First Comes Blood by Lilith Vincent

8

Chiara

“It’s too soon, Chiara. I won’t let this happen. It’s not what your mother would have wanted.” Francesca holds me tightly as she sobs. Violette and Stephan hover behind her, their faces shadowed with worry.

I extricate myself carefully from the cook’s arms. “I’ll be all right, I promise.”

The room is filled with the scent of baking bread and there are smudges of flour on Francesca’s dove gray dress and white apron.

“But what if something happens to you?” she wails.

“She’s right,” Stephan says, stepping forward. His body is rigid with anger and his fists are balled. “We can’t trust that bastardo.”

Violette gasps and glances quickly around, as if Dad or even Salvatore himself might have overheard. “Stephan, it’s dangerous to talk that way. But he’s right, Chiara,” she adds, turning to me. “At least here we know you’re safe.”

I pat Francesca’s back comfortingly and ease away from her. “I’ll be fine. I want to go back to school.”

Two weeks have passed since Mom’s funeral, and my grief is still an impossible weight in my heart, but I’ll go crazy if I don’t get out of this house. Everywhere I look, I’m reminded of Mom. Mom’s photo in the living room. The decorations she bought for the hall. Her blood turning the swimming pool a vicious red.

Sniffling, Francesca straightens the collar of my white school shirt and brushes some flour from my black blazer. The red and gold St. Osanna Catholic Girls’ School crest is stitched over my heart. A pleated skirt brushes a few inches above my knees, and long black socks are pulled up my legs.

“Are you sure?” she asks, and I nod, doing my best to smile for her. “Call us if you change your mind, and Stephan will pick you up.”

Stephan nods, but exchanges a look with Violette as Francesca puts snacks into a paper bag for me. They’re worried because once I leave this house, I’ll be unprotected. Those four men who came to my birthday could do anything they want to me.

Stephan doesn’t get it. Those men don’t need to wait for me to leave this house. They can do whatever they want to me if Dad lets them, and he’s already made it clear he’s on their side, not mine.

I take the snacks from Francesca and put them into my school bag and say goodbye to everyone.

“You’re not saying goodbye to your father?” Francesca asks.

I hesitate, my mouth working. The three of them have noticed the rift between Dad and me, but they’ve put it down to grief. I have to go on pretending that’s all it is or they might end up dead, too.

“I said goodbye to him earlier,” I say, and hurry out the door with a wave for them all.

It’s a ten-minute walk to St. Osanna’s and I take deep breaths as I make my way down the tree-lined streets. The routine of putting on my uniform and packing my schoolbag has been soothing. I can’t wait to get to class and sit at my desk. Hear the drone of the teachers. Take notes and jot down my homework assignments. Most of all, I want to feel like a small, unimportant cog in an indifferent machine instead of a pawn on a chessboard with fewer and fewer pieces in play.

Leaving just me.

And him.

But I don’t want to think about Salvatore today. I give my head a shake as I open my locker and get out my books for English. A moment later the bell rings and I hurry to homeroom. Nicole, my best friend, stares at me in shock as I slide into the seat beside hers.

As the teacher calls roll and goes through announcements, Nicole leans closer and whispers, “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back? Are you okay?”

I give her a rueful smile and whisper back, “I’m okay. Sorry I didn’t tell you I was coming back today.”

As we walk to English class together, Nicole loops an arm around my waist and squeezes me. “I’ve missed you so much. You must feel like shit. This is all so shitty.”

It’s shittier than she knows, but my heart feels lighter just being here with her.

“I was so worried about you. You look well, though. You’re so brave.”

I smile at her. In my mirror this morning, my complexion was grey and my eyes were dull and tired. “I look like crap. But thank you.”

“How’s your poor Dad? He must be devastated.”

The smile freezes on my face. I’m saved from answering by crossing the threshold into the classroom where our teacher is already waiting.

I can barely follow the discussion around me about Hamlet after missing so many lessons, and my head feels jammed with fog. It’s like that in all my morning classes, but I suppose the teachers have decided to go easy on me, seeing as no one chews me out for staring vacantly out the windows.

