I was born a Falcone, and that meant something in New York. Men at the docks stepped back when I walked past, and the women who married into the family treated me like a small, dangerous animal that might someday matter.
By the time I was twelve, I knew what it really meant. I was the spare.
Isabella came to us when I was seven, a pale, quiet girl my father brought home from a charity gala. She had the kind of fragility that made grown men lower their voices. I was a bruise-kneed child who could find a missing zero in a ledger before dinner; she was a porcelain doll who clutched her chest whenever the house went quiet.
"Her heart is weak," Papa said. "Be gentle with her, Elara."
The doctors said no such thing. I read their reports before Papa did, because that was my job. I was the one
