Salvatore cut in before Giancarlo had finished, his jaw tight with competitive heat. "No. Come to us. The Monreale family will give you more. A higher seat. Better protection. Whatever you want, Rosalia." His dark eyes burned. "Whatever you want, I will hand it to you myself."
They argued over her like two dogs over a bone, their voices rising, each trying to outbid the other in devotion. I stood apart and watched, and the sadness that moved through me was old and quiet, a grief that had already been mourned.
After all these years of knowing me. After a lifetime of shared blood and shared bread and sworn oaths whispered in the dark of childhood bedrooms, neither of them had ever once made me such a promise. Neither had ever looked at me with that desperate, aching need to give. The realization settled into my bones with the finality of a coffin lid.
Pretended love could never match the raw devotion that poured from the heart unbidden. They had performed loyalty to me like actors reciting lines. For Rosalia, they simply burned.