The effect was instantaneous. Two heirs of the most powerful crime families in Riviera City fell over themselves to apologize to a girl with no blood, no name, no territory. They tripped over each other's words, eager to grind me into the dirt if it meant lifting her an inch higher.
More than ten years. I had known them for more than ten years. And all of it, every shared meal, every whispered secret, every childhood oath sworn on summer nights, amounted to less than a few soft words from Rosalia Ferraro.
I pressed my knuckles against my mouth to keep the sound inside. Then I turned and walked away.
The night stretched endlessly around me. The streets of Riviera City were empty at that hour, the old brownstones and shuttered storefronts standing like tombstones in the dark. I walked the entire way home on a swollen ankle, each step a small act of penance for the fool I had been in my first life.