Chapter 3

Once I'd cleaned up my knee and my palm, I went to headquarters like any other day.

I had less than two hours left at headquarters when Luca buzzed my desk.

"Bring me a cup of hot black tea with two sugar cubes."

It was the last thing I'd ever do as his chief assistant. I picked up the silver tray and knocked on the door of Luca's office.

"Come in."

When I opened the door, Sofia was lying on the couch with her head in Luca's lap.

His hand rested gently on her stomach.

"Still hurts?"

"A little."

"I'll have the doctor come give you a shot."

Sofia tugged at his sleeve, pouting. "All I need is for you to rub it. I'm scared of needles."

Luca's voice went soft. "Then no shot."

Last month, during a fight at the docks, someone had hit me hard in the stomach while I was on my period. It hurt so much I couldn't stand up straight.

One of the men had asked if he should take me to the hospital. But Luca only closed his ledger and gave me a cold look.

"Then who's going to go over the books for the seven crews tonight?

"Aria, don't bring personal feelings into family business."

Later, he'd had someone toss me a box of painkillers, and I'd held on to that small kindness for a whole month.

I'd even made excuses for him back then. I thought he was just used to being cold-blooded.

Now I could see that he knew how to care about someone. I just wasn't that someone.

"Your tea, Don Ferraro."

I set the silver tray on the side table and lowered my eyes, ready to back out of the room.

But Sofia sat up on the couch.

"Wait."

She walked over to me in her heels, lifted her chin, and eyed my red dress.

"I hear you're Luca's niece, at least on paper?"

Before I could say a word, her hand came down hard across my face.

My ears rang. My lip split, and blood dripped from my chin onto my collar.

"What are you doing?"

But it was Sofia whose eyes welled up. She turned and threw herself into Luca's arms.

"Luca, she's supposed to be your niece, and she wears red dresses every day and has the same rose as me tattooed on her thigh.

"She's copying me on purpose to seduce her own uncle. I don't want a woman that cheap anywhere near me!"

Luca knew exactly where the red dresses and the tattoo had come from.

He was the one who'd first put me in a red dress. He was the one who'd held me down while the rose was inked into my thigh.

But when Sofia accused me, he didn't say a single word in my defense.

Luca held her close and wiped away her tears.

"Even if she has feelings for me, they're one-sided.

"You're the only one I've ever waited for."

That hurt more than the slap.

For five years, in bed, he'd coaxed me into saying his name. Now he could turn around and call all of it my fantasy.

Sofia leaned against him and looked at me, her eyes gleaming with triumph.

The next moment, she grabbed the teapot off the table and flung all the hot tea onto my arm and chest.

The scalding tea soaked straight through the thin fabric. Large patches of skin turned red and quickly blistered. I stumbled back in pain, and my lower back slammed into the corner of the desk.

"Ow, that's hot!"

But Sofia was the one screaming.

She pressed the hand that had caught two drops against Luca's chest, tears pouring down her face.

"Luca, my hand hurts so much."

Luca took her hand and examined it carefully, then looked up at me.

"Aria, five years with me and you can't even carry a cup of tea without spilling it?"

"She's the one who threw it."

"Enough."

Luca cut me off, and every bit of his anger was aimed at me.

"You screw up and then you try to blame someone else? Who taught you that?"

The blisters on my arm kept bursting, and I drew shaky breaths through the burning pain.

"Marta."

Marta, the guard posted outside, came in at once. "Don."

"Cancel Aria's share of the profits for the whole year. Put a formal reprimand on her record, and let every crew know."

Marta paled when she saw my burns.

"But, Don, an hour ago Ms. Bianchi officially signed her release from..."