As long as I remained bound to this Family—this arrangement, this gilded cage disguised as an alliance—I would forever stand in Silvia's shadow. A placeholder. A name on a contract that meant nothing to the man who had signed it.
And this time, I had already decided to step out of that shadow entirely.
The rain began only after I left the Corleone estate.
I did not look back.
The stone steps leading down from the villa were slick with water, treacherous beneath my heels. Wind poured through the iron gates at the courtyard's far end, carrying the briny scent of the harbor—that particular smell of salt and diesel and freedom that belonged to the docks where men like Fletcher 'The Ferryman' Mancini plied their trade.
I walked fast, my coat pulled tight against the downpour, as if slowing even a fraction would let the golden lights behind me reach out and swallow me whole once more.
Only then did I allow myself to think of the morning.