Ginevra clung to Nico's arm, laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Her fingertips touched the hollow of her throat. "Rosalia, have you been watching too many soap operas? Talking about payback like you're some kind of main character with plot armor?"
Nico smirked and waved me off like a beggar on the street. "Enough with the tragic act. Get out of here and stop wasting our time. We've got a celebration to enjoy."
I gave him one last look before turning on my heel and walking away. Behind me, the laughter and insults kept coming, but I didn't care anymore.
Outside the social club, the night air hit my face like cold water. I bought a new phone from a corner store two blocks into neutral territory and dialed a number.
"Before the Commission convenes tomorrow, I want Nico ruined."
There was a brief silence on the other end before a deep voice responded. "Understood, Miss Ferrante."
I hung up, glanced up at the night sky, and let a slow, cold smile spread across my lips.
I turned my mother's gold signet ring once, slow and deliberate, the crest pressing into my palm.
Nico, you thought you'd won? Too bad. The real game was just starting. Since you showed me no mercy, don't expect any in return.
"Rosalia, I was just trying to help — why did you push me?"
Nico moved before the last syllable left Ginevra's mouth. He crossed the room in two strides and gathered her against him, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other cupping the back of her head as though she were something fragile, something precious. The shift in his body was immediate: every line of him rearranged itself from the man who had been staring me down into the man performing devotion. I had watched that transformation a hundred times. I knew the choreography by heart.
His eyes found mine over Ginevra's shoulder, and they were incandescent with fury — the kind of fury that men in this life reserved for public disrespect, for challenges to their authority that could not go unanswered.
"Apologize. Now."