"Thank you for telling me," I said. The words came out flat, empty of the gratitude they should have carried.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," I answered, too quickly.
Marion studied my face for a long moment, searching for cracks in the mask. Finding none, she finally withdrew, leaving me alone with the shadows and the distant echo of children's laughter.
I stood there for a long time, watching the candle flames dance against the walls.
Then my phone vibrated softly in the hidden pocket of my gown—the secure line that only one person possessed.
Jeris.
The message contained only a single line, yet it made my heart plummet and soar in the same instant:
Two days from now, the ship docks. Be ready to disappear.
I read the words three times, committing them to memory before deleting the message. Then I walked to the window and looked out at the night sky, where storm clouds were gathering on the horizon.
Two days.
Forty-eight hours until I shed this life like a serpent shedding its skin.
I pressed my palm against the cold glass and made myself a promise: when the moment came, I would not hesitate. I would not look back. I would walk away from the Ashford name, from the Corleone alliance, from every cage they had built around me.
And if they tried to stop me, they would learn that even a woman raised in shadows could become dangerous when she had nothing left to lose.
I went to the small box by the bed and opened it. Inside were only a few items—an old necklace, its gold worn thin by decades of careful handling, and the personal documents I had guarded all this time. Papers bearing seals that meant nothing to those who did not understand the weight of blood and belonging. That necklace had been meant to symbolize a kind of inheritance, passed down through generations of women who had survived this life. I would not let it fall into hands that did not deserve it.
"Consider it a farewell gift," I murmured to the empty room, my fingers tracing the delicate chain one final time before closing the lid.
Late at night, Giorgio came back. He was carrying a bag from the old Sicilian butcher on Mulberry Street—carefully prepared meat, the aroma of rosemary and garlic spreading through the room like a memory of better times. He looked to be in a very good mood, his shoulders relaxed in a way they rarely were when Family business weighed on him.