In between classes I feel the intrusive stares of my classmates, and some of the bolder ones ask blunt questions. Everyone’s interested in Mom’s unsolved murder, and mumbled sympathies quickly become excuses to probe me for information about the investigation. I hear the phrase Black Orchid Murders whispered behind my back more than once. I mutter that I don’t know what’s happening with the investigation over and over until Nicole sees everyone off.

“What do you know about the Black Orchid Murders?” I ask Nicole as we sit together at lunch.

She scrunches up her face and thinks. “Nothing, really, except they were really gruesome and no one knows who did it. Four girls were killed, and no one knows why. I heard Mom and Dad mention the case the other night. Has it got something to do with your mom?”

I shake my head. “It keeps coming up and I don’t know why.”

I can’t bring myself to search for it online in case I see some horrible crime scene photos or read something that reminds me of what happened on my birthday. I see enough blood and brutality every time I close my eyes.

Nicole chews her lower lip for a moment, and then she drops her voice to a whisper. “Did you really see nothing that night?”

My heart starts to pound. What if I slip up and reveal the truth, and someone else ends up dead because of me?

Nicole mistakes my paralyzed silence as grief. She grabs my hand. “I’m sorry, I’m so insensitive. Forget I asked. You’ve been through enough.”

“I’m okay. I’m still…processing everything and trying not to think about that night too much. Meanwhile, Dad’s got a plan.”

Nicole smiles. “Your Dad always has a plan. I’m glad he’s still mayor. Mom and Dad have been worried about him ever since he gave that heartbreaking eulogy.”

Yes, didn’t he seem devastated.

Nicole opens her sandwich, grimaces, and bites into it.

“He wants me to get married.” The words taste disgusting in my mouth.

Nicole stops chewing and her eyes grow round as golf balls. Then she swallows her whole mouthful at once and starts coughing. “Oh, my god. To who? But you’re seventeen. We’re in school.”

I pound her on the back as I try and decide how much to say. Nicole’s been my best friend since we were in kindergarten. I can’t tell her why, but I have to confide in someone what is happening to me. “I can’t say yet. It’s complicated. I’m trying to talk Dad out of it but he—he—”

My eyes burn with tears and my throat feels thick.

Nicole takes a mouthful of soda and sits up, and her shock becomes understanding. “It’s okay. I get it. He’s worried about you. He wants to be sure that someone will take care of you if something happens to him.”

I suppose it’s only natural that Nicole would think that Dad’s acting nobly. So many people of Coldlake think of Dad as their hero.

“You’re not leaving school or anything, are you? You not getting married next week?”

“No. Nothing’s going to happen until I’m eighteen, and not then, either, if I can help it.”

“Oh, phew. It’s way too sudden for you to get married. Plus, it’s been horrible without you here for the last month. I’ve missed you so much.” She smiles crookedly at me.

“I’ve missed you, too.” I hug Nicole as tight as I can. “I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can. I promise.”

As I approach the exit at the end of the day, I see that there are two dozen or more girls clustered around the school gate. Their whispers spread like fire.

“He’s so hot.”

“Is that his car?”

I guess someone’s older brother has come to pick her up from school. Boys are such a novelty to us at St. Osanna, that a group of them, or even one really cute boy, can send everyone in a fifty-foot radius a little bit crazy.

I’ve had enough of that sort of crazy. As the other students jostle against each other to get a better view, I weave my way through them, wincing as my toe is trodden on by a girl jumping up and down and whisper-screaming, “Oh my god, he’s so sexy! Whose big brother is that?”

I’m almost out the gates when one word stops me in my tracks.

“Chiara.” He doesn’t even need to raise his voice. It lifts over the crowd and resonates in my ears.

Everyone who was staring at Salvatore turns in unison and stares at me. I grip the strap of my shoulder bag, wishing that a sink hole would open beneath my feet and swallow me up. I thought I would be safe from him at school. I thought here, at least, I could pretend he doesn’t exist.

Salvatore has parked a sleek gray Maserati at the front gates and is leaning against it, dressed in a black suit with a gray T-shirt underneath, cut low enough to expose his strong chest muscles. The suit hugs his body like a lover, accentuating the thickness of his biceps and the breadth of his shoulders. The heavy silver watch on his wrist sparkles in the sunlight. He draws one hand out of his pocket and slides his fingers along his freshly shaven jaw.

