"Write whatever number you want. But forget what you've heard. Let's pretend nothing happened for the meantime. The union ceremony's in five days. We'll go through with it—peacefully."
I stared at the man who once swore he'd love me for the rest of his life. Now, he felt like a stranger wearing a familiar face.
I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand.
If my wedding was doomed to become my mother's funeral, then five days from now… I'd return the favor—with interest.
……
I said nothing. He grew impatient, yanking off his silk tie and tossing it on the nightstand with barely concealed irritation.
"If you get it, then go to sleep."
But something snapped in me. The grief, the rage—it all poured out, raw and shaking, like blood from a wound that refused to close.
"Pretend? Are you fucking serious?!"
"You knew. You knew my mother was the only family I had. And you knew how much it meant to her to see me walk down the aisle in white. And Piper fucking destroyed it!"
Did he really not understand why my mother was desperate to make money?
The Marconi Family had looked down on us from the start. His parents—Don Bertram and Carmela Marconi—barely tolerated my presence at their table. To them, I was the daughter of a servant, no matter that my mother had once saved their precious heir's life. And my mother—God, she tried so hard to make me worthy in their eyes. That's why she went to Piper, thinking maybe this time, things would be different. Maybe blood would finally mean something.
I could still hear the officer's voice in my head: "Your mother tracked those people down to try and get her money back. She didn't know they were part of a butcher operation—organ trafficking. They carved her up and took everything they could sell."
I couldn't stop crying. Each word came out like a blade. "If it weren't for Piper and her mother, none of this would've happened. All I want is justice for my mother, and you want to keep me from that?"
"Enough, Anneliese!" Colino barked, his face suddenly dark as a storm rolling in from the sea. "Piper was conned too. She lost everything. And you? Instead of showing any compassion, you've been running around telling everyone she's your father's bastard child. Do you even have a heart?"
"Compassion?" I let out a hollow, bitter laugh that scraped my throat raw. "What about my mother? She died in the most horrific way imaginable!"