.

"The bullets in that gun were swapped for blanks ages ago. It can't hurt anybody."

"But the Don's mother is in there, along with his sons' wives and his little granddaughter. If anything happens, who's going to take the fall?"

"Are any of them more important than Miss Bianca?

"The Don, Mr. Santangelo, and both his sons are playing along with her. Open that door and ruin her fun, and you'll be the one in trouble."

A shudder ran through me, and I coughed up another mouthful of blood.

It had all been a lie from the start.

The masked gunmen outside were just our own men wearing Moretti insignia.

We could have had Thanksgiving dinner in peace.

Nonna didn't have to die. My brothers' wives, Anna and Clara, didn't have to die.

And little Mia never should have died.

"Help..."

With the last of my strength, I clawed at the door.

My nails tore loose one by one, leaving streaks of blood on the steel.

Outside, there was a moment of silence.

"Maybe we should go in and check after all?"

"Check what? They're a bunch of spoiled women. What could happen to them?

"Drink up."

Glasses clinked, and before long they were laughing again.

They split a pumpkin pie and guessed how big a bonus Bianca would give them tomorrow.

No one came near the door again.

I slid down the door and looked back into the room.

Under the long table, across the carpet, everywhere I looked, the women of the Valenti family lay dead.

Closest to me was Mia, my brother Nico's daughter. She was only five.

Two hours earlier, she'd leaned against my knees and begged me to fold her a paper turkey.

The finished turkey was still sitting on the table.

I hadn't had time to color it in.

Clara, Nico's wife, held Mia in her arms and kissed her forehead over and over.

Mia didn't understand what was happening. She just kept crying.

"Mommy, my tummy hurts so bad! When is Daddy coming home?"

Anna, my oldest brother Marco Valenti's wife, sat slumped against the wall. Until her last breath, she'd clutched a phone that had lost its signal long ago.

An unsent message was frozen on the screen.

"Marco, there's something I want to tell you in person."

An hour earlier, that blood-soaked bodyguard had crashed through the side door.

"Donna! The Don and Mr. Santangelo are both dead!"

Crying, he pressed a silver box into Nonna's hands.

"Moretti's men are everywhere. They use women and children to break the men who survive. If they take you, they'll torture you. Your grandsons will walk right into a trap trying to save you, and the entire Valenti family will be wiped out!"

Nonna took it with trembling hands.

Then the gunmen broke through the front doors.

I drew my gun and planted myself in front of everyone, firing as I covered their retreat to the basement.

One shot, two shots, until the magazine was empty.

But not a single one of them went down.

The man in front even laughed. He patted his chest and took a step toward us.

Nonna yanked me into the safe room and locked the door.

"If Moretti's men take us, they'll use us to force a surrender. The Valenti family will never recover.

"The women of this family will never be taken hostage, tortured, and used as bargaining chips."

When she finished handing out the capsules, there wasn't one for me.

She pushed aside the liquor cabinet against the wall. Behind it was a hidden nook with room for only one person.

"Millie, hide in there. As long as you're alive, there's hope."

I shook my head, crying.

I watched everyone fall, one by one. Then Nonna bit down on her capsule right in front of me and slumped in her seat at the head of the table.

She was still clutching the capsule meant for me.

I picked up the kids' smartwatch Mia had dropped on the floor and pressed record.

Then I took off the bullet pendant I wore around my neck.

Luca's initials and mine were engraved on the bullet.

On our wedding night, he'd hung it around my neck himself.

"This one is for the day I can't protect you."

He bent his head and kissed it.

"I hope we never need it."

Now that day had come.

I loaded the bullet into the chamber and pointed the gun at myself.

Everyone I loved in this family was dead. I wasn't going to go on living alone.

Only then did I realize none of us had to die.

Another burst of laughter came from outside.

"When the old Donna finds out tomorrow that it was all a joke, she'll beat the Don and his boys with her cane!"

"A few whacks and she'll calm down. We're all family here. Nobody holds grudges, right?"

Slowly, my vision faded to black.

Some family. They've killed half of it for an adopted daughter.

My hand fell to the floor, and I went still.