etta

nny found the shredded p

he gasped loudly, a sound calculated for all to hear. She told Gabriel it was a sacred Family document. She cried that my mother wa

veins in his forehead stood out, a dark throb of rage. He pulled his gun from his

f wood flying from the frame. They tore the upper floors apart, overturning

d air. He reported that for five long years, I had been the only person deliveri

e his authority. He berated her to the empty room, his voice cracking with a mixture of wrath and an unspoken dread.

m the basement-the sound of something shift

ad found only bloodstains and emptiness when I came looking for her body the morning after she died. The barre

shifted. Somethi

pine. If someone opened that

erena collapsed against the wall. She clutched her stomach, her face twist

her before she hit the floor, his arms a cradle around her.

is gaze fixed on the dark, unlit door at the far end where no light or sound escape

Serena. I would be married off to the Lucchese cartel in thre

t hiss. "Let her rot in there," he sneered.

he door, leaving me alo

s and descended into the dark. The wine barrel stood in the corner, its lid slightly askew from

years-because she was gone. I had been guarding an empty barrel, waiting f