He smiles, and a shiver goes through the girls around me.

Looking at me but addressing them, he drawls, “Would you mind? I’d like to speak with my fiancée.”

Salvatore parts the girls like Moses parting the Red Sea with just his voice, making a path straight to him. All my classmates gawk at me.

And then the whispers start.

“Fiancée? Why didn’t she tell us?”

“She’s engaged?”

“Wait, I think I recognize him.”

“Haven’t we seen him on the news?”

“That’s Salvatore Fiore.”

The mood of the crowd changes from surprise to delirious shock. The Salvatore Fiore is at our school gates in all his scandalous, bad-boy glory. The expressions on the girls’ faces range from envy to confusion to downright disgust.

It’s not what you think, I want to scream. I didn’t choose him. I don’t WANT him.

I can feel Salvatore’s razor-sharp gaze on me, warning me to play along. I walk slowly toward him, feeling like I’m being led to the gallows.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper when I’m three feet away.

“It’s a beautiful day. I’ve come to take my bride for a drive.”

The sun is shining on his handsome face. When he smiles, you could almost believe he’s human. I was wary of Cassius and Lorenzo from the moment I saw them, but I was drawn to Salvatore immediately. That kiss he bestowed on my mouth was better than anything I’d felt before. People say that a first kiss is often a let-down, but mine was a little piece of heaven in the arms of a devil.

I remember Lorenzo showing me my wet G-string, humiliating evidence that at least one of those men turned me on. Until he wrapped his hands around my throat and snarled in my ear I would have been happy to accept that I was attracted to Salvatore.

But not now. Never again. It was some weird fluke that I was turned on.

“Sorry, I have homework.”

“My bride doesn’t need good grades. I’ll take care of anything she needs.” He gestures at the open-top sportscar, inviting me to get in.

“I’m your bride in forty-eight weeks and not a moment before.” Not even then, if I can help it.

I know how to distract him. I glance around the parking lot. “Where are your friends lately?”

Salvatore’s face hardens. One moment charming and mellow, the next brimming with malice.

I remember Cassius’ words that night. By your eighteenth birthday, you better have learned what it means to take your place by our sides. Whichever one of us marries you, we all expect the same obedience.

So much for us and our.

I lift my chin to project courage that I don’t feel. “You seemed like a close-knit group. Did it make the others angry when you won?”

Salvatore’s blue-green eyes flicker and the muscles of his jaw tighten. Like what I just said hurts.

Can monsters feel pain?

I can guess what happened. Dad wants their help to win the next election, but he also doesn’t like four against one, and so he figured out a way to separate one of these powerful men from the others.

With me.

I suppose he used a delicate combination of enticements and veiled threats on Salvatore. Marry my daughter, and I’ll give you everything the others could never hope to give you. Remember what happened here tonight. I can make things go away—but only for my friends.

“I hope I’m worth losing all of them,” I say with a shrug. The cluster of girls at the gate has drawn the attention of the faculty. Over Salvatore’s shoulder, I see the headmistress marching toward us, her focus on Salvatore, equal parts alarm and determination on her face. “The headmistress is coming. You should go.”

“Oh, no. Not the headmistress.”

Salvatore slides his hands around my waist and dips his head toward mine. It’s like someone’s thrown a heavy cloak over us as suddenly it’s just him and me, his large, scorching hands holding me against him.

Salvatore’s mouth descends on mine in a demanding, searing kiss. He captures my lower lip, testing how it yields to his teeth, and then kisses me again. He presses his lips against mine so many times that I feel drunk.

His voice is as dark as midnight when he speaks. “I assure you, you’re worth it, Chiara.”

The darkness around us lifts, and I’m back at the school gates, breathing hard while Salvatore smirks down at me, my lips tingling.

“Bye, baby,” he murmurs, giving my waist a final squeeze and getting into his sportscar. He guns the engine, still looking at me, and then roars away in a shower of gravel and dust.

Ms. Brambilla reaches me just as Salvatore turns a corner, her expression outraged. “What is that criminal doing at our school?”

