Chapter 1
The wedding ring struck Garrett’s soaked chest and dropped into the wreckage around him.
“You kicked my mother. Now crawl out of my house.”
Nobody moved.
Garrett stared up at me from beneath twisted silver trays and broken serving domes as though he had never imagined those words could exist between us.
That interested me.
Not the anger.
The disbelief.
He actually thought I could not remove him.
Evelyn stood several yards away, one hand pressed against her pearls.
“Alessia, don’t be ridiculous.”
I looked at her.
“My husband put his shoe on my mother.”
“She provoked him.”
Miriam flinched beside me.
Small.
Automatic.
I noticed.
“What did she do?”
Evelyn’s mouth tightened.
“She interfered.”
My mother looked down.
That word mattered.
“Interfered with what?”
Silence.
Garrett pushed himself upright.
“Family business.”
I almost smiled.
“This is my family.”
His jaw tightened.
Around us, several capos suddenly found the ruined console fascinating.
Too many lowered eyes.
Too little surprise.
I turned toward Miriam.
“Mom.”
She looked at me.
“What were they asking you for?”
Garrett stepped forward.
“Nothing.”
I did not look at him.
My mother’s hands began shaking.
That frightened me more than Garrett’s rage.
Miriam had survived my father, three internal wars, and twenty years of Carbone politics without trembling once in public.
“What?”
She swallowed.
“Your father’s black seal.”
The ballroom changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Every senior Carbone knew the phrase.
The black seal had not been used since my father died.
I had never even seen it.
Garrett went completely still.
Evelyn looked toward him.
Too late.
I stared at my mother.
“Why would Garrett want the black seal?”
Miriam’s eyes filled.
“Because he thinks you don’t know what it opens.”
I slowly turned toward my husband.
His face had changed.
Not guilty.
Cornered.
That told me one thing immediately.
The kick had not been an insult.
It had been frustration.
May you like
My mother had refused him something.
And Garrett had finally become careless enough to punish her where I could see.
