Salvatore ripped the phone from her hand and read the screen, his face darkening with every line. He turned on me, his voice a low snarl. "Seraphina, what the hell is this? It's one thing if you can't keep your own name clean, but to turn around and blame Rosalia for it?" His fist clenched at his side. "She has no one. She has nothing. And you drag her through the mud?"
Giancarlo did not raise his voice. He never did. But the way he looked at me, that quiet, measured gaze, carried a question sharper than any accusation. He studied my face the way a consigliere studied a witness on the stand, searching for the crack that would confirm a lie he had already decided was there.
I swallowed the fire rising in my throat. "I didn't do it." My voice came out steady, though the effort nearly split me open. "If you don't believe me, investigate it yourselves. Pull the records. Trace the posts. You have the resources."
Neither of them heard me. They had already turned away, flanking Rosalia like bodyguards escorting a wounded principessa.
"Don't worry, Rosalia. I will have my people scrub every post by morning. No one will say another word."
"You look pale. Let me take you somewhere warm. There is a pasticceria on Via Luca that stays open late. The chocolate torta there will settle your nerves."
They guided her forward, one on each side, their hands gentle on her arms. Not once did either of them look back.
I stood alone beneath the fading smoke of the fireworks. The air smelled of sulfur and spent gunpowder. Ash drifted down around me like grey snow, settling on my shoulders, on the dark earth, on the velvet box Giancarlo had left sitting on the hood of the car, forgotten.
I watched the last ember die in the sky and felt nothing.
In the face of what I had already survived, in the face of death itself, this small betrayal was barely a whisper.
At least I was still alive. And this time, I had a life worth defending.
I wanted to drive home, but the memory surfaced like a slap: Salvatore had taken my bag. He'd slung it over his shoulder without asking, the way he always did, as though carrying my things entitled him to carry my fate. I had no choice but to follow the three figures ahead of me along the gravel path that wound through the estate gardens.