"It was like she was the bride. Like she was the one sealing the alliance with the Corleone heir."
I cleared my throat. The hallway fell silent at once, footsteps retreating quickly. Even the household staff knew better than to be caught speaking ill of the Don's daughter—even the overlooked one.
I looked down at the gown, my fingers trembling slightly. Not from grief. Not anymore.
From rage.
"You don't deserve it," I said softly, though I was not certain whether I was speaking to the dress, to Silvia, or to the naive girl I had been just hours ago. "You don't deserve anything I ever gave you."
The next second, I threw it into the fire.
The flames devoured the fabric hungrily, silk blackening and curling, pearls popping in the heat like gunshots. The Venetian lace that had taken Signora Marchetti three months to complete turned to ash in seconds.
And with it, the last of my illusions.
I watched until there was nothing left but embers and the faint smell of burned dreams. Then I turned away from the fireplace and walked to my writing desk, where a single envelope waited—cream-colored paper, no return address, sealed with gray wax.
Hector 'The Gray' Santini had promised me a way out.
Tonight, I would take it.
The decree came down when I had nearly ceased to feel anything at all.
In those final days before the alliance ceremony, the Family Council determined I should occupy Giorgio's chambers each night—a mandate dressed in silk and called "strengthening the bond between houses." I did not need to wonder whose lips had first shaped the suggestion. Silvia's reasoning had been delivered with practiced innocence, each word calibrated to sound like sisterly concern. As long as I complied, her private fittings for the ceremonial gown would appear entirely proper, and she could continue wearing the mask of the devoted blood-sister.
I offered no resistance.
Not from submission. From indifference. Jeris's arrangements were already in motion—new identity, smuggling route, precise timing—all confirmed through whispered channels. Only a handful of days remained before I would vanish like morning fog over the harbor. I had no intention of wasting what little remained of myself on performances that no longer mattered.