Her eyes dropped to my neck.
There, against my collarbone, hung an extraordinarily rare pink diamond necklace. Three years ago, on my birthday, Domenico had bid eighty million dollars for it at Sotheby's. In this world, jewelry like that was more than ornament. It was a marker of status, a declaration that the woman who wore it belonged to a man powerful enough to take what he wanted.
Olimpia let out a soft laugh and leaned close to my ear.
"Giuliana, since you've already handed over the ring, don't you think it's a little inappropriate for you to still be wearing the lady of the house's jewelry?"
She reached for the necklace.
I stepped back.
Olimpia used the momentum to tilt the champagne flute in her hand.
Pale gold liquid splashed across the front of my silk gown.
A sharp crack followed as the glass slipped from her fingers and shattered across the marble floor. The sound cut through the room like a gunshot, and two soldiers near the entrance shifted their weight.
Olimpia immediately clutched the back of her hand, her eyes flooding red. I caught it, the tiny thing no one else would notice: she bit the inside of her lower lip, a quick mechanical preparation, and then fat tears rolled down her cheeks in an instant.
"Giuliana, I just thought the necklace was pretty and wanted a closer look. If you didn't want to show me, you could've just said so. Why did you have to push me?"
The music stopped.
Every pair of eyes in the hall turned toward us. The Capos' wives. The underbosses' women. The associates who owed Domenico favors and feared his moods. All of them watching, calculating.
For the past seven years, any woman who tried to get close to Domenico or provoke me had been thrown out without mercy. I had once shoved a starlet's face into a cake in front of the entire Capital's elite for trying to crawl into his bed.
Domenico crossed the hall in long strides and pulled Olimpia behind him. The crowd parted for him without being asked. They always did.
He looked down at the faint red mark on the back of her hand, and his brow furrowed tight.
"Giuliana, what the hell is wrong with you? Olimpia just got back to the country. Why are you going after her?"
His voice dripped with undisguised favoritism and reproach.
I stared at that face, the face I had once loved down to the marrow of my bones, and felt a dull ache deep in my chest.