Omertà of Bone and Blood

Seraphina's voice was frigid. "Gabriel has a frail constitution. That the creature's pelt could keep him warm was its good fortune. If you harbor resentment over this, it only proves your heart is corrupt." Then came the manic thoughts, bleeding into my ears. Cry. Go on, cry. The moment a single tear falls, I can collect it in the Jade Reliquary. A blood-tear from you. The pelt of your beloved companion is right here. Surely it hurts? Kneel and beg me. Once you're sobbing so hard you can't breathe, I'll reward you with a few pills and stroke your head. Her fingers rubbed something hidden inside her sleeve. I knew what it was: a scrap of bloodstained fabric torn from my shirt yesterday when it snagged on the doorframe of the servants' wing. Deranged. Seraphina leaned forward, eyes locked on me. She was waiting for me to break. Waiting for me to grab her sleeve and weep. I picked up the push broom from the corner, bent down, and swept the crushed vials and medicinal dregs out the door. "If it pleases my junior associate, then so be it." My voice was flat. "I wouldn't want to offend the Donna's sight. I'll have this cleaned up right away." Seraphina's expression froze. Something ignited behind her eyes. No pleading. No tears. She flicked her wrist, and two of her soldiers stepped forward and snapped the broom handle across their knees. The splintered wood drove into my palms. Blood welled up between my fingers. I didn't flinch. Seraphina closed the distance. The two soldiers retreated without being told, pressing themselves against the corridor wall. The silence in the compound was absolute. Even the wind outside the servants' quarters seemed to hold its breath. "Insolent wretch! It seems the servants' quarters have made you too comfortable. You haven't shown a shred of remorse!" I kept my gaze on the tips of my boots. "I acknowledge my fault." "Acknowledge your fault?" Seraphina let out a cold laugh. "If you truly know your fault, then go kneel beneath the falls at the north ridge of the compound. You will remain there until you've reflected properly. Only then may you crawl back." The north ridge falls were where the Falcone Syndicate punished its gravest offenders. The cascade hammered down from the cliffside behind the old estate, ice-cold even in summer, and the stone basin at its base was open to the mountain wind with no shelter for a hundred yards in any direction. Before, I could have endured it. I had been the heir-apparent, with resources and men and the Donna's protection wrapped around me like armor. But my first operation had been dismantled, my standing in the family reduced to nothing. Going there now was a death sentence in all but name. I raised my head and looked at Seraphina the way one looks at a stranger. "Yes, Donna." I turned and walked away. Behind me came the ragged sound of her breathing, then the sharp crack of a porcelain cup crushed to powder in her grip. The wind on the north ridge cut like a blade. The waterfall plunged from the high cliff and hammered into my back. Cold bored through every crack in my bones. I knelt on the stone at the center of the pool, my knees long since numb. The pain in my body was excruciating. Three years ago, Seraphina had faced a federal investigation that nearly brought the entire syndicate down. Her network of intermediaries collapsed, and I threw myself into the breach, taking on the exposure myself to shield her. It had nearly destroyed me. The damage to my body from those months of sleepless extraction work, the beatings I'd taken when a deal went wrong on the docks, the cracked ribs that never healed right. Cold made them flare, every time. Now the freezing water hammered the old wounds wide open. My vision blurred white with pain, but I made no sound. Seraphina was watching through the compound's surveillance feeds. She was waiting for me to cry out, waiting for me to beg her for mercy. She would be waiting a long time. Countdown: 5 days. Gabriel strolled over carrying a white ceramic bowl, steam curling from its rim. It was a warming tonic. A single sip would have been enough to ward off the cold. He stopped at the bank, polished shoes crunching through the frost. He laughed, half a beat after he'd already surveyed my face for a reaction. "Senior brother. How does it feel?" Gabriel looked me up and down. "The Donna says all you have to do is bow your head, and this bowl is yours." I closed my eyes and focused on what little strength remained inside me. I didn't acknowledge him. Gabriel turned his wrist. The dark medicinal broth spilled across the frozen ground, seeping into an ugly stain. "Oops. Butterfingers." The grin slid off his face, replaced by open satisfaction. "Take a good look at yourself. You're lower than a dog. You used to be the heir-apparent. And now?" I opened my eyes. "You're done pouring. Leave. You're blocking the light." Gabriel's expression curdled. A crushing pressure descended from above. Seraphina appeared at the ridge with a grim face and swept Gabriel behind her. Two soldiers flanked her at a distance, hands resting inside their coats. Her gaze fixed on me. "Incorrigible." She stepped forward and pressed two fingers against my chest, then my neck, then the base of my spine. Each point she touched went dead. Without warmth to resist, the cold tore through my organs in an instant. I coughed up a mouthful of blood onto the wet stone. "Since you refuse to learn, you can go to the Serpent Abyss." It was the syndicate's forbidden ground. The chasm below the eastern wall of the compound, where the mountain split open into darkness. It was writhing with venomous snakes.

