The sharp trill of a phone broke the silence. Then another. Giancarlo and Salvatore, both calling within seconds of each other, urging me to come downstairs. Their voices carried the easy authority of young men who had never been told no.
I pocketed the phone without answering and stepped into the corridor.
The whispers started immediately.
They clung to the walls like cigarette smoke, following me down the narrow stairwell of the Primo Liceo. Eyes tracked my every step. Clusters of students leaned into each other, their gazes sharp with judgment. I caught fragments. My name. Hissed syllables. The word puttana buried under someone's breath.
Halfway down the stairs, a foot shot out from the crowd.
I stumbled. Pain lanced through my ankle as my knee cracked against the stone step. I caught myself on the iron railing, knuckles white, and looked up at the girl who had done it. She didn't even bother to hide her smirk.
"Stronza," I spat through clenched teeth.
She flinched. Good.
I pulled myself upright, testing my weight on the ankle. It held, barely. I limped forward, jaw tight, refusing to let the pain show on my face. Genovese women did not limp. Genovese women walked through fire and called it a warm evening.
When I rounded the corner at the base of the stairwell, I heard them before I saw them.
Rosalia's voice drifted from the alcove near the courtyard doors, soft and carefully pitched. The tone of a woman who had perfected the art of the poisoned whisper. She stood between Giancarlo and Salvatore, her dark eyes wide with manufactured innocence, her hands clasped in front of her like a saint at prayer.
"I did see Seraphina getting out of a car with the Valenti Family's senior captains. Late at night. Near the waterfront." She paused, letting the image settle like a stain. "But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Maybe Seraphina really did earn her place through her own scores. We shouldn't assume the worst."
The deflection was surgical. By defending me, she condemned me. By saying maybe she earned it, she planted the seed that perhaps she hadn't.
Giancarlo's expression was unreadable, but Salvatore's lip curled.