Chapter 4

Rosa spent three days in the hospital. The day she was discharged, Dante came to see me.

He stood in front of me, his throat bobbing with an awkward swallow.

"Rosa is the one who put the peanut butter on the necklace. One of the maids saw her rubbing it onto the chain with a cotton swab." He looked at me, his voice dropping. "I'm sorry. I lost my head, and I..."

"Are you done?"

"What?" He blinked, caught off guard.

"If you're done, leave."

He pressed his lips together, as if there was something more he wanted to say, but in the end all that came out was, "You already lived one life for her sake. This time around, just cut her some slack."

I didn't answer. I got up and opened the door. "You've said your piece. Get out. You're not welcome here."

He knew he was in the wrong. Without another word, he left.

The moment the door clicked shut, my phone buzzed on the bed. A message from Rosa: "Did you see that, Valentina? In this family, you'll always be the one who doesn't matter. That was just a little lesson. Next time, you won't be so lucky."

After being reborn, arguing over something so petty felt childish.

I didn't reply. I just set the phone facedown on the desk.

A few quiet days passed. One afternoon, I was trimming flowers in the garden.

Someone attacked me from behind, and everything went black.

When I came to, everything was swaying. The air reeked of rust and brine.

The blindfold was yanked off my face, and I found myself lying aboard a decrepit cargo ship. A man covered in scars stood a short distance away. He tossed a dagger at my feet.

"The Don's orders. This ship is heading for international waters to take out a cruise liner hosting a party out there."

"The Don? Don Vitano?"

The man nodded. "The Rosso Family refused to hand over the cargo they stole. You're a Vitano princess, trained since childhood, which makes you the obvious choice to lead the recovery team."

"Why should I believe you? If you're Vitano men, why did you have to kidnap me?"

The man smiled and pulled out a pocket watch from inside his coat.

Lorenzo kept that watch with him at all times. I had dropped it once as a child, leaving a clear scratch across the case. Terrified that he would be furious, I had taken a small knife and worked the scratch into the shape of a heart.

The little heart was still there on the watch case. I sat looking at it, and it felt like a silent taunt.

I gripped the dagger. My knuckles went white.

International waters were where the Rosso Family's power was most concentrated. Sending me there was as good as a death sentence.

The last trace of warmth left in my chest went cold.

I had always thought Lorenzo simply played favorites. I never imagined that the man who had taken two bullets for me in another life could actually wish me dead.

The ship closed in on the target.

For three straight days, the people around me dropped one by one. Some were Rosso men, some were Vitano.

I lost count of how many I killed.

When a blade went dull, I took one from a dead man's hand. When the bullets ran out, I used my fists and my teeth. The smell of blood caked inside my nostrils and wouldn't leave.

This mission was worse than every job I had ever done combined.

On the fourth day, just as dawn broke pale over the horizon, the deck finally went quiet. I stepped over the bodies and walked to the bow. The sea glinted with cold light.

I was the only one left on the entire ship, and there wasn't an inch of skin on me that wasn't torn open.

I peeled off my jacket and wrapped it around the worst of the wounds still seeping blood. With the last shred of strength I had, I jumped into the freezing water and swam.

Today was day ten. I was finally going to be free.

I swam with everything I had to the dock we had agreed on. A man stood at the end of the pier with a cigarette between his lips.

He watched me drag myself out of the water. The tip of his cigarette flared once.

Cullen Price stubbed out his cigarette and looked me up and down.

"With the state you're in, we don't even need to fake your death. You already look like a real corpse."

I dropped to my knees on the wooden planks. My legs couldn't hold me anymore.

"Shut up." My voice was raw, scraped down to sandpaper.

"I want the whole world to know that the Vitano princess is dead."

Cullen tilted his head and let the humor drain from his eyes. "As you wish."

He pressed a button on the remote in his hand. In the distance, two boats erupted in a ball of fire.

When it was done, he slung my arm over his shoulder and walked me deeper into the port.

The sea wind poured in from behind. Waves slapped against the stone walls.

I didn't look back.

At that same moment, back at the old estate, Dante was in the second-floor study, leaning back in his chair and flipping through documents.

His phone buzzed on the desk.

He picked up, listened for a few seconds, and the papers slipped from his fingers and scattered across the floor.

"What did you say... who's dead?"