Seraphina looked at me. Scared now, aren't you? You've always been terrified of these cold, wet creatures. All you have to do is grab my sleeve and beg me to save you, and I'll pull you out. She stood at the edge of the pit, waiting for me to throw myself at her. I wiped the blood off, braced myself against a rusted support beam, and straightened up. Then I walked to the edge. "Thank you, Donna." I jumped. The air tore past my ears. In that brief fall, I heard her breathing stutter out of rhythm. Countdown: 4 days. The Serpent Abyss was pitch black. The sub-basement ran three levels beneath the Falcone compound, a flooded drainage network from the original foundation that had been left to rot for decades. Water pooled ankle-deep in places. Rats moved in the walls. But the rats weren't what made the Abyss a punishment. It was the snakes. Copperheads and water moccasins that had colonized the tunnels over generations, breeding in the dark until the lowest level was more nest than corridor. The Donna kept it that way on purpose. They crawled over my body. Fangs sank into flesh. The stench of venom and rot filled everything. I dragged myself through the mire. Five years ago, I'd stayed down here for half a month to protect Seraphina during a turf war, clearing the tunnels level by level so she could use them as an escape route, killing wave after wave of serpents until the swarm finally retreated. Now it was just me. Three days and three nights, and I didn't make a sound. Whenever I couldn't bear it anymore, I stared at the panel. Almost over. I clawed my way to the top of the pit at dawn. Dried blood crusted every inch of me. The rags of my clothes hung in strips, and the wounds had turned black at the edges. Seraphina and Gabriel were standing at the rim. Gabriel shrieked and scrambled behind her. He laughed, a beat too late, trying to make it sound like disgust rather than fear. No one was fooled. Seraphina went rigid. She took half a step forward, her hand rising before it fell back to her side. She signaled the guards to clear the corridor and drifted further away, as though avoiding something filthy. "You've dirtied the ground." Her voice was raw. "Hand the venom sac to Gabriel for his training, then get yourself cleaned up." I opened my hand. The serpent king's venom sac sat in my palm. In the syndicate's world, the extract was worth more than most men earned in a year. A concentrated toxin that, properly refined, became a leverage tool no rival family could trace. Gabriel approached with a silk handkerchief, using it as a barrier between his fingers and mine as he reached for the sac. The instant he took it, his foot slipped. The thick sole of his handmade Italian shoe came down on my right hand. My index finger had already been half-bitten off in the Abyss. Now it separated completely. Cold sweat soaked through my back. I pressed my lips together, pulled my hand back, and didn't make a sound. Seraphina stared at the severed finger. Her own fingers trembled, just once. Her left hand drifted to her wrist, rotating slowly, adjusting a bracelet that was no longer there. She turned and walked away. Her thoughts spilled over each other in a tangle: Why didn't he cry out? He used to come running to me over a scratch, begging me to take care of it for ages. Does he... not care about me anymore? No. He's just being stubborn. Trying to punish me. I watched her retreating figure. Who cares. Countdown: 2 days. The servants' quarters held nothing but straw. I leaned against the corner and pulled out a bundle of yellowed letters tied with kitchen twine. They were the only thing my parents had left behind. The year the blood debt came due, they'd sent me to the compound and pressed these letters into my hands. I smoothed the creased paper with my sleeve. Two more days. I thought about home. Warm milk, flowers on the balcony, Mom and Dad nagging me about nothing. The light dimmed. Seraphina stood a few paces away. Her hand flicked out. The letters ripped free and landed in her palm. "Give them back!" I lunged for them. Seraphina raised her arm high, turning the bundle over between her fingers as she examined it. "So this is why your focus has been slipping." Her voice was dangerously low. "Omertà demands total loyalty to the family, and you've been clinging to these things." I grabbed her sleeve, stretching for them. "Please. Don't touch them." The moment that word left my mouth, her grip tightened. Her left wrist rotated, slow, deliberate, the phantom bracelet turning beneath skin that remembered its weight. That familiar voice slithered into my ears: He's finally begging. Destroy what he cares about, and he'll break. Civilian garbage. Why keep it? From now on, your world will have only me. Seraphina looked at me. Her lighter appeared in her free hand, the flame steady. "Too late." A sharp hiss. The letters caught and curled, blackening in her palm, crumbling to fine ash. She opened her hand. Grey dust drifted down over my face. Cold. Bone-deep cold. I didn't move. My arm stayed outstretched, reaching for something that no longer existed. The ash settled into my eyes. It stung. I lowered my hand, sat back down in the straw, and closed my eyes.

