Chapter 5

"If you won't lend it, then no one gets to wear it."

My first instinct was to fight back, but someone poured a cup of iced coffee over my head.

I shivered as laughter rose all around me.

Michael followed my gaze to the broken pin on the ground.

Anger flashed across his face.

But one of them was a capo's daughter.

In the end, he only turned to me impatiently. "Stop embarrassing yourself. Go home and change."

If my father had still been around, I would never have let it go.

My father had been the Don's personal hitman, and that counted for more than rank.

If I'd taken it to the Commission, I knew I would have won.

But my father was gone.

And the four apprentices he'd been proudest of had already betrayed me.

I was about to leave for the South District. I couldn't afford any trouble now.

Without looking at any of them again, I took the supplies I'd bought and walked away.

When I got home, I went into the bathroom and turned on the faucet.

Only then, with the water running to drown out the sound, did I let myself cry.

Not for those four ingrates.

I cried because I'd finally seen just how weak I was.

I couldn't protect myself, let alone everything my father had given me.

Half an hour later, I finally pulled myself together.

I'd just changed my clothes when someone started pounding on the front door.

I recognized Rocco's urgent voice at once.

They'd moved out after they turned 20.

They used to come over all the time, and I'd told them to just use the spare key. We'd always be family, after all.

Now I switched on the pinhole camera in the house, started recording on my phone, and put it in my pocket.

Then I unlocked the door.

The four of them barged straight in with Angie.

"Where's the cross?"

Rocco held out his hand, glaring at me accusingly.

"Angie was wearing it a minute ago. Then she ran into you, and now it's gone."

I leaned against the door.

"So?"

Dom gave me a cold look.

"At the black market, you're the only one who touched her.

"Who else would have taken it?"

With that, he walked straight into my bedroom and pulled open the drawers.

The others started going through the wardrobe and desk too.

We'd all grown up together in this villa.

I'd thought of them as family.

I'd let them come and go from my room freely, as a sign of how close we were.

Now I watched the four of them do as they pleased without a second thought.

That was when I understood what they really believed.

With my father gone, they thought everything I owned was theirs for the taking.

Rocco opened the wardrobe and saw only a few clothes left inside.

"Why are you packing?"

My chest tightened a little.

Vincent glanced at the suitcase and answered for me with a sneer, "Trying to scare us again like you did in high school?"

Dom snickered. "Linda, you're 25. And you're still pulling the runaway act?"

They laughed it off.

Not one of them realized I was really leaving.

Michael frowned at me. "Everyone going to the South District leaves together next month.

"Don't you think this little show of yours is ridiculous?"

A few days ago, I would have explained nicely that I wasn't making a scene.

But now I just calmly looked away.

That wasn't the reaction Michael had expected from me.

A flash of unease went through him, and he grabbed my wrist without thinking.

"What we're doing..."

He wanted to say that ever since my father died, they'd been looking for a way to get a foothold in the Leiden family.

They weren't out to get me. They just needed Angie to get them in good with the underboss.

Once they had that, he'd make it up to me.

But he never got the words out.

Angie picked up a cross pendant from a corner of the entryway.

She covered her mouth, her voice thick with tears. "Linda, you really did steal it.

"I get that you're upset.

"But how could you steal from me?"