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Chapter One

Gia

Why the hell did I come back here?

The leather seat is cold under my legs, even through the fabric of my dress. I keep my hands folded in my lap, watching the countryside roll past the tinted window like the answer to where we’re going is written somewhere in the trees. Fields give way to tall oaks and then forest thick enough to block the late afternoon sun, throwing shadows across Laura’s face.

My baby sister sits beside me doing the thing where she grips the seat edge so hard her knuckles go white, like if she holds on tight enough she can control where we’re going. She’s nine years old and she already knows how to make herself small in our father’s presence, how to keep quiet until spoken to, how to fold into herself when the air gets heavy.

I hate that she knows this.

I hate it so fucking much.

And even worse, I hate it so much because she learned it from watching me.

I reach over and cover her hand with mine, working my fingers between hers and the leather until she lets go. Her palm is sweaty. She looks up at me with those wide brown eyes that haven’t learned hardness yet, and I squeeze once, trying to talk to her without words.

Hey Sweetie Pie, I’m here, I’ve got you, whatever this is I’ll stand between you and it. I’ll always protect you.

God, I hope she understands me.

“Where are we going, Gia?” Her whisper is barely heard over the hum of the car’s engine.

I smile sweetly, “A wedding, Sweetie.”

“Whose?”

Good question.

“Father?” I glance toward the front seat where our father sits beside his driver, his profile sharp against the window.

At fifty-eight, Salvatore De Luca looks like something carved from marble, all the softness eroded away. Silver threads through his black hair now, combed back with the same precision he applies to everything else in his life.

Hardness and violence.

He doesn’t turn around. “An important political union. The whole family’s presence is required.”

Which in itself is weird, but I don’t comment.

But there’s something underneath his words, something that makes the base of my spine go cold. And I’m definitely not trying to figure it out. Years of knowing my father taught me it’s better not to know anything at all.

I’ve only been back a week after years away and I still haven’t readjusted to the weight of his voice, the way every syllable feels like it’s been calculated three moves ahead.

I’ll never get used to it.

“Especially after your brother’s passing,” he continues. “We must prove we’re strong.”

Laura’s hand tenses under mine. She barely remembers Vittorio. She was five when I left, too young to have known him at all. She spent most of the last four years with me in Paris, tucked away in our apartment in the Marais. My safe haven after… Stop, Gia. Don’t think about it.

Marais feels so far away already.

Then, six months ago, father decided it was time for her to come home. I couldn’t stop him. I tried. God, did I. But Salvatore De Luca doesn’t negotiate with his daughters. Or anyone for that matter.

I didn’t even come back for my brother’s funeral three months ago. The truth is we were never close. I barely knew him, and standing over his grave pretending to grieve a brother who was practically a stranger felt dishonest in a way I couldn’t stomach.

But when father called last week telling me to come home, I came. Because Laura is here and I will crawl through broken glass before I leave her alone in that damned house.

Being back feels like wearing a coat that doesn’t fit anymore even though it was tailored to my exact measurements. It feels wrong. Constricting. Like I’ve stepped back into a version of myself I spent four years trying to bury.

It doesn’t feel okay at all.

“Will there be cake?” Laura asks, and there’s so much hope in her voice it makes my chest hurt.

“Probably,” I tell her, making myself smile. “Those fancy ones with too much frosting.”

“The kind that makes your teeth hurt?” She giggles.

“Exactly that kind.”

She settles back against the seat, satisfied for now. I wish I could find comfort in something as simple. I wish I was still young enough to believe weddings meant celebration instead of transaction, that marriage was about love instead of leverage.

But I learned better at nineteen. I learnt so much that I know that I want nothing to do with it anymore.

Father shifts in his seat. “You will comport yourself appropriately.”

He’s talking to me, not Laura. “Of course.”

“No scenes.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Father.” I drawl but we both know that’s a lie.

I’m dreaming of several, actually.

His eyes find mine in the rearview mirror and the warning there is clear.

Pfft.

The memory tries to claw its way up but I shove it down hard. Not here. Not now. Not with Laura sitting beside me vibrating with nervous energy because this is her first real public appearance and she doesn’t understand yet what it costs to be Salvatore De Luca’s daughter. Most people don’t even know she exists.

I think happy thoughts, like the YouTube therapists teach.

Bunnies, pink fluffy bunnies, chocolates and pizza….

The car turns onto a smaller road. Gravel crunches under the tires. Trees press close on either side, their branches forming a canopy overhead that turns the sunlight into scattered coins of gold. This isn’t the suburbs. This is countryside, remote and quiet, the kind of place you go when you don’t want witnesses.

