I dropped to the pavement outside the last office, my knees hitting cold stone. My palm landed on jagged concrete, blood seeping from the cut and mixing with the grime of the alley—yet I barely felt a thing. The physical pain was nothing compared to the hollow ache consuming my chest.
When I was sixteen, my father threw Mom and me out of our home like we were nothing. The same day, Piper and her mother moved in—his mistress and her bastard daughter, finally claiming what they'd been circling for years.
I still remember Piper—just thirteen—smirking from the staircase as we carried our belongings past her. Her eyes glittered with triumph, and in that moment, I learned the truth that had been hidden from me my entire childhood. My father, Filippo Giordano, had been keeping a comare for years. We were the legitimate family, but we were also the disposable ones.