"I found out later she hadn't taken a day off in months," Piper continued, giggling like she was sharing a delicious secret. "Just to save money. For you. For your wedding to a man who was already sharing my bed."
She pulled back, her eyes glittering with malice.
"And when I told her to crawl through the garden like a dog?" Piper's smile widened. "She did it. Just like that. Hands and knees through the mud, while I watched."
My world crumbled.
All those times my mother had smiled and told me not to worry about a thing while I planned my wedding to Colino... all those times she'd insisted everything was fine, that the Marconis treated her well, that being in service to a powerful Family was an honor...
I never knew. I never knew what she had endured for my sake.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, and something inside me snapped clean in two.
I raised my hand, eyes blazing with three years of suppressed rage.
"Piper, you're a monster."
But before my palm could even graze her cheek, she threw herself backward out of the elevator, crying out like a wounded animal as she clutched her unmarked face.