Okay, where the hell are we going? Seriously, where? Because this looks less like a wedding venue and more like somewhere they bury the bodies.

My stomach drops. What the heck is happening?

“Where is this church?” I keep my voice level. Curious, not confrontational.

“Does it matter?” Father still doesn’t look back.

“Just making conversation.”

“Curiosity is a dangerous habit, Gia.”

So is raising daughters like chess pieces, but here we are.

I almost say it. The words line up right at the back of my teeth and I can taste how good it would feel to let them out. I glance at Laura instead. She’s watching me with those careful eyes, reading my face the way she always does when she’s trying to decide if she should be scared, and that’s what stops me. Not obedience. Not fear. Her.

I swallow it down and go quiet, chewing the insides of my mouth.

Laura’s hand finds mine again and I hold it, her pulse jumping against my palm. She’s scared. I don’t blame her.

The trees thin and suddenly we’re pulling up to a small stone church, weathered and ancient, surrounded by cars that most people will never see in their entire lives because… why the hell not? Black sedans. Dark SUVs. Lambos. All of them screaming money and violence even in their stillness.

My pulse kicks up hard. I know this feeling. The way my chest goes tight, the way my breathing wants to speed up and I have to force it to stay even. It’s fear wrapped in expensive fabric, terror wearing pearls.

The car stops. The driver gets out, opens father’s door, then comes around to ours. I take what I hope is a deep, steadying breath and step out into the cool air, and immediately I feel it.

Eyes.

So many eyes.

Goodness.

They’re watching from the church steps, from beside the cars, men in dark suits and women in designer dresses, all of them turning to look at us. At me. Four years is a long time to disappear. Long enough to become a ghost story. Long enough that my return feels like an event people will gossip about for months.

The Ghost Heiress is finally back.

I keep my gaze forward, my shoulders back.

Laura stays glued to my side as we walk toward the church entrance. I can feel her trembling and I want to scoop her up and run, want to tell her it’s okay, that nothing bad will happen. But I stopped making promises I can’t keep the day I learned what men like our father are capable of.

As if I summoned him, his hand settles on my shoulder, heavy as a threat. “Head high.”

I don’t respond. I just walk.

The church doors stand open. Inside I can see pews already filled, ceremony preparations centered at the far end. Flowers everywhere, white and pale pink, the kind of arrangements that cost a fortune and say nothing about the people getting married.

We step inside and the temperature drops ten degrees. Stone walls. High ceilings. The smell of incense and wood polish and something older underneath, like centuries of prayers that went unanswered.

Guests go quiet as we enter. I keep walking, Laura beside me, father’s hand on my shoulder steering me like I’m a car he’s driving.

And then I see him.

At the altar.

Waiting.

Rafael Caruso.

I know him. Not well. I’ve seen him maybe half a dozen times over the years, always from a distance, always beside Matteo Romano or one of the other Brotherhood men. Older than me by more than a decade.

But I’ve never seen him this close. And up close, Rafael Caruso is a problem.

He’s over six feet of pure, rogue sex on legs, in an Italian suit, the kind of body that doesn’t come from a gym but from a life where violence is just a normal Tuesday. The suit is black, tailored so precisely it looks grown rather than made, white shirt open at the collar because he clearly doesn’t care enough about this event to bother with a tie. Dark blond hair worn a little too long, like he cut it himself with a knife six months ago and hasn’t thought about it since. There’s a scar that cuts through the left side of his jaw, thin and pale and old, the kind of mark you only get when someone means it.

He’s sexy the way a loaded gun is beautiful. You don’t want to touch it, but you can’t stop looking.

And then there are his eyes.

Green. Not soft green. Not kind green. The flat, calculating green of someone who has looked at a man and decided what to do with him before that man even opened his mouth.

They’re brutal and sexy and—

They’re fixed on me from across the length of that church. The weight of them hits me somewhere low in my core, something I haven’t felt in four years, something I do not want to feel right now, something I am furious at my own body for producing.

Absolutely not. No. We are not doing this.

This man looks like violence, roughness, and uncivilized sexuality wrapped in one. The way he stands is the thing that gets me most, perfectly still, no shifting weight, no checking his watch, no performing patience the way nervous men do. He just stands there like he has already decided how every single thing in this room is going to go. Like he decided before he walked in.

My mouth goes dry at the sight of him.

Then I push myself back to reality.

Because there’s a man at the altar and he’s looking at me like I’m expected and my father’s hand is on my shoulder and the church has gone silent and something is very, very wrong.

I drop my gaze fast and hate myself for the heat that follows me down, crawling up the back of my neck and spreading across my collarbones like I’ve been caught doing something weird. I spent four years in Paris deliberately unlearning this, teaching my body that men are not something to want, that attraction is just your nervous system lying to you. Four years. Now one look at Rafael Caruso and apparently all of that work means nothing.