I stare at my feet, my face burning with shame.

“Chiara, I’ll speak to your father to let him know that man has been harassing you. It’s inconceivable that Salvatore Fiore thinks he can come to this school and molest the mayor’s daughter.”

I would have preferred that she accuse me of fraternizing with him on school grounds. Hearing her defend me makes me feel even worse.

“Please don’t, Ms. Brambilla. He’s my—we’re, um…” I whisper hoarsely. Fiancé. Say fiancé. She’s going to find out anyway. Everyone at school will, and the last place that was safe from my terrible future will be tainted.

She rounds on me. “Pardon, Chiara?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry, goodbye.”

As I walk home, I feel wetness sliding between my thighs with every step. One kiss and he can do this to me. One kiss.

I push the front door open and trudge miserably upstairs. I can still feel Salvatore’s body against mine. He’s all over me, and so I rip off my clothes and head for the shower. As I catch sight of my damp underwear, I reason that at least I have an answer to Lorenzo’s cruel taunt. It was Salvatore who got me in this state on my birthday.

Salvatore, and no one else.

* * *

As I walkthrough the school gates the next morning, no one pays me any attention. My heart lifts. Maybe no one noticed what happened outside the school gates, or they don’t care.

I’m riding high on denial when I walk up to Nicole at our lockers and say, “Hey, how did you do on that English essay? I had to rewrite my conclusion four times.”

The second her eyes meet mine, I know I’ve been fooling myself. Surprise flickers over Nicole’s face.

Surprise, and fear.

She backs away from me, hands raised, as if I’ve suddenly pulled a knife on her. As if I’m the dangerous one, not Salvatore.

“Nicole?”

“I’m sorry. Mom and Dad say we’re not allowed to be friends anymore.”

Nicole’s eyes are huge. My best friend of thirteen years is terrified. Even though I already know the answer, I can’t help but blurt, “But why?”

She closes her locker and holds her books tight against her chest. “They said if your Dad wants you to marry Salvatore Fiore, then it means he’s gone bad.”

Gone bad. Corrupt.

Plenty of people look up to Salvatore in Coldlake, but plenty of people fear him, too. I take a step toward my friend but she shrinks away as if I’ve turned into Salvatore himself.

“I don’t want to marry him. I’m not going to marry him. This isn’t my choice and I’m going to find a way out of this. I don’t have a plan yet, but maybe you can help me?”

Nicole’s expression softens. We always used to help each other out of messes when we were kids. She accidentally let her little brother overhear her saying that Santa wasn’t real one Christmas, and I helped her fake a visit from Santa and his reindeer with gnawed carrots and glitter in the driveway. It wasn’t sophisticated but it kept the magic alive for the three-year-old boy a little longer.

Helping me call off a wedding to one of the most notorious men in Coldlake is hardly in the same league, but she doesn’t need to come up with a perfect solution. I’ll settle for her moral support.

Nicole bites her lip, and shakes her head. “Mom and Dad said that if I stay friends with you, I won’t be allowed to go to school here anymore. I’m sorry, Chiara.” Tears fill her eyes and she turns away, head down, walking fast.

My last true friend in this world.

I look around at the girls who are staring at me, most of whom were standing at the school gate yesterday watching me and Salvatore. Some look scared. Some shocked. Some give me sharp, knowing smiles, and I realize that they must belong to families who are on the side of men like my promised husband. They’re the last girls I want as my friends. No one decent will ever want to be my friend again.

I grab my books out of my locker and push past everyone, keeping my head down so my hair hides my face. Until a few weeks ago, I would have said that Coldlake was full of love and respect toward me. Everywhere I went, someone had a smile for me and knew my name. It’s taken one vile man’s reputation to make me see that I took that respect completely for granted.

The rest of the school day crawls by, with everyone whispering behind their hands as I pass them in the halls. Even the teachers give me fearful looks.

Salvatore Fiore and the mayor’s daughter. It’s as incongruous as Minnie Mouse marrying Darth Vader.

As soon as the final bell rings, I grab my bag and run for the school gate. There’s no sign of Salvatore, but I didn’t expect there to be. He already staked his claim and made me notorious in my own school. Job done.

