Chapter 4

Because we were at the Costa estate, Alessio's men took me to a windowless storage room off the service hall.

I could hear Alessio explaining to the guests outside.

"My wife isn't feeling well. She's resting in one of the guest rooms."

I touched the handprint on my face and laughed bitterly. He could lock me away and still perform the devoted husband for an audience.

Through the wall, I could make out bits and pieces of the banquet.

Bianca's face was swollen, so she wore a mask. After my parents announced that she was the true biological daughter of the Costa Family, they broke down crying and embraced her.

My husband Alessio also made an announcement.

"From this day forward, Bianca is my wife's sister. I will protect her and make amends for the twenty years she lost."

I dug my nails into my palms. Bianca was his lover in secret, yet in public he called her family. Alessio could turn any cruelty into a performance of honor.

I bit down hard to keep from making a sound. I couldn't let anyone discover I was locked in here and lose my last shred of dignity.

The banquet went on deep into the night.

Everyone drank until they were stumbling, then left.

My family, my husband, nearly everyone had forgotten I existed.

Without Alessio's permission, none of his men dared bring me food.

Light-headed with hunger, I leaned against the door and knocked as hard as I could, hoping someone might hear.

But through the crack in the door, I saw Bianca's malicious face.

When I saw what she was holding, cold sweat broke out all over my body.

She held a plastic crate alive with small snakes, each as thick as my thumb.

We used to be best friends. She knew I was terrified of snakes.

"Elena, I brought you a little something to eat."

She opened the door, seized my jaw, and tried to force a snake between my teeth.

I had no strength left to fight back. All I could do was clench my teeth shut with everything I had as the snake writhed closer and closer to my lips.

With every ounce of strength I had left, I kicked her hard. Bianca let out a piercing scream.

Blood began pooling between her legs.

The scream woke most of the drunken guests in the mansion.

When Victor, Margaret, and Alessio arrived, they found Bianca unconscious on the floor, clutching her stomach. Dozens of snakes writhed around her. I lay zip-tied nearby, soaked in sweat and barely conscious.

Margaret dropped to her knees, gathered Bianca into her arms, and began to wail.

"My baby, what did she do to you! Your first day home, and your vicious sister attacks you like this!"

"It's all my fault. I should never have left you two together. You were bringing your sister food, and this is how she repays you?"

Hearing my mother's hysterical cries, I couldn't hold back anymore.

"Food? Where is the food, then?"

Victor's face twisted with rage. "Shut your mouth! Look what you did to Bianca! That baby is Don Rossi's!"

Whispers broke out around the room before he had finished the sentence.

"The Don's wife hasn't even gotten pregnant, but her sister has? What's going on?"

"Maybe Bianca should be the real wife?"

The crowd buzzed like they'd stumbled onto the scandal of the year. But the instant Alessio's gaze swept across the room, every mouth snapped shut. No one dared to breathe.

Alessio rushed in, lifted Bianca into his arms, and carried her to the hospital.

Before he left, he gave me one long, unreadable look.