The Falconetti Pact

Rocco

I asked for this.

Nobody made me.

That distinction matters, even if it does little to settle the weight in my chest.

I push open the heavy mahogany back door of the Falconetti house. A muffled thud follows as the latch clicks into place behind me. The first thing that slams into me is the cold—a hard, biting air that seems to slice through the hem of my jacket and pinches at my lungs. The second thing is silence, so absolute it rattles inside my skull. Dinner inside is still playing its aftershow—forks clinking, murmured conversation, the scrape of chairs on tile—but out here, night is a vacuum.

Inside, they cling to pretense.

Twenty people around that table—extended family, family friends—still acting as if the meal had closed on a normal note. But it hadn’t. Sofia asked a question no one would answer. Milo’s hand hovered too close to her knee. Every man seated there understood exactly what nearly happened. I descend the back steps, each stone cool beneath my boots. Halfway down, the door swings open again. A crack of lamplight spills out.

“Rocco.”

I don’t turn. The wind rustles the thin maples at the edge of the lot.

“Go back inside.”

His voice is flat, but I know that under his calm there’s anger. Dante steps onto the flagstones. Of course he does. The door shuts. His footsteps echo.

“I love when you say things like that.” He stands close enough that I can feel the warmth emanating from his jacket sleeve.

I keep moving.

“Good. Makes me feel valued.”

There’s a bitterness in his tone that stings worse than the night.

The Falconetti property is generous but not ostentatious—by Rhode Island mafioso standards, hardly worth comment. A broad brick house set deep on its lot, a garage in back, two sides walled in solid brick, an iron fence shielding the alley. Neighboring homes press close, creating the illusion of a sprawling family compound rather than a fortress of secrets. That’s the point. A guard no one suspects is the best guard.

I pause at the rear gate.

It’s locked, the padlock gleaming faintly in the lamplight. A camera lens catches the glow and holds it steady. No scratches on the ironwork, no sign anyone forced their way in. Perfectly intact. Dante falls into step beside me. His breath fogs in the cold air.

“You planning to ignore what happened?”

I almost laugh. “Yes.”

“Great strategy.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

He stops. I almost run into him. His jaw is tight; anger simmers behind his eyes. Beneath his cuff, his mark presses hard against his skin—red, pulsing, a living testament to our pact. I remember seeing it glow at the gala three nights ago. Aloft in a swirl of candlelight, angry as hell. Tonight, it flared at dinner without even crossing the table. That’s new. I don’t like new.

“Dante.”

“What?”

“Go inside.”

“No.”

We lock eyes. Seven years ago, he would have stormed back in and challenged me. Seven years ago, defiance and courage were the same thing to him. Now he knows better—still defiant, but sharper.

“You’re on the north rotation tomorrow,” I say after a long moment.

“Wonderful.”

“Sleep.”

“You think a bedtime order erases what Milo’s hand nearly did because Sofia reached for salt?”

“It didn’t light up.”

“You want to argue vocabulary?”

“It reacted.”

“Much more comforting.”

“Dante.”

“Why now?”

I don’t have an answer. He saw the mark flare. He saw Milo’s intention in the quick flash of power. It shouldn’t have happened. Proximity irritates the blood-ward. Desire warms it. Intentional touch burns. Calla taught us that. Our magic follows pattern. Tonight, pattern broke.

He watches me. “Exactly.”

I turn away. “Go inside.”

“What if it’s getting worse?”

“Then we’ll deal with it.”

“We’ve been dealing with it for seven years.”

“Successfully.”

He laughs—dry, humorless. “You call tonight successful?”

“Nothing happened.”

Another shift in his face. The thing nobody admits: she’s home. Permanently. Seven years of distance let discipline stand firm; a dinner table does not.

He steps closer, voice low. “She’s going to figure it out.”

“She doesn’t need to.”

“She watched Milo damn near fall out of his chair.”

“He’ll cover it.”

“Milo? He can’t lie to a parking meter.”

“He won’t have to. He’ll say nothing.”

“Which is apparently working great.”

I stare at him, and he gives me that half-sneer. Then hardness.

“We should tell her.”

“No.”

His brows lift. “Thought about that answer long?”

“Seven years.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

Silence. Neither of us moves. The night holds its breath.

“He’s not bound,” Dante suddenly says, nodding back toward the kitchen window.

I follow his gaze. Julian’s laughter drifts out, soft. Then a quieter voice—Sofia’s.

“She hugged Mars,” Dante murmurs.

No one bound can touch her. Mars—our cousin, years younger—embraced her unguarded, and nothing happened.

I say nothing. Dante fills the pause.

“She thinks we don’t want to.”

The door opens. He’s gone inside before I can respond. I stand alone in the cold. I realize then that his words cut deeper than fear of a ward gone wild. The worst part isn’t that she’s home. It’s that she’s noticing. A full perimeter sweep should take me twelve minutes. Tonight I lose count somewhere around the south wall. Twenty-three minutes later, I’m still pacing—gate by gate, camera by camera, window by window. Every lock, every sensor, every inch of brick. I pause at the narrow alley where Sofia once slipped out at seventeen, thinking secrecy was safety. I’d known better; I’d always known.

