I begged him to spare me. Begged until my voice broke. But all he left me with was a single, weightless phrase: The family cannot harbor what threatens it. Then he tore the Ferro Ledger from my hands, stripped me of every alliance, every debt, every ounce of leverage I had ever held, and put a bullet through the life I'd built.
Even Mietitore was snapped in half and ground under his heel.
It was the child in my womb who saved me.
He sacrificed his own life to keep my shattered body from giving out completely, his tiny heartbeat holding mine together just long enough.
After a long silence, I reformed into a physical body, but only that of a two-year-old child. A girl with no name, no family, no blood anyone would claim.
My heart was full of hatred. I knew I was no match for Aldric, yet I still set out on the road to the Commission's stronghold to take my revenge.
But my bones had barely knit and my leverage had yet to coalesce. I couldn't even fend off a street thug looking for an easy mark.
Just as a man with a knife was about to finish what Aldric had started, a pair of large hands scooped me into a warm embrace.
The old man whose eyes already creased with wrinkles looked down at me, heartache plain on his face. "How's a little thing like you out here all alone with nobody looking after you?"
"Don't be scared, sweetheart. This old man will keep you safe."
I assumed his kindness was a passing impulse. I never imagined he would go on protecting me for years.
The year I pieced Mietitore back together, I was nine. I reforged the broken blade myself, heating the steel over a gas burner in the back of Massimo's shop, working the metal with hands too small for the hammer. Tore found me there at three in the morning and said nothing. He simply sat down, took the hammer from me, and held the blade steady while I shaped it.
I planned to make one last trip to the Commission's stronghold and drag Aldric down with me, even if it killed us both.
But the night before I meant to leave, my master brought me a beggar's chicken. It wasn't particularly good.
He had no idea I was planning to go. He just scratched the back of his head, embarrassed, and said, "Nara, you haven't been eating well lately. You're getting too thin. I went all the way across town to learn this recipe from a famous cook on Mulberry Street."
"Go on, try it. If it's no good, I'll go back and learn again."