As I walk quickly down the street, I keep my head down so no one can see the tears leaking from my eyes. I wanted one place where I could feel normal, and he’s stolen even that from me.

At home I go upstairs and straight to my room, trying to lose myself in my homework. I’ve got so much to catch up on but it takes all my energy just to concentrate on the words in my biology textbook. Ten minutes later, I realize that I’ve read the same paragraph over and over without absorbing any of it, and I put down my pen.

An insidious voice at the back of my mind whispers that it doesn’t matter if I understand biology or not. The course of my life is already fated. Marriage to Salvatore, and then a lifetime by his side and bearing his children. My mind drifts as I gaze out the window onto the garden. My home will be just as grand, if not more so, than the one I’m living in right now. I picture myself with a toddler in a pretty dress and another baby in my arms, and my heart twists with longing. I’ve always wanted children, and for a moment I picture them with Salvatore’s blue-green eyes. Any man, even as hard-hearted as Salvatore is, would love such beautiful children, and he’d protect us ruthlessly. Wouldn’t he?

A moment later, I come crashing back to earth. They won’t be children to him. They’ll be pawns in his never-ending quest for power, and I’d be brutally discarded the moment I disagreed with him about what he wanted for our children. Loveless marriages. Lives of crime, like his.

I gaze at the diagram of photosynthesis and the accompanying text. Suddenly it seems much more interesting than my future, and thirty minutes later I’ve written half of my science report.

I’m finishing off the concluding paragraph when I hear Dad calling me from downstairs. “Chiara. Can you come here, please?”

A glance at my phone, which tells me it’s dinner time. I’ve been eating in the kitchen with Francesca ever since Mom was killed. I suppose it was only a matter of time before Dad would want to resume proper meals. Everything in this house has to be proper, and so I pull on a knit dress and some sandals before heading downstairs, my stomach in a snarl.

My anxiety doubles as I see who’s standing next to Dad.

Salvatore. Again. I thought that after the kiss that spoiled everything for me at school, he would stay out of my life.

He smiles at me, a cold smile with his lips pressed together.

“Chiara,” he murmurs in deep, rich notes. I look away as his gaze travels down my body, and I wish I hadn’t worn something so clingy.

I follow them both into the dining room and Salvatore is there to push my chair in, his fingers grazing my bare arm. I’ve got no appetite as Stephan sets consommé before us all and Dad and Salvatore speak about business.

I let my spoon trail through the clear broth, eyes down, hoping that they’ve both forgotten that I’m there.

“And how are you, Chiara?”

I look up, and see that Salvatore has finished his soup and is gazing at me with a smirk. Dad goes on eating, his interest in the new turn the conversation has taken is non-existent.

“I was dumped today.”

Bloodlust flares suddenly in Salvatore’s eyes. “You have a boyfriend? Who is he? Has he touched you?”

If I did have a boyfriend then what might have happened between us is none of his business. The truth is I’ve never dated or been touched by anyone except Salvatore and his friends.

I wonder if it would bother him to hear what they did to me. Especially Lorenzo. Humiliation courses through me as I remember the way he showed me my wet G-string and then shoved the hilt of his knife between my thighs. Or maybe they bragged to each other what they did to me. So why is it different if another guy puts his hands on me?

Dad glares at me. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend. What are you talking about, Chiara?”

“I’m talking about my best friend. Nicole says her parents don’t want us to be friends anymore.” I flick my gaze at Salvatore. “Because of him.”

Dad’s face relaxes into a smile as he cuts through his steak. “Oh, I see.”

Salvatore picks up his red wine glass and settles back in his seat. “For a moment there I thought I’d have to go and spill some blood.”

“If I had a boyfriend it would be none of your business.”

“My fiancée’s private life is all my business. Do I have to come to the school every day and kiss you? I thought once would be enough to spread the message around. You belong to me, and no one else is to touch you.”

“The headmistress won’t allow it.”

A grin spreads over Salvatore’s handsome face. “Some old woman in a cardigan isn’t going to keep me away from my girl. I’m warning you, Chiara. You kiss some boy or let him get his hands on you, I’ll make him wish he’d never been born.”