The ward carved into this property lives under my skin—my mark high on the left side of my chest, just beneath the collarbone. Calla let me choose its place. Dante hid his under a sleeve. Julian on his forearm. Milo on his wrist. I picked somewhere she’d never look. At seventeen, she questioned everything; at twenty-three, she’s worse.

I round the north corner under the skeletal maple, where the statue of St. Anthony stands guardian. The stone saint is worn smooth by decades of Rhode Island frost, his eyes blank against the moonlight. Below him, a line of salt runs along the wall, low and white. I crouch and trace it with my gloved fingertips.

Firm.

Continuous—except for one gray patch where damp has faded the crystals. I smell moisture in the cold air, but there’s been no rain. No sprinkler.

I straighten and glance at the house behind me. Warm light spills from every window. Laughter and conversation echo off walls built on tradition older than any of us. Locks, guns, guards, wards—some writ aloud, some only whispered. We were raised on rules dressed as superstition, and fourteen-year-old me believed them without question: don’t step over salt, don’t hand over a knife blade-first, don’t whistle after midnight. Then one day the room behind Calla’s bakery lit up with candle smoke and crushed sugar and a bowl of water. I learned magic wasn’t pretend.

Seventeen-year-old me demanded her freedom.

Twenty-one-year-old me asked for the pact. Sixteen-year-old Sofia was too young to become an agreement. Too young to know what men like us do when love becomes leverage. So Matteo—her big brother—slammed a man into a wall for a crude joke, and I resolved that if one of us drew closer to her than any other, we’d all lose each other. No exceptions. Mutually assured heartbreak, Matteo called it.

Protection.

I remember Calla that night. Her back room dim, four candles burning corners of an old wooden table. Water in a bowl, salt on the edge, a rosary, red thread, a knife. Matteo’s booming voice: “Nobody touches my sister.” Then mine: “Make it all of us.” Calla’s gaze, patient as stone. “Blood remembers what mouths regret.” Pain sealed each promise. Four marks, four blood oaths, one pact.

Tonight, I can still hear her. “A cage still has bars when you call it protection.”

I hadn’t called it a cage then.

I do now.

My boots crunch on gravel as I move toward the south wall. Past the fig tree—gnarled trunk bowed with years. Calla says it was planted by our great-grandfather; I suspect every Rhode Island family claims the same. A year ago, Sofia climbed it, snapped a branch, wept for fear of Nonna’s wrath. But Calla only made her apologize to the tree and baked her cookies.

Tonight the tree is wrapped in burlap—three layers of fabric wound so tight the fibers glint. Twine holds it rigorously in place. I stop short. Calla always wraps loose at the base so moisture can drain. This is pulled taut, uneven, as if rushed. Curious.

I crouch. My gloved hand grazes the burlap. It’s colder than the air. Beneath it I twist the fabric aside. My heart thunders when I see red thread tied around the trunk under the burlap—not Calla’s work. She knots thrice. This has five.

My mark presses into my chest. Pressure stirs beneath my skin. I slide down until my eyes are level with the salt line. Gray where it should be pure white. I press a finger into the damp crystals. They crumble. No water source here.

My phone buzzes. I don’t need to look: it’s Calla. I answer on the second ring.

“You found it.” Her voice is quiet but carries authority.

I stare at the twisted threads and layers of burlap. “You knew?”

“I suspected.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I wanted to see if you’d feel it.”

A chill winds around my spine. “This isn’t the time for tests.”

Her sigh drifts through the line. “Everything’s a test when wards forget who they belong to.”

“What does that mean?”

Silence. Then, low: “Do not touch the thread.”

“I already touched the burlap.”

“The thread.”

“I didn’t.”

“Good.”

I look up at Sofia’s window—light still on, curtains open. She’s unpacking, angry at homecoming. Anger I can face. Hurt I can’t.

“What happened?” I whisper.

“Not over the phone.”

“Then come outside.”

“No.”

Her refusal crackles through me. I swallow. “Calla.”

“You’ve survived without ordering me around. Don’t start now.”

“Then tell me what to do.”

“Nothing tonight.”

“That’s not happening.”

“Stand there until dawn and glare at it. The tree may confess.”

“Calla—”

“Do not disturb the ward.”

I lower my voice. “Why?”

“Because I don’t know what’s holding it together.”

I study the five knots of red thread. “It’s failing.”

“No. Changed.”

“When?”

“When she came home.”

My gaze snaps upward. Sofia’s window, the ward beneath. “Perhaps,” Calla adds softly.

“Then I stay and guard it.”

“You’ll stay.” The line crackles and goes dead.

I close my eyes. Five knots. Wrong wrapping. Gray salt. A ward sensing her return. In the house, a light goes out. Then another. Normality swallowing itself.

I crouch again, careful not to disturb anything. At the base of the burlap, something catches under a fold. Not thread. A shape cut into the bark—fresh, raw. A curved line. An eye bisected by a s***h: the malocchio.

The Evil Eye.

My mark pulses against bone.

My phone vibrates again: it’s Sofia. The message reads: “Are you avoiding me too, or is that just a family hobby now?”

I almost smile. Then I look back at the carved ward. Across from it, her window. Her first night home. The promise I made seven years ago.

I type three words: Lock your window.

Her reply is instant: “Excuse me?”

I don’t answer. Because without anyone touching the tree—my hand nowhere near—it happens. The salt line, gray and damp, begins to blacken.