This was the last time I would ever make this for him.

I ladled the soup into a thermal flask, set it on a tray, and carried it toward Domenico's study.

The study door was slightly ajar. Inside, I could hear Domenico talking with his Consigliere, Zaccaria Delgado.

I was about to raise my hand and knock when Zaccaria's voice carried through the gap, clear as day.

"Domenico, don't you think you went too far this time? You took back the Matriarch's ring, gave away the necklace, and now you've handed the Starlight gown to Olimpia. Giuliana followed you for seven years. She'd have laid down her life for you. Are you really trying to push her out the door?"

My hand froze. I stood perfectly still.

Domenico's voice came next, cold and detached.

"Where would she go? She's a woman with no family, no name, no protection. She can't even remember her own past. Besides the Corrado Family, she has nowhere."

"I've spoiled her too much these seven years. Her temper's gotten out of control. Olimpia just came back. Giuliana needs to learn her place."

"I'm going to strip that pride right off her bones. Make her understand who the real master of this house is. Once she accepts reality and falls in line, I'll keep a room for her here. She'll be fed and clothed. She should be grateful."

Zaccaria sighed. I heard the faint press of glass against wood as he set his drink down.

"You keep humiliating her like this, aren't you afraid she'll actually give up on you?"

Domenico let out a laugh, quiet and dripping with contempt.

"Give up? The greatest skill Giuliana has ever possessed is clinging to me like a vine. She can't survive without me."

The tray tilted slightly in my hands.

A few drops of scalding soup splashed over the rim and landed on the back of my hand. The skin swelled red instantly.

I didn't feel a thing.

My thumb drifted to the bare space on my right ring finger where the Matriarch's ring had sat for years. The skin there was smooth and pale, a band of absence. I pressed into it once, hard, and then let go.

I looked at that carved wooden door, still slightly ajar, and set the tray down on the console table outside.

I picked up the insulated thermos and walked to the end of the hallway.

A pot of exquisitely rare orchids sat there on a stand, the kind Domenico kept because they signaled taste to the men who visited his study.