They stopped near a hedge of overgrown boxwood, half-hidden by shadow. I heard Salvatore's voice before I saw him, low and grating with impatience.
"Rosalia, baby, how long are we supposed to keep up this act? I can't stomach it anymore. Seraphina's out here playing games nobody asked her to play. Who knows what kind of filth she's dragged herself through?"
Giancarlo's voice slid in next, smooth as polished marble and just as cold. "Seraphina can't tell a real heirloom from a forgery. She couldn't tell loyalty from a lie. Is it any wonder some old man whispered a few pretty words and she ended up in his bed? A woman like that, carrying the Genovese name?" He let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "She was never fit to stand beside the Valenti Family. Rosalia, the ring from my mother's vault was always meant for you. You're the only one worthy of wearing it."
Rosalia looked between them, her dark eyes glistening with practiced vulnerability. "Seraphina has done terrible things, I know. But she was kind to me once. She took me in when I had nothing. How can I just abandon her?" Her voice trembled at the edges, delicate as spun glass. "If you two won't do as I ask, if you won't at least keep up appearances for my sake, then I have nothing left to say to either of you. Ever."
The effect was instantaneous. Two heirs of the most powerful crime families in Riviera City fell over themselves to apologize to a girl with no blood, no name, no territory. They tripped over each other's words, eager to grind me into the dirt if it meant lifting her an inch higher.
More than ten years. I had known them for more than ten years. And all of it, every shared meal, every whispered secret, every childhood oath sworn on summer nights, amounted to less than a few soft words from Rosalia Ferraro.
I pressed my knuckles against my mouth to keep the sound inside. Then I turned and walked away.
The night stretched endlessly around me. The streets of Riviera City were empty at that hour, the old brownstones and shuttered storefronts standing like tombstones in the dark. I walked the entire way home on a swollen ankle, each step a small act of penance for the fool I had been in my first life.