Seraphina stared at me. A soldier's voice came shouting from beyond the door. "Donna! Gabriel's operation went sideways. He's coughing blood. The doctor says he won't last!" Seraphina seized my wrist, her grip so fierce it nearly ground the bones together. "Come with me." The great hall of the Falcone compound. Gabriel lay on a leather chaise, blood smeared across his lips. A cluster of the family's private physicians knelt on the floor before him. "Reporting to the Donna: Gabriel's chest wound has ruptured internally. He needs a direct transfusion from someone in the same blood circle to stabilize him." In all the Falcone Syndicate, only two of us shared that particular lineage. Seraphina and me. Seraphina flipped her hand and produced a knife. It was the one I'd given her three years ago for her birthday. The inscription I'd had engraved along the blade was still there: Per la tua protezione. She held it out to me. "Save him." I looked at the edge of the blade. I was leaving soon anyway. It didn't matter if this body was ruined. "Fine." I loosened my collar and bared my chest. Old scars crisscrossed the skin there, layered one on top of another. Every last one from shielding her during wars with rival families. Seraphina's gaze fell on those scars. The hand holding the knife went still. Gabriel let out a groan from the chaise. Her hand drove forward. The blade punched through skin and muscle, sinking into my chest above the heart. The pain was blinding. I clenched my teeth and made no sound. Seraphina twisted her wrist, drawing out three vials' worth of blood, dark and thick and still warm from the source. The moment the blood left my body, my legs gave out. I collapsed to the floor. My vision went black. Through the haze, I felt Seraphina's hand reach over and press against my chest. She didn't stanch the bleeding. Instead, she pinched her fingers together, plucked a scrap of blood-soaked fabric from my shirt, and slipped it into her sleeve. That voice surfaced again: So much blood... Still warm. This is his blood. Hide it away. For my eyes only. The hall's entrance was packed with soldiers and associates. They watched me lying on the ground. Not one stepped forward. "Everyone could see the protégé resented Gabriel. I just never thought he'd push him this far." "Having a little blood drawn is getting off easy." "Exactly. He deserved it." I lay on the cold marble, staring at the translucent panel hovering before my eyes. Countdown: 1 day. I closed my eyes. Almost there. Countdown: three hours remaining. The Falcone compound was alive with noise today. Red banners draped every gate, and a brass band played from the courtyard while capos arrived in black sedans that lined the gravel drive end to end. It was Gabriel's making ceremony. Never mind that my blood was the only reason his body had stabilized. Nothing could stop him from being the star everyone orbited. They dragged me out of the basement cell. Plain white undershirt, still stiff with dried blood. Shackles on my wrists and ankles. The iron scraped against the long marble staircase as they hauled me upward, the sound shrill enough to set teeth on edge. Seraphina sat enthroned at the very top, upon a carved chair of white stone that had belonged to every Don and Donna before her. Beside her stood Gabriel, resplendent in a tailored black suit, color blooming in his cheeks. He laughed at something one of the capos said, half a beat too late, his eyes scanning the room first. What a perfect pair they made. I was dragged onto the raised platform. Two enforcers pressed down on my shoulders, forcing me to kneel. I didn't kneel. Even though the damage from the cold had eaten into my kneecaps until every nerve screamed, I kept my spine straight. Seraphina looked down at me from above. Her left hand drifted to her wrist, fingers rotating slowly, adjusting something that wasn't there. Her voice, amplified through the compound's speakers, carried to every corner of the estate. "You harbored jealousy toward a fellow member of this family. Your loyalty was corrupt." "Gabriel has now been formally inducted, yet he still lacks the Ledger to anchor his position." "As his predecessor, this shall be your final act of atonement." Carving it out. Extracting every name, every debt, every transaction, every secret I held in my mind and handing it over. So this was the grand finale all along. The Ledger was innate, the kind of gift every syndicate in the world coveted. A supreme asset, one in a generation. It was also what Seraphina had once been proudest of. Her greatest weapon. Now she was going to cut it out of me with her own hands and put it inside another man. Below the platform, a thousand soldiers and associates chanted in unison. "We call upon the protégé to surrender the Ledger in atonement!" The roar crashed over me like a tide, deafening. I looked at Seraphina.

