Chapter 3

Once we reached his home, Lorenzo called a doctor to bandage my wound again. Then he handed me a glass of warm water.

Lorenzo asked hesitantly, "Do you think I'm useless, Cecilia? I haven't given you a prestigious family name or any social status."

I took a sip.

"Lorenzo, I married you because I love you and you love me. Nothing else matters."

Our meeting had been dramatic, but he was the only person in all of Sicily willing to treat me well.

He ruffled my hair.

"Cecilia, give me a little time. I promise I'll make you the most respected woman in Sicily."

I smiled but didn't take his promise seriously.

So what if Lorenzo was only a bartender? I was willing to face any hardship by his side.

I looked down at my bare fingers and realized I'd left behind the ring I'd inherited from my grandfather.

Valentina had been frail all our lives, so our parents favored her over me. Whatever she wanted, I had to give it to her.

Our grandfather had given each of us a ring. Mine was one of the few things I could truly call my own.

Lorenzo and I had agreed to go back for it together the next day, but he unexpectedly received an urgent call that morning.

"Cecilia, I don't want you going back alone."

He put down his phone, guilt written across his face. I gave him a reassuring smile.

"They're not going to eat me alive. I lived at the Cecil estate for more than twenty years. I'll be fine. I'm only going back to get what's mine."

I went back to the Cecil estate alone. The ground was still cratered from the Mancini shells.

I skirted the muddy craters, went up to my room, and turned it inside out. The ring was nowhere to be found.

"It was right here."

I was close to tears. I paced the room several times, but the ring was nowhere to be found.

"Stop looking," my mother said from behind me. I turned and found her leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded.

"Mother, do you know what happened to my ring? Grandfather left it to me..." I looked at her hopefully.

But she didn't answer. Valentina stepped out from behind her and flashed the ring at me triumphantly.

"That's my ring!"

I recognized the ruby set in it. My grandfather had chosen that stone especially for me, while Valentina's ring held a sapphire.

My mother looked at me as though this were obvious.

"Now that Valentina has married Don Moretti's oldest son, she'll need things that show her status. How else will she earn Don Moretti's respect?

"She can add this ring to her jewelry rotation. That bartender husband of yours could never give you anything like it.

"Could he take you to dinner with the Morettis?"

"But it's mine!" I shouted. "Grandfather left it to me!"

My grandfather was the don who built the Cecil family from nothing. My father took over only after my grandfather died. I had been young then, but I vaguely remembered how kind he had been to me. Whatever it took, I would reclaim the keepsake he had left me.

I grabbed Valentina's hand and tried to work the ring off her finger.

Smack.

My father struck me across the face and shoved me to the floor.

"How did I end up with such a selfish daughter? You're a disgrace to the Cecil name!"