Chapter 2

Arya

My eyes burned like hell.

I rubbed them hard and made for the door. I had barely touched the handle when Matteo's phone buzzed in his pocket. He glanced down at the screen, jaw clenching.

Before I could slip out, his heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder, spinning me back.

"Hold on," Matteo spat, his voice dropping low. "Chiara's screwed. The internal audit committee just flagged a two-million-dollar hole in the dock's slush fund. They're hauling her in right now."

A dry, bitter laugh ripped out of my throat. Right. There it was.

Since Chiara was a lazy, incompetent idiot who couldn't balance a checkbook, I'd spent years secretly cleaning up her financial messes so the capos wouldn't put a bullet in her head. She loved stealing my clean records to look like a genius, but the second she tried to pull a real scam on her own, she blew the whole operation wide open.

Truth? She had pocketed the cash herself to buy luxury jewelry, and now the auditors were sniffing around her safe.

My mother stepped in. "You have to help your sister, Arya! Take the fall for the audit! If the Council finds out it was Chiara, Bobby will lose his standing in the district and they'll put her on trial. Where's your blood loyalty?"

I swallowed the vomit rising in my throat. Five years of this bullshit.

"Fine," I said, my voice dead. "I'll tell the auditors I skimmed the money. I'll take the hit."

Let her have it. It's the last thing she'll ever steal from me, I thought. Let's see who bails her out when I'm six feet under.

"Knew you weren't totally useless," Matteo grunted, flashing a smirk of relief. "I'll tell Bobby you panicked and juggled the accounts."

He didn't even say thank you. He just turned his back, leaning over Chiara's bed to stroke her hair.

I stood there, watching them play happy family.

If the ricin hadn't already gutted my insides, my hands would've been around his throat.

I didn't say another word. I turned my back and walked out. Behind me, their laughter hit the walls, but nobody gave a damn. To them, I didn't even exist.

Back in my room, looking at the bare walls, I made up my damn mind.

If I meant nothing to this dump, I wasn't leaving them a single piece of my shit. I dragged a trash barrel into the middle of the room, threw in my clothes, personal notes, pictures, and every expensive gift I'd ever bought Matteo, and hauled the whole lot outside straight into the industrial incinerator.

By the time I crawled back to my bed, my lungs felt like broken glass. Every breath was pure agony.

The poison was winning. I was dying.