I imagine one of the students from the nearby boys’ school going up against Salvatore, and shudder. Right now he’s relaxed and sharply dressed in a designer suit, not a lock of rich brown hair out of place, but I have no doubt he can go absolutely feral when he wants to.

I turn to Dad, gripping my knife and fork tight in my fists. “Nicole’s parents and people like them are the core of your voter base. Isn’t this a sign that you should rethink everything? You could lose the mayorship because of Salvatore.”

“There’ll be some pearl-clutchers, undoubtedly, but I can lose the Albanos’ votes without any problem.”

Salvatore takes a sip of wine. “Losing a few weak-minded idiots is nothing to the number of people that I can persuade to support Mayor Romano. Everyone who works for me, everyone who loves and respects my family, lives on the streets I own, and everyone who’s terrified of me will do as I say.”

Weak-minded idiots. I hate hearing him talk about Nicole’s parents that way. Salvatore might be wrong, but what matters is that Dad believes him.

I eat my dinner in silence and tune out whatever Dad and Salvatore are saying to each other. If my match with Salvatore isn’t going to damage Dad’s political reputation enough for him to call it off, I still have forty-eight weeks to find another solution.

When dinner is over, Dad says my name. “Chiara. See Salvatore to the door.”

I look up and realize that the plates have been cleared away. Wordlessly, I get to my feet and walk out of the room.

I can feel Salvatore following me, but I can’t bear to even look at him.

At the door, Salvatore takes my waist in his hands. “Hold your head up. You’re a Fiore bride, and we bow to no one.”

“I’m not bowing to you. I’m sad. I lost my best friend because of you.”

“If she cut you out so easily then she was never truly your friend. You’ll make new friends.”

“People like you, you mean?”

“Exactly. Better friends.” Salvatore moves closer to kiss me but this time I’m ready for him and I turn my face away.

He stays right where he is, his fingers biting into my waist and fury lighting up his eyes. “Turn back to me.”

“No.”

I brace for him to grab my chin and force my face back to his. It’s the only way he’ll ever kiss me again.

“That’s the last time you refuse me anything,” he seethes, letting me go. “Next time, I’ll fucking make you.” He strides down the hall, opens the front door, and slams it behind him.

When I turn around, Dad’s watching me from the door to the living room. I’m not even angry anymore. Despair and disappointment fill me from head to toe as I go upstairs to my bedroom. He knows what I’d say if I thought there was any point at all in trying to shame him.

If Mom saw you now, she wouldn’t recognize you.

* * *

On Saturday morning,I’m alone in the house watching TV when the front doorbell rings. We’re not expecting anyone, and I don’t recognize the person standing on the front step.

I open the door to a breathtakingly beautiful young woman. Her hair is thick and a rich brown, and there’s something familiar about her bright blue-green eyes. She smiles, and I see she’s holding an orchid with delicate white blooms in a pot.

“Hello, you must be Chiara,” she says, without an ounce of self-consciousness. “We haven’t met. I’m Ginevra Fiore.” She wears a white silk shirt and gray slacks and carries a designer handbag with a chunky gold chain. There’s gold jewelry around her throat and in her ears, and her nails are long and painted burgundy.

She pauses, as though this name is supposed to answer all the questions that are flying through my head. Finally, one word sticks.

Fiore.

Those eyes. The shape of her mouth. That air of confidence.

Her smile dims. “Oh, please don’t be scared. I just came to give you this and introduce myself. I’m Salvatore’s sister.”

She puts the orchid into my hands and I stare at the incongruous object. Am I supposed to understand something from this present? “Why the plant?”

“I was sorry to hear about your mother’s passing.”

Oh, yes, Salvatore must have made it sound so sad. “Did your brother tell you to come here?”

Her smile comes back, and this time it’s mischievous. “He knows better than to tell me to do anything. He asked me if I wanted to meet you, and I said yes, but that I’d come by myself.”

Someone talking back to Salvatore. It sounds incongruous to me, and suddenly I’m curious about her.

“I suppose you can come in.” I stand back and gesture inside. I sound ungracious, but Ginevra doesn’t seem offended. As she steps over the threshold, she gazes around the entrance hall.

“You have a beautiful home.”

