"It's better to leave the responsibilities of the Family to me. Vanessa served as Donna of the Argento Syndicate for more than three years. I cannot be biased in your favor when you are just an illiterate orphan girl with no name."
My body trembled. Not from the cold draft that crept through the dining room of the Salvatore estate, but from the precise, surgical cruelty of my husband's words, delivered in front of everyone at the table as casually as if he were discussing the weather.
The dinner turned to ash in my mouth. I did not speak a single word after that, and the silence from my end of the table seemed to unsettle Xavier enough that he glanced my way once, twice, searching my face for something he couldn't name. My mother-in-law, Jane Salvatore, showed no displeasure whatsoever at the argument. If anything, she grew more animated, leaning toward Vanessa with bright laughter and conspiratorial whispers, the two of them carrying on as though I had already left the room.
It was only when I reached for a small dish of spiced oysters that Jane's voice cracked through the air like a slap.