Nine Years of Silence

My mother's nails dug into my wrist. "Your sister pushed you out of the way in that warehouse explosion and scarred her leg for life," she hissed. "Now she wants Matteo, so you step aside. Consider it paying her back."

Thunderous applause filled the hall, and the band struck up a celebratory melody. Matteo stood in the spotlight holding Cecilia's hand, the Silver Fox and the Black Serpent projected on the wall behind them. It looked like a union that already had everyone's blessing.

The people at my table gazed at my sister with envy. Occasionally someone's eyes drifted to me, then quickly looked away. To them, I was just an ordinary advisor who handled contracts and accounts for the DeLuca Family, not even important enough to sit at the inner circle's table.

Nine years.

Nine years of youth, loyalty, and blood, and in their eyes, I wasn't even worth an explanation.

After the banquet ended, I slipped into the empty back stairwell. No cameras, no Family attendants, just the muffled bass of music bleeding through the walls. I leaned against the cold concrete, gasping, and before a single tear could fall, a pair of arms closed around me from behind.

Matteo.

He held me tight, the way he always did after he'd hurt me, his chin resting on top of my head, his voice carrying a faint tremor of apology. "Elena, I'm sorry. I know tonight was hard on you. Cecilia just got back from Europe, and her last marriage ended badly. Your parents said she couldn't handle any more stress. That ring is just a promise of protection between the Families, a token of her new position."

He smoothed the furrow between my brows, his tone so gentle it almost passed for devotion. "You're the one who stood by me through the worst of it. You're the only person I want to spend my life with. Just give me a little more time. Once the port alliance settles, I'll sort everything out."

I'd heard that speech so many times over nine years that I could recite his pauses from memory.

If I hadn't noticed the crest on his tie clip, I might have forgiven him again.

It was a black serpent coiled around a silver fox's tail, the betrothal emblem of the DeLuca and Costa families. Three months ago, I'd had a tie clip custom-made for him: a laurel branch twined around a black serpent. The laurel stood for my name and for the nine years we'd weathered together.

He'd said it was too precious to wear and had locked it away at the very bottom of his safe.

It wasn't that he couldn't bear to wear it.

He simply had no use for it.

I finally understood. Tonight wasn't a charade forced on him by my parents. He'd planned every detail. He'd already swapped out the emblem he wore closest to his body, and all that was left was to see whether I'd swallow it the way I always had.

"Thank you for letting me have the advisor position, Elena." Cecilia clicked into the stairwell in her heels, smiling as she looped her arm through mine. "Mom and Dad were right. You've always been the sensible one. You're used to working behind the scenes anyway. Me stepping into the spotlight won't stop you from helping Matteo."

My parents, Enzo and Viviana, came in behind her. Enzo's face was stone-cold. "Everyone out there has already accepted that Matteo is your sister's fiance. Watch yourself from now on, and stop seeing him alone. The Costa Family can't afford that kind of embarrassment."

Matteo frowned slightly, as if he wanted to say something on my behalf.

But Cecilia started coughing right on cue, her face going pale as she gripped the railing. Matteo let go of me instantly and draped his jacket over her shoulders. "Why are you coughing so hard? Didn't I tell you your lungs were damaged and you can't be around cold air?"

She leaned weakly into his arms. "It's probably just the air conditioning in the hall. I'm fine."

"Stop pretending you're okay. Let's go home. I'll have the private doctor come over."

Matteo scooped her up and strode toward the basement garage. My parents followed. My mother tossed one last line over her shoulder as she left. "Get yourself a cab, and don't cause any trouble."

No one looked back.

I stood in the shadows of the stairwell like someone who had never existed.

I didn't even know when Matteo had started calling my parents' estate "our home," or when Cecilia had become so comfortable leaning into his arms as though she belonged there.

By the time I got back to the safe apartment where we'd lived together for nine years, it was past one in the morning.

Matteo's hand-drawn plans were still taped to the wall: take the South Pier first, then clean out the lieutenants who'd betrayed him. Once the Family was stable, we'd move to Long Island. If we ever had children, a boy would be Luca, a girl Lucia.

Nine years ago, I'd read those words and believed I was looking at our future.

Now they just seemed ridiculous.

I went into the study, powered on the computer that was connected only to internal lines, and opened an encrypted invitation I'd received three months ago.

It was from the Bellano Family. They were the DeLuca Family's biggest rival in New York but also a longtime backer of the Geneva Neutral Tribunal. They'd invited me to serve as their chief cross-border advisor and promised to send me to Geneva for arbitrator training.

I'd already turned them down once, for Matteo's sake.

This time, I stared at the screen for a long while, then typed my reply.

"I've changed my mind. If the offer still stands, I can start at the beginning of next month."