“Thanks. Mom did all the decorating.” It’s a shame that it was with Dad’s dirty money. Did she know that he was involved with criminals the whole time? The question has been haunting me since my seventeenth birthday. I’ve been going over and over her behavior that night and how she seemed in the weeks leading up to my birthday. Her sudden nerves and weight loss, like she was worried about something. Mom was always such a happy woman. Never carefree, but content. I feel instinctively that she didn’t discover what Dad was really up to until recently, and it horrified her.

“Chiara?”

I realize I’m still standing with my hand on the open door, and close it behind me. As I lead her through to the lounge, I say, “Sorry. There’s so much on my mind lately.”

Ginevra’s lips press together in sympathy as we sit down on the sofas. She places the orchid on the coffee table. “I understand. It’s a lot to deal with all at once, a death in the family and a marriage on the horizon. Our family always does everything at breakneck speed.” She holds up her hand and shows me a diamond engagement ring flashing on her finger. “I’ve only been wearing this for two weeks. The wedding is in two months. I’m freaking out.” Her smile is nervous but excited.

I stare at the enormous stone on Ginevra’s finger, dread solidifying in my belly. On my eighteenth birthday, I’ll be presented with a ring like this. I can already feel it weighing down my hand.

“Is your fiancé a criminal as well?” As soon as the words slip out, I bite my lip.

If Ginevra has taken any offence to what I’ve said, she doesn’t show it. After musing for a moment, she smiles and says, “I suppose in the traditional sense of the word, yes. But there’s a lot more to a person than whether they break the law or not, don’t you think?”

I bite the inside of my cheek. For me, someone taking a lax approach to right and wrong constitutes a huge part of a person’s character.

“Such as how a person treats their family,” Ginevra continues. “For the Fiores, we put family first. Always. You’re going to be family to me soon, and that means Salvatore and I and everyone else will protect you. All the Fiores will fight to keep you safe, no matter who your enemies are.”

But what if my enemy is a Fiore?

“So, tell me, what do you think of my brother?”

“I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

“It’s early on. You still have a whole year to get to know each other, and marriage is for the rest of your lives. I met my fiancé the night he put this ring on my finger.”

I search Ginevra’s beautiful face for any of the resentment I feel, but she seems only happy as she gazes at her ring. “Who chose your husband? Your father?”

She shakes her head. “Dad passed away three years ago. Salvatore’s in charge now, and he chose Antonio for me. He and Salvatore have been business associates for many years. He’s in Italy right now, but I’m excited for him to return so I can get to know him better.”

This must be the sort of woman Salvatore and the others anticipated when they came to my birthday party. Someone who’s been raised with the expectation that none of her choices will be her own, and that marriage is a transaction, not for love.

“I thought you said Salvatore wouldn’t dare tell you to do anything?”

“He wouldn’t. He pointed out all the reasons why Antonio would be an excellent husband for me, and I agreed.”

That sounds like telling her what to do. All the same, I can’t help but like Ginevra. Her eyes sparkle with intelligence and she’s confident as well as warm. She seems genuinely interested in getting to know me, but I have to presume that every word I say to her will get back to her brother.

Maybe that could work in my favor?

“You seem like a kind person,” I say slowly. “I wish you every happiness with Antonio, but this isn’t the life that I want and Salvatore isn’t the husband I’d choose.”

Ginevra adjusts the diamond ring on her finger, her face serene. “A year is a long time. Salvatore seems cold sometimes, but he’s just protecting himself. He’s suffered heartbreak in the past.”

“Salvatore’s been in love?” I blurt out. Nothing about that man says hearts and flowers to me. More like blood and daggers.

For the first time, sadness flickers over her face. “Not that sort of love. We had a sister between us in age. Ophelia. She was murdered eight years ago. You can’t imagine the pain it caused him, knowing that he wasn’t able to protect her.”

A sister. My grief is a knife in my heart and I pity anyone who’s ever felt like this, even Salvatore.

Ginevra gets to her feet and touches the white orchid bloom, which is as luminous as the moon and twice as beautiful. “You’ll never forget your mother, but the pain will get easier, I promise. I’ll see you soon, I hope.”