His expression hardened, the mask of the patient suitor finally slipping to reveal something colder beneath. "You're too paranoid, Elena. That's exactly why everyone finds it easier to accept her. Why the Capos' wives invite her to their lunches while you sit alone. Why my mother speaks of her warmth while questioning your devotion."
That sentence.
I remember it with perfect clarity—each word branded into memory like a mark of ownership.
That's exactly why everyone finds it easier to accept her.
As though my vigilance were a character flaw. As though seeing clearly in a house full of shadows made me the one who could not be trusted.
I said nothing.
There was nothing left to say.
Back in the present, he stood before me like a man awaiting tribute—as if my submission were already owed, already overdue.
"No matter what you think," Giorgio said, his voice carrying that particular edge of authority bred into sons of the Corleone bloodline, "the arrangement will not change."
I finally met his gaze. My eyes held nothing of the desperate bride he perhaps expected—only the clear, distant calm of a woman who had already made her peace with ghosts.