Salju Hitam di Venesia

I tasted blood before I felt the pain. Metallic. Warm. Thick. 

It filled my mouth as I lay sprawled on the marble floor whose cold surface was slick with my own blood. My ribs ached and my vision blurred but I refused to cry out.  

I wouldn’t give them that. 

A shadow loomed over me.

It was Alessandro Ricci, my father.

His polished black shoes stopped inches from my face and sparkled despite the destruction he had just inflicted. When I was a child, I used to trace my fingers over those shoes, giggling as he soon lifted me onto his lap. 

Now, they stood as a silent reminder of his power—the kind of power that could snuff me out with a single word.

“You embarrass me, Giuliana.” His voice was quiet as he spoke and made him sound more dangerous than if he’d been shouting. “You shame this family.”

I swallowed the blood in my mouth. “I—”

A sharp pain exploded in my side as he then kicked me again and sent me rolling onto my back. 

I gasped as the ceiling above me became blurred. The chandelier swayed gently and its crystals glittered in the dim light. I tried to focus on that and then anything else that was not the agony radiating through my body right now. 

“You cost me a deal that took years to secure.”

“That’s not true,” I rasped out despite the pain exploding inside of me. “I didn’t—”

Another kick came in response and my vision sparked white.

“Silence,” he said with a commanding voice. 

I coughed up something thick and wet that had bubbled in my throat. I wasn’t sure if it was blood or just the taste of betrayal. I blinked hard and tried to force my eyes to focus and that’s when I saw her.

Isabella.

She stood by the grand piano with one hand resting on the polished wood while her red lips curled into a smirk. She was my step sister who had always relished being the better daughter. 

The golden girl, the perfect one, the one who could do no wrong.

“Poor Giuliana,” she mused as she stepped forward to study my body on the floor. “Always so defiant. You never learned how to stay in your place.”

I didn’t answer. I was too busy focusing on breathing and forcing oxygen past the tight and agonizing squeeze in my ribs.

She crouched beside me just then and her dark eyes gleamed with cruel amusement. A delicate glass of water dangled from her manicured fingers.

I saw immediately that it was salt water and my stomach turned violently in response.

“Tradition, sorellina.” Isabella’s voice was soft and mocking as she continued. “We can’t have betrayal lingering on your skin, can we?”

I tried to move and to brace myself but I was too weak. The first splash hit my back and seeped into the torn skin. 

Fire. I was on fire every where in my body. 

I sucked in a sharp breath as every nerve in my body screamed. I clenched my jaw so hard I thought my teeth might crack but I wouldn’t scream out loud. 

I prayed not to scream out loud. 

“Ah, there it is,” Isabella murmured as she tilted the glass again. The water trickled down my side, stinging and slicing through my battered body like razors. “Cleansing is painful but necessary.”

To stop myself from voicing my pain, I bit my lip so hard I tasted more blood.

“Enough.”

The calm voice that spoke cut through the suffocating silence was the only thing that managed to lessen my pain a bit. 

Maria?

I forced my head up even as my vision blurred and I was able to see her—Maria Rossi, my childhood friend. Her coat was soaked from the Sicilian rain that poured outside and her black curls clung to her pale face but her green eyes burned with a fury I had not seen before. 

She moved quickly and knelt beside me while her hands hovered hesitantly like she was afraid to touch me. “You need a doctor,” she whispered.

I wanted to laugh. Doctors weren’t an option…not in this world.

“No,” my father said in a voice that was edged with finality.

Maria’s head snapped up in shock. “No?”

“She stays here.”

Maria’s lips parted slightly while her breathing became uneven. “Alessandro, she’s dying.”

“She is Ricci,” my father said simply. “She’ll endure.”

Maria’s hands curled into fists. “She had nothing to do with the deal. You know that. You’re punishing the wrong person.”

“She is my daughter.”

Maria’s laugh was bitter as she asked. “Your daughter?” She gestured to me. “Is that what this is? A demonstration of father’s love?”

Alessandro’s expression didn’t change at that but there was a slight twitch in his jaw. It was a warning. But Maria, who was as stubborn as me, wasn’t backing down.

“If she dies,” she said as she stood to her full height, “people will talk. Don Leonetti will hear about it. And when he asks why you let your own daughter bleed out over a mistake that wasn’t hers, what will you tell him?”

Silence, heavy and suffocating, stretched on in the large fancy room.

Then, my father exhaled slowly as he said in a matter-of-factly tone. “You overstep, Maria.”

Maria’s chin lifted. “Then let me overstep.”

His gaze darkened at that. “You forget who your father is.”

“And you forget the old codes, Ricci.” Maria took a step closer as her voice dropped to a whisper. “I wonder what Don Leonetti would think if he knew about the Croatian weapons shipment arriving in two days.”

The air shifted immediately as tension permeated it. 

A slow and measured breath came from my father. His expression remained unreadable but I knew he was thinking. Maria had just thrown her only card on the table and now it was a matter of whether it was enough to keep us both breathing.

His fingers twitched at his side. Then finally—

“Take her.”

Maria didn’t hesitate. She crouched beside me again and her arms slide around me. My body screamed as she lifted me while my head lolled against her shoulder.

“Go,” my father said. “And don’t come back.”

The rain was relentless when we stepped outside. The soldati at the gates barely looked at us because they were too used to Maria coming and going. 

They didn’t notice the blood that was seeping into my clothes and the way I, who was barely conscious, sagged against her. Otherwise, they might have said something. 

Maria half-dragged and half-carried me into the passenger seat of her car before she climbed behind the wheel. The tires screeched against the slick pavement as she sped off.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said with a voice that shook slightly while she shook off the raindrops that had clung to her jacket.“I promise.”

I wanted to believe her.

But as the exhaustion and pain began to pull me under when we reached the hospital, I saw two black SUVs following in the rearview mirror.

I tried to speak to Maria, to warn her but darkness swallowed me whole before I could get the words out.

And when I woke up, I was no longer in Sicily.