Blood Ledger The Minter's Rise

He was trembling with righteous fury.

That ethereal face of his, all sharp angles and cool detachment.

Like some exiled immortal descended from the heavens.

Rosalia couldn't look away.

"From this day forward, everything in this estate falls under your authority."

Rosalia helped Emilio to his feet with her own hands.

"The money, the staff, the land, and every business venture. All of it goes to Emilio."

Everything I had built.

One sentence from the Don's eldest daughter, and it all belonged to Emilio Ferraro.

I dropped to my knees.

"I'm asking for a severance. A clean dissolution."

Rosalia stiffened.

She was about to speak, but Emilio tugged gently at her sleeve.

"If my brother stays any longer, he'll only taint the dignity of your household. Better to grant him what he asks."

Rosalia swallowed whatever she'd been about to say.

"Granted."

When I walked out of the Castellano compound with the dissolution papers in hand, the men loitering outside the social club on the corner all stopped to stare.

Some speculated about what I'd done wrong.

Others said I deserved it.

That my head was full of nothing but money, nothing like my brother and his lofty principles.

I ignored every last one of them.

The truth was, marrying into the Castellano family had never been entirely about honoring my brother's arrangement.

As the Don's eldest daughter, Rosalia could secure a Commission-backed franchise with almost no effort.

With that franchise, I could move shipments as far as the European ports and no one would interfere.

Now that Rosalia had cast me aside, the franchise was gone with her.

My gaze drifted toward another estate on the west side of Kingsport.

The younger Castellano daughter. Rosalia's sister.

In truth, she was the one I'd been meant to marry in the first place.

My brother and I had each been matched to one of the two Castellano daughters.

But Emilio ran off on his own, and to save face with Rosalia, who held the greater standing within the family, the Ferraros had no choice but to send me in his place.

In the year since, Elena Castellano had remained unmarried.

The door opened, and I looked at her.

"Elena. The old arrangement between our families. Does it still stand?"

I had prepared myself.

If she refused,

I would bow and leave without another word.

After all, it was the Ferraro family that had slighted her first.

Elena studied me for a long time.

"It stands."

On the first day of our marriage, I secured the franchise.

To repay Elena's trust, I threw myself into the work with even more drive than I'd had at the Castellano compound.

She told me that every cent the operation earned would be recorded under my name.

"Could it be that you actually like me?"

I was genuinely curious.

She only smiled and said nothing.

Elena was a daughter who had never been favored by the inner circle.

But I would make sure every woman in Kingsport envied mine.

Before long, Elena's estate, once half in ruins, had a brand-new two-story wing rising above its walls. The front gate had a proper guard rotation. The driveway held three new cars where before there had been one.

Things at the Castellano compound, however, had taken a different turn.

Emilio declared that the stench of commerce would no longer be allowed to corrupt anyone's spirit.

Every associate's monthly cut was slashed to almost nothing.

Only without the temptation of money, he reasoned, could people stop obsessing over profit.

Only then could they preserve their noble integrity.

My portrait was even turned into a cautionary display.

The entire household was made to remember how vulgar and base life had been when I was in charge.

The compound was renovated from top to bottom.

Oil paintings and leather-bound volumes lined every wall and corridor. Marble replaced linoleum. A courtyard fountain appeared where the loading dock had been.

The place looked like something out of an architectural magazine.

You could smell the fresh-cut flowers from halfway down the block.

Visitors marveled: "Emilio Ferraro truly is remarkable. Look how refined he's made the Castellano estate."

Even Don Vittorio heard about it and brought Katarina for a personal tour.

But nobody seemed to realize

that all this elegance

had been bought with the fortune I'd built for the Castellano operation.

It wasn't long before the operation ground to a halt.

A crowd gathered at the compound gates.

They were demanding their back pay.

Emilio had burned through nearly every cent in the treasury on his little vanity project.