Rosalia had come from nothing. A street orphan from the tenements beyond our territory, with no name, no blood, and no protection. The other girls in our circles treated her like gutter trash. When I learned that she, too, had lost her parents, something in my chest cracked open. I saw myself in her. I took her in, gave her the shelter of the Genovese name, paid for her schooling, dressed her in clothes she could never have afforded, and told her we would survive this world together.
I never imagined she would mistake my love for condescension. That every kindness I offered would curdle into poison inside her. She envied everything I had. The name. The legacy. The two young men whose families had been oath-bound to mine since before we were born. And with a patience I had not thought her capable of, she used that envy like a stiletto, turning Giancarlo and Salvatore against me, thread by thread, whisper by whisper, until the three of them had woven a noose around my life.
While these thoughts still churned behind my eyes, the car slowed to a stop.