Her expression remained cold and imperious, but the voice inside her mind was howling: Beg me! All you have to do is kneel. Crawl to me and kiss my ring! Admit in front of every capo, every soldier, every associate in this room that you can't survive without me, and I'll let you walk out! Do it now! Stop being so stubborn! If that Ledger is truly gone, you'll be nothing but a cripple. And then the only place you'll have left is by my side! She had already woven her net, every thread accounted for. She believed that as long as I drew breath, I would forever be a thing she held in the palm of her hand. Too bad. She miscalculated one thing. I didn't intend to live. I straightened slowly, shrugging free of the enforcers pinning me down. I didn't look at the Donna on her throne. Instead, I let my gaze sweep across the place I had called home for twenty years. Every corridor, every courtyard. I had bled to protect all of it. Now, looking again. Filthy. "You won't need to do it yourselves." My voice was quiet, but the silence of the compound carried it to every ear in the hall. The next second. I raised my right hand. Two fingers pressed together like a blade, the last scrap of strength I'd burned my life to gather condensing at their tips. My hand moved to the back of my neck. Not the unconscious gesture. Not the old reflex. This time I knew exactly what I was reaching for. Squelch. The wet sound of a blade entering flesh. My hand drove backward, plunging into my own spine. Blood erupted in a torrent. It soaked through the white undershirt they'd left me, pooled across the marble floor beneath my feet. "You've lost your mind!" Seraphina shot to her feet, every shred of composure ripped from her face in an instant. Under the stupefied, horror-stricken stares of every soul present — capos who had ordered men buried alive, soldiers who had survived federal raids without flinching — not one of them moved. I clenched my teeth and hooked my fingers around the vertebrae. And wrenched. "Ngh!" The pain tore through me like my soul was being split in two, and a strangled groan escaped my throat. But I didn't stop. Inch by inch, I dragged the Ledger out of my own body. Not a physical thing. Something worse. Every name, every debt, every secret, every pressure point I had ever memorized for her — I felt them tearing loose from the place where they lived, the place at the base of my spine where the body holds what the mind refuses to forget. The wet, grinding sound turned the entire hall deathly silent. I stood drenched in my own blood, the still-dripping proof of what I'd been clutched in my fist. A dossier. Leather-bound, blood-soaked, containing the entire financial and operational architecture of the Falcone Syndicate. Everything I had ever been forced to carry. My body swayed, barely upright. "The Ledger you wanted." I looked at Seraphina. Looked at her face, white as a corpse. Her inner voice was nothing but shrieking panic now: No! Stop! Stop it! I won't go through with it! I don't want it anymore! I smiled. Smiled until tears ran down my face. "Donna Falcone. This empire, this blood and bone. Today I return every last bit of it to you." My fingers closed like a vice. Crack. The dossier shattered in my bare hand, reduced to a cloud of ash and torn pages. Paper and blood drifted down over the entire compound like a rain of crimson snow. I owe you nothing. "I wish you both a lifetime of happiness. In life or death... may we never meet again." The extraction window hit zero. My body grew weightless. In the suffocating silence, my flesh began to break apart. Like the last embers of a dying fire, I dissolved into motes of light. Seraphina let out a scream so raw it cracked her voice: "NO!!" She lunged from the dais like a woman possessed, but her hands closed on nothing but drifting sparks. I scattered on the wind. Not a wisp of my soul remained.