"You wanted to talk to me." I looked between Giancarlo and Salvatore, my voice flat and empty of warmth. "So talk."
Giancarlo's demeanor shifted like a card turning over. The contempt that had lingered at the edges of his expression vanished, replaced by a smile so practiced it could have been carved from marble. He was beautiful in the way that venomous things were beautiful. Dark hair swept back from a face built for magazine covers and murder.
"Seraphina." He said my name like he was tasting it. "This is wonderful news. We'll be in the same territory now. All those years of hard work, and it's finally paying off for you."
Salvatore smiled too. Slower. Hungrier. His eyes never left my face.
"We can continue to protect you, but four years are not enough. It takes a lifetime."
Several young women passing through the courtyard glanced in our direction, their eyes flickering with open envy before they looked away. I felt nothing. Not a ripple. Not a tremor. The words that once would have made my chest ache with gratitude now rang hollow as spent shell casings on a marble floor.
In the previous life, the four of us had been sent to the same territory for training. The Valentis and the Monreales had influence there, old connections woven deep into every corridor and back room. I had believed that if I proved myself, if I worked harder, sharper, longer than anyone else, I could earn my place at the table on my own merits. I threw myself into every trial, every test of loyalty and cunning the territory demanded. I studied the old ways. I memorized the ledgers. I learned to read a room the way Nonna had taught me to read a person's hands at dinner, watching for the tremor that betrayed the lie.
But in the end, every advantage I earned was stripped from me in silence. My invitation to sit at the inner table, the one reserved for those who proved their worth, was quietly redirected. The commendation from the local Padrino, the one that should have carried my name to the ears of La Rete itself, was rewritten. All of it, every scrap of recognition, every hard-won honor, was handed to Rosalia as though she had bled for it.
And then came the whisper campaign.