Page 7 of Bad Bishop

Vello Ferrante had made it clear he had no use for a daughter beyond marrying her off to someone whose alliance he sought. And so my entire life had been carefully constructed to ensure he thought me unable to be married.

The only way to escape marriage to a mobster was to be unable to be married. More specifically—to pretend I had a developmental disability.

My mother came up with the scheme when I was a child, and I went along with it, trusting she knew best. While a pretty, ditzy woman was a mobster’s wet dream—a person with actual struggles, in need of assistance and care, wasn’t something men in this line of work considered.

It had nothing to do with morals and everything to do with them being the scum of the earth.

He let go of my hair, seizing the front of my neck punishingly. His gaze lingered on my face.

Slowly, he lowered my head into the gushing fountain. He was going to drown me. The realization kicked my heart into high gear. I fought the urge to wrap my fingers around his arm, to try to untangle it from my throat. There was no point.

Instead, I closed my eyes as my hair sank into the water first. Ice-cold liquid engulfed my skull.

I love you, Mama.

I love you, Luca, Enzo, and Achilles.

I love you, Imma.

I even love you, Papa, despite everything.

I’ll watch over you from heaven.

Suddenly, I was jerked back up. My eyes flew open.

I’d think he had a change of heart, but I knew he possessed no such organ. He pulled a pocketknife from his peacoat,flipping it open and pressing it to the corner of my eye. Yup. Just as I feared. He just figured he could make more mess chopping me.

I held my spine straight and my chin high, forcing myself not to swallow hard.

If I must die, I’d die like a Ferrante.

We weren’t good people, but we were warriors.

And warriors didn’t cower.

I stared at him with fierce defiance. The darkness around us held its breath.

The knife kissed my skin, poking, tightening, reminding me what was at stake. It was dull. I knew he’d choose a dull knife. Sadists often did.

The knife began traveling along the edge of my left eye. I choked on a pool of saliva in my throat. Still, I pressed my lips shut.

He tilted my chin with the edge of his knife, forcing me to stare more closely at his grotesque face. “Beauty is such a fragile thing, Raffaella. I can tarnish your face with one stroke of a knife.”

The stranger raised his knife-wielding hand, gathering momentum, and swung it toward my face. I squeezed my eyes shut and stopped breathing, my muscles tightening as I waited for the punishing explosion of pain.

A pain that didn’t come.

Shakily, I pried my eyelids open, pulse hammering. My body was slick with sweat.

A gleam of mirth flickered along his lifeless eye.

The man tucked his knife back into his coat, businesslike. He was playing with my life, screwing with my head, and swallowing every ounce of my fear, all while looking dry as a bone.

I stared at him, slack-jawed, waiting for his next move.

He grabbed something from his pocket, uncurling my fingers between us, putting it there and making me close my fist over it. It was small and slippery. Round. A shell-less snail?

I uncoiled my fingers, staring down. My heart sledgehammered its way past my rib cage.