Chapter 2

The day Sofia got out of the hospital, my father brought her back to the Moretti estate without asking me first. When I came downstairs, the staff were carrying her luggage back into the east wing. It was the part of the house closest to my parents' room.

Before my coma, the east wing had always been empty. I only found out after I woke up that Sofia had been living there for three whole years. Four months ago, she had moved out on her own, and my mother cried all night. Now she was back.

"We still don't know who was behind it," my father explained from the bottom of the stairs. "It isn't safe for her to live alone."

"Then bringing her back is fine with me."

I stopped on the last step. "But why did you give her my guards too?"

My father faltered. Ever since I woke up, I'd been recovering with four bodyguards assigned to me. That morning, the head of my security detail had suddenly told me that three of them would be protecting Sofia from then on. My father quickly pulled himself together.

"She just went through something. She needs more people for a while. You're here on the estate. You won't be in any danger."

"The last time, it happened on our own territory too."

The air went still. The ambush at the docks three years ago was a wound nobody wanted to touch. My father's frown deepened.

"Elena."

"I'm just reminding you," I said. "Danger doesn't go away just because this place has the Moretti name on it."

My mother came out of the east wing just in time to hear the last part.

"The guards are only with Sofia for now," she said, her voice softening. "Her father already died for you. We can't let anything happen to her too."

"Maybe we could make it up to her some other way?" I said, a little wearily. "Give her a villa, a luxury car, a piece of the docks..."

"Elena!" my father snapped. "You're my daughter. You're my heir. You shouldn't be so small-minded."

The fight went right out of me, and I didn't say another word.

At dinner, the first thing I saw when I walked into the dining room was Sofia sitting to my father's right. That was my place. For as long as I could remember, I had sat there at every formal family dinner.

When she saw me, she started to get up right away. My mother pressed down on her shoulder.

"You're still hurt. Don't get up."

So Sofia sat back down and gave me an awkward little smile.

"I didn't know this was your place."

I didn't call her on it. She'd lived here for three years. There was no way she didn't know. I pulled out another chair and sat down.

Almost everything on the table was food she liked: salty dishes, seafood, and a bottle of hard liquor from my father's private collection. My physical therapist had told me again and again to stay away from alcohol for at least six months, and the inflammation around my old gunshot wound meant I couldn't handle anything too rich or spicy. But nobody remembered.

Halfway through dinner, my father had the butler bring in a black case. Inside was a pistol I knew all too well. My gun.

It bore the crest reserved for the Moretti Don. When I was little, my father used to hold my hand and tell me, "You're Daddy's only little princess. You're the Moretti family's most precious jewel. Everything Daddy has will be yours one day."

The grip still had the shallow, crooked scratch I'd carved into it when I was 17. My fingers went still. My father slid the case over to Sofia.

"Keep it on you from now on."

Sofia looked at him in surprise. "This is Elena's."

"She's in no shape to handle a gun right now," my father said. "Once she's recovered, I'll get her a newer one."

My father had promised that once my arm regained its strength, he would hand it back to me himself. It would mean I could protect myself again. It would also mean he saw me as more than a patient stuck in a hospital bed. Now he had given it to Sofia without even asking me.

Sofia was still trying to turn it down.

"I really can't take this."

My father had already closed the case.

"Take it."

She finally took it. I set down my silverware.

"Dad."

My father looked at me.

"Protect her, fine," I said. "But stop taking things from me to make it up to her."

My mother's smile faded.

"What kind of thing is that to say? We're family. Why are you keeping track of what's yours and what's mine?"

"If we're family, then why is it always my things that get taken to make it up to her? Has the Moretti family gone broke in the last three years?"

Sofia went pale.

"I can give you the gun back."

"I wasn't talking to you."

Tears sprang to her eyes.

My mother frowned at once. "Elena."

I looked up at her.

"What?"

She seemed caught off guard when I pushed back. After a few seconds, she said, "We're the ones who want to be good to Sofia. Even if you're upset, you shouldn't take it out on her. You never used to be like this. When did you get so thoughtless?"

I looked at her and suddenly couldn't say a thing.

I felt like an outsider who had barged in, out of place in my own home.