Chapter 3

Lorenzo stood there, the cords standing out in his neck, his chest heaving. The parlor of the safe house had gone silent, the way rooms went silent when a Fontana lost his temper. Even the soldier by the door had stopped breathing.

Beside him, Vittoria pressed a hand to her forehead, tears trembling on the rims of her eyes.

Lorenzo turned his head, saw it, and swung back to face me. His voice went cold. "Elena, are you deaf? Do you not understand a word I say?"

My eyes went colder and colder. I let the blood slide down my face however it wanted to.

Something about me was wrong, and he caught it. For a second something like unease flickered in his eyes, but he still narrowed them and looked me over, brows knit.

Vittoria spoke up faintly, pleading. "Please don't fight over me. I'm really fine." Her sympathetic smile held a half-second too long before it fell. "I'm sorry, Elena. If I'd known, I never would have come back with Mr. Fontana. I just thought it might go better if I explained everything to you myself..."

And then she actually walked toward me, slow and careful.

She bent down and reached out to help me up. The moment her hand touched my arm, I flung it off with everything I had.

It was too hard. Her hand struck the corner of the cabinet behind her, and she gasped in pain.

Lorenzo took her hand, aching for her, examining the reddened spot with care. Only once he'd confirmed it was nothing did he turn and glare at me.

"Elena, don't throw a good thing back in my face!"

"Do you have any idea what Vittoria gave up for that blood-bound union of yours? Keep this up, and I'll expose your lies at the sacrament, in front of my own mother!"

My union? The one the Family never sanctified?

A laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.

"And what exactly did she give up? Offering to stand in for me, to wear the veil at a union that was mine? How very noble of her."

I lifted my hands and clapped for Vittoria, the blood at the corner of my mouth running down along the sneer.

"Lorenzo, a do-over sacrament. Don't you find that funny? There's no need. There'll never be any need again!"

My voice was colder than it had ever been.

His eyes stayed on my face like he wanted to bore a hole through it. He thought I was the same as before, putting on a jealous act.

Too bad none of this was an act. It was more real than anything I'd ever felt.

He ground the words out one at a time, and his thumb began to turn the heavy signet ring around his finger.

"Elena, my patience with you has a limit. Think hard before you say another word to me."

"Don't forget you got on your knees and begged for this. Miss this chance and it's gone for good!"

"Watching you stand beside me before the Family was your mother's last wish. Now it isn't? How do you face her?"

I raised my eyes, and there was scorn in them. "Since when has your patience for me ever been limitless? I've thought it through, and I'm grateful for your kindness, truly. Neither my mother nor I deserve such a blessing. Save the sacrament for someone who needs it."

Then I turned, cold-faced, and looked at Vittoria.

Hearing the sarcasm in my voice, Lorenzo narrowed his eyes and probed.

"Don't deserve it? Or are you afraid of being exposed on the spot, that your mother's terminal illness is a lie?"

"I know it was wrong of me to miss the union I promised you, so I've already arranged for a specialist at the Family's clinic to see your mother. So why is there suddenly no need for the sacrament? What kind of terminal illness is so afraid of the light?"

In that instant the blood in my whole body froze. I forced my hands into fists with every ounce of strength I had, knuckles shaking. My thumb found the thin gold band that had been my mother's, and I turned it once, slowly.

"Lorenzo, shut your mouth! What right do you have to bring up my mother's last wish?"

"My mother's last wish was to see me happy, not to see me bound to you!"

"What are you, that my mother would spend her life on a performance for you? To hell with your clinic and your bought physician. I don't need it, and neither does my mother! Spare me your fake concern!"

"From today, there's nothing between us. Not one cent of tribute's worth. We never have to see each other again!"

With every word I spoke, Lorenzo's face sank another degree.

By the end it was black as the bottom of a pot.

He forced the sound out through his teeth.

"Elena, I'm warning you, use that dog brain of yours to think before every single word comes out! Your mother has a terminal illness. Did you inherit dementia? Or did your brain just walk out on you?"

I watched his lips open and close, and the love that had once filled me turned, in that moment, into endless hate.

Lorenzo picked up his phone and dialed the men who ran the sacrament hall the Family kept for its own.

"Cancel the hall I rebooked yesterday. From now on, no woman named Elena Ricci is allowed to hold any rite there. No union of hers, with anyone, gets accepted! Do that, or I'll have the whole lot of you cast out, back to whatever gutter you crawled from!"

He hung up at once, then dialed a different number.

"The clinic consultation I arranged for Miss Elena Ricci last night. Cancel it right now."

The voice on the other end froze for a beat before answering him.

"I'm very sorry, sir. Miss Ricci's consultation was canceled yesterday. The patient has already passed away."