Chapter 1

Adriana's POV

My mother-in-law was killed when my husband's personal courier tore through a protected block, unlicensed, and struck her down. Yet somehow, when the matter went before the Family, they ruled that she had only been trying to shake loose a grifter's pittance.

Still trying to defend her name, I brought the matter before the Commission three times, and three times they turned me away.

Just as I was about to appeal a fourth time, I discovered that her body had been taken.

I was reaching for the phone to call the precinct when my husband, Lorenzo Moretti, the Consigliere whose word once settled disputes across five boroughs, walked in and tossed two thousand onto the table.

"You should already know," he said coldly, not bothering to sit, "I have never lost a matter brought before the Family. No matter how much you think the streets can prove, your mother's appeal will never win. If I said your mother was faking it, she is faking it. All your appeals are just your way of squeezing out more tribute. But don't bother. I already had her body sold to the black market and got two grand for it. Consider that the full value of her life. And stop bothering Bianca."

That was when it hit me. He thought it was my mother who died.

I pushed the money back across the table toward him. "I don't have the right to take this."

——

He frowned, his voice suddenly sharp. "What, two grand isn't enough for you? Adriana, get this straight. Your mother had no standing, no work, no name worth anything. For someone like her, earning two grand with her life is already a miracle. Don't get greedy."

I shook my head. "You misunderstand. I mean, you should be the one keeping this money."

Lorenzo's brows knit tight, disgust flashing across his face. "Are you out of your mind? This is money made from selling your own mother's body. What does that have to do with me? Do you really think I'd touch that kind of dirty money?"

Lorenzo grew up with only his mother. His father died young, and it was Serafina who broke her body across thirty years of labor in the old neighborhood to raise him, to make him a man of standing among made men, ruining her health for his sake.

Witnessing all that, he had devoted his life to her.

I used to wonder why, after his mother's death, he never once returned to the old block, why he threw himself entirely into shielding Bianca Rizzo, the courier who killed her.

Now I knew. He thought it was my mother who died, not his.

I looked him straight in the eye and said calmly, "Lorenzo, I suggest you return that money and buy Mom's body back. Otherwise, you'll regret it."

But it seemed he hadn't heard a word of what I meant. He scoffed. "Do you even know what the black market is? Once something's sold there, you think you can just buy it back? Your mother's body has probably been carved into pieces by now. There's no getting her back. So take the money and stop causing trouble."

She wasn't my blood, but she was still a woman who had lived. She'd been struck down for no reason, branded a grifter before the whole neighborhood, and now her body had been sold off by her own son.

The thought of what had become of her made my chest ache.

"Lorenzo," I said quietly, "since you know exactly how bodies are treated on the black market, how could you do that to Mom? Doesn't it bother you at all?"

He gave a mocking smile. "Why would it? She's your mother, not mine. And besides, the dead don't feel pain. Selling her body for cash at least gave her some worth. She should've watched where she was walking. Getting killed was bad enough, but she also left Bianca shaking for days."

I stared at him, unable to speak. For a moment, I couldn't even imagine how he'd react if he learned that the woman sold to the black market was his own mother.

When I didn't answer, he added, careless as a man setting down an empty glass, "Honestly, I always thought your mother looked like the short-lived type. Even if she hadn't been hit, she wouldn't have lasted long. So take the money and be grateful."