Chapter 63

• I wasn’t sure how I’d ended up back in my room, but there I was, curled up on my bed, pressed against the wall with my arms wrapped tightly around my knees. The harsh, salty traces on my cheeks were the only reminders of the tears I’d shed.
• For as long as I could remember, I’d stopped seeing Giovanni Greco as my father. He was merely the man who allowed me to stay under his roof, provided I became his servant. In my earliest years, he’d left me in the care of various women, who taught me to scrub floors and prepare meals before I’d even learned to speak. It was Livia who showed me how to read and write, bringing me books and scraps of kindness when no one else would.
• A lifetime of feeling like an outsider in my own home suddenly made sense. The missing pieces had fallen into place, revealing the truth I hadn’t seen before. Bitter laughter bubbled in my throat. How many times had I tried to please the man I thought of as my father? If only I’d known the truth — he hadn’t hated me because of what I was, but because of who I wasn’t.