Chapter 3

Adriana froze for a beat.

Just when I thought she'd put a call through to Lorenzo and hear the truth from his own mouth,

she threw back her head and laughed without a shred of restraint. "You? A little fox like you, fit to be my husband's mother? The Donna of the Vitale blood?"

"You're nothing but a rival's kept woman, the kind who lives in the shadows her whole life. Take away that pretty face and what's left of you?"

"Lorenzo will never want you. Not in a hundred years."

"If you're Lorenzo's mother, then I must sit at the head of the whole Commission!"

Adriana shrieked with laughter, her face twisted with something unhinged. Her hand drifted to her collarbone as she snapped photo after photo of me with her phone.

What crushed me was this: the salon was full of soldiers' wives and made men's daughters now, women who lived off the Family's protection, and through all of it, not one of them stepped in to stop it.

Every last one of them had a phone out, firing off pictures of me.

"You all seeing this?"

"This is what happens to a woman who crawls into a man who isn't hers!"

"Cornered right here on Vitale soil by the promised bride. A rival's whore deserves to rot. Strip her clothes off, ruin her for good, make sure she never crawls out of it!"

The women poured fuel on the fire.

Everything around me was chaos. All I could feel was the blood coating my face, and the certainty that these women were going to beat me to death on the floor of my own Family's front.

Somewhere in the mayhem, I thought I heard one of Adriana's friends, unsure how far this had gone, ask quietly, "Adriana, maybe we should double-check first?"

"What if she really is—"

The words cut off halfway, silenced by a wave of Adriana's hand.

Adriana looked down at me, hair matted, sprawled in a pool of blood, and gave a cold, mocking laugh. Her fingers touched her collarbone again, that small flinch dressed up as a gesture. "Ha. My mother-in-law is still overseas, running the Family's business abroad. She sent word she wouldn't land until today."

I had, in fact, told Lorenzo I'd come the day of the alliance sit-down feast.

And that I'd take the measure of my daughter-in-law properly while I was at it.

But I was too happy to wait. My only son was sealing a bloodline alliance, and even if the whole territory burned, I would not miss it.

So I'd flown in early, the night before.

Lorenzo and I had even shared a meal at a quiet place near the airfield, out of the way of watching eyes. Only now did I understand: last night Lorenzo had passed word through the Family's circles, a photograph of the two of us, naming me the most important woman in his life. Adriana had heard of it, and seen it, and read it all wrong.

I was the rival's kept woman she'd set out to tear apart.

Through the clawing and the blows, my dress had been nearly ripped down to my waist. Even that last shred of covering was torn away, my hands pinned by her friends while Adriana pulled it aside herself.

A ripple of gasps went through the room.

"Heh, you've got the nerve to be another man's whore but not the nerve to let people look?"

"So she does have something to work with. Didn't expect her to be this well-kept."

Every single one of them raised a phone and shot at me like animals.

I screamed, wretched and raw, fighting with everything left in my body, but her friends held me down against the floor and would not let go.

"Move her hands. Stop blocking her chest."

"I'm putting this out through every channel we have. Let every soldier from here to the old country get a look at this slut's body."

Adriana had all but lost her mind.

Her frenzied laughter rang through the entire salon.

I lay in the pool of blood, barely clinging to breath.

By now I was certain of one thing: my son had never shown Adriana my face. Whatever passed between the Vitale and Falcone houses, he had kept me out of her sight.

"Adriana, I think she's about to die?"

"Are we still going?"

Seeing the state I was in, even Adriana's friends had begun to lose their nerve.

Adriana let out a cold snort. "What an actress. When you were off warming a rival's bed, did it ever cross your mind it'd end like this today?"

"Relax. Once Lorenzo and I are married and I'm inside the Vitale blood, whatever goes wrong, Lorenzo and my mother-in-law will clean it up for me. That's what famiglia is for."

With that,

Adriana waved a hand. "Drag her into the car."

Then she glanced down at the time on her watch, her expression shifting, and said in a rush, "Hurry, we need to get to the sit-down feast. My mother-in-law should be arriving right about now."