Part 3Seven Days Before the Mafia Princess Died

Three days after Father withdrew the payment for my treatment, he froze my access to the Moretti family medical account.

I discovered it at the hospital pharmacy. The card was declined twice.

After paying for my burial and cremation, my personal account held enough money for only four days of pain medication.

The pharmacist studied the prescription.

“Do you want me to hold the rest for you?”

I shook my head.

“Four days is enough.”

I would not need it after that.

A television mounted above the waiting area was showing an interview with my father.

The caption identified him as Matteo Moretti, real-estate magnate and chairman of the Moretti Foundation.

Standing before a wall of cameras, Father announced a three-million-dollar donation to build the Caesar Moretti Memorial Garden at Manhattan’s largest animal hospital.

“Animals are family,” he told the reporters. “Their love deserves to be remembered with dignity.”

A nurse beside me sighed.

“Mr. Moretti must have a good heart.”

Then she noticed the name on my pharmacy bag.

“Moretti? Are you related to him?”

My fingers tightened around the bag.

“No.”

Not anymore.

Once, Father had searched an entire city for me. Now, he was willing to honor a dead dog more publicly than his dying daughter.

Luca arrived at my condo that evening.

Since the property belonged to a Moretti holding company, security let him upstairs without calling me.

He frowned the moment he entered and waved a hand through the stale smell of medicine.

Bloodstained tissues filled the trash can. My unfinished will lay open on the dining table beside the funeral contract.

He glanced at neither.

“Where’s the Saint Benedict medal Nonna gave you?”

My hand rose instinctively to my throat.

Before Nonna died, she had fastened the small gold medal around my neck herself.

She said I had spent too many years lost and alone. Saint Benedict would protect me and lead me home, no matter how far I wandered.

Nonna was the only Moretti who had never asked me to sacrifice something for Isabella.

“Why do you want it?”

“Isabella wants Nonna’s medal placed inside Caesar’s urn,” Luca said. “Nonna always said it would protect whoever carried it. Isabella wants Caesar to have that protection.”

Of course.

The medal Nonna had given to protect the daughter who had once been lost was now needed more by Isabella’s dead dog.

Even in death, Caesar mattered more than I did.

He held out his hand.

“Give it to me.”

“Nonna gave this to me.”

“She gave Isabella one too.”

That’s true.

When I came home at twelve, Nonna had commissioned two identical medals and had them blessed—one for each granddaughter.

Two weeks later, Isabella claimed she had lost hers.

I had watched her throw it into the lake.

She had not wanted anything that made us equal.

“Hers is gone,” Luca snapped. “Caesar stayed by her side for ten years. All she wants is to know he’ll be protected.”

His expression hardened.

“How can you be so heartless? Do you really have to take this from her too?”

Ten years.

I had been home for ten years too.

Once, Father had presented us both as his daughters. Somewhere along the way, Isabella became the only Moretti principessa, while I was pushed back into the shadows.

Even my grave lay where the sunlight could not reach.

I stepped back.

“No.”

His expression darkened.

“First you tried to take Caesar’s burial plot. Now you’re fighting over a medal.”

“I’m not fighting anymore.”

My voice shook despite my effort to steady it.

“You already chose her dog over me. What exactly is left for me to compete for?”

Luca reached for the chain.

I caught his wrist, but I no longer had the strength to stop him.

During the struggle, my medication fell from the pharmacy bag. White tablets scattered across the floor.

Luca looked down at the label.

“Oxycodone?”

“It’s for the pain.”

“What pain?”

“The cancer in my stomach.”

His grip loosened for half a second.

Then his mouth twisted into a cold smile.

“Not this again.”

His phone rang on the table. Isabella’s name lit the screen.

Luca answered immediately. Her tearful voice carried through the room.

“Did you find Nonna’s medal?”

His tone softened.

“I found it.”

Before I could react, he yanked the chain.

The clasp snapped. Metal scraped across my neck, leaving a thin line of blood.

Luca slipped the medal into his pocket.

“After Caesar’s funeral, I’ll arrange a full examination with the family doctor.”

He looked at the medication covering the floor.

“Until then, stop this.”

The door slammed behind him.

I knelt slowly and gathered the tablets one by one.

They were the last medicine I could afford.

Several had rolled beneath the sink and dissolved in the dirty water leaking from a pipe.

I threw those away.

That night, the pain dragged me out of bed.

I hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.

My phone lay on the nightstand, I stretched toward it.

Heat rose through my throat. When I coughed, dark blood stained the tissue pressed to my mouth.

The tumor was bleeding again.

I searched my contacts anyway.

Mama.

Papa.

Luca.

But as I scrolled to the bottom, I realized there was no one I could call who would believe me.

I stayed on the floor until the pain finally eased.

Near dawn, a message arrived from Saint Michael’s Cemetery.

My headstone had been installed.

The photograph showed a simple slab of gray stone beneath bare branches.

ADRIANA MORETTI.

I stared at the headstone for a long time. It was painfully simple.

There was no Moretti crest. No beloved daughter. No cherished sister.

Nothing to suggest that I had ever belonged to anyone.

For ten years, I had waited for the family who once loved me to come back.

I was done waiting.

Whether I had four days left or only four hours, I would never beg the Morettis to choose me again.