Useless. Absolutely useless. Well, thank you Mrs Youtube Therapist.

I assume I’m late. That we interrupted something. That the bride is somewhere in the back waiting for guests to sit down so the ceremony can start.

I move toward the pews on the right but father’s hand tightens on my arm. “The seats are in front.”

Front seats are for family. Immediate family. Parents and siblings of the bride and groom.

So why the hell are we supposed to sit there??

I don’t question him as he steers me toward the aisle not wanting to draw attention.

I look back for Laura and that’s when I see it. Two women in dark dresses have appeared from nowhere, taking her by the hands, guiding her gently but firmly toward a pew near the back. Laura lets them, because she’s learned to not make scenes, and my chest cracks open watching it.

“Wait!” The word comes out before I can stop it. I pull against my father’s grip, turning back toward her. “Laura comes with me.”

Father’s fingers close around my arm like a vice. Not painful enough to be obvious. Painful enough to be a message. “She’ll be fine.”

I glare at him. “She doesn’t know anyone here. Why would she stay separately?”

“She’ll be fine, Gia.” His voice drops half a degree.

Laura looks back at me over her shoulder. Her eyes are wide and its obviously she’s trying to read my face to know if she should panic or not. I make myself look calm. I make myself smile at her, small and steady.

It’s fine, Sweetie, nothing is wrong.

Only, everything is wrong, I just don’t know exactly why.

One of the women says something to her and Laura turns back around, and they guide her into a pew, I watch her small shoulders settle.

I will burn this entire world down before anything touches her.

But I let father steer me down the aisle because making a scene right now helps no one, least of all her.

The church is silent except for the click of my heels on stone.

Every step echoes.

Every face turns.

Whispers move through the room, barely audible but unmistakable. I can feel them picking me apart. The ghost daughter who disappeared and came back different. The girl who left at nineteen and returned at twenty-four with harder eyes and better posture.

I get it, hot gossip, but look the fuck away. Save the ogling for the bride.

I feel exposed walking this path, ridiculous in my dress and heels, my father’s hand on my arm like I’m being delivered somewhere. Like I’m being escorted.

Like I’m the one getting married.

The thought slips in and I shove it out immediately because it’s paranoid and absurd and the kind of thinking that happens when you’ve spent too many years looking over your shoulder.

But the dread in my stomach doesn’t care what I call it. It spreads anyway, cold and slow, up through my ribs and into my throat.

We’re halfway down the aisle. Rafael is twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten.

He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t looked away. Just stands there watching me approach with an expression I can’t read, somewhere between calculation and recognition, like he can see into the darkest depths of my soul.

Stop looking at me like that.

I can see him clearly now. Every line of him. The scar on his jaw. The set of his shoulders. The way his hands hang loose at his sides, relaxed, ready. He looks like exactly what he is. A man who has put people in the ground and slept fine after.

A widower. An executioner. A man who buried his wife and never replaced her.

Until now.

That thought hits like a fist to the sternum.

I stop walking. Father doesn’t. He keeps moving and I have no choice but to stumble forward with him or rip my arm free and cause the kind of scene that will get my sister hurt.

“Father.” My voice comes out steady. I’m proud of that. “Whose wedding is this?”

This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening.

He doesn’t answer right away. We’re five feet from the altar now. Close enough that I can see the exact shade of Rafael’s eyes, that flat, unreadable green, close enough to catch his cologne cutting through the incense.

He smells expensive and dangerous and I need to stop noticing things about this man immediately.

Father leans in. His breath is warm against my ear.

“Yours.”

Chapter Two

Gia

I’m sorry, what?

The word is still bouncing around my skull when my father releases my arm and steps back, smooth and unbothered, like he just handed over a coat at a restaurant instead of his daughter’s entire life.

He leaves me there.

Standing beside Rafael Caruso.

At the altar.

And then the priest starts speaking.

“No.”

The word comes out before I even decide to say it. It hits the stone walls, the high ceiling and ricochets back to me in the sudden, suffocating silence of three hundred witnesses.

I don’t fucking care.

“No.” I repeat, stepping back from the altar, my heels sharp against the stone. “Absolutely not. This is not happening!”

My father immediately returns to my side, grabbing my arm. “Gia, do not—”

“Don’t!” I yank against his grip and something in my chest has snapped clean, something that had been holding for the entire drive and the whole walk down this aisle and it is gone now. “You do not get to do this. You dragged me to a church in the middle of nowhere without telling me a single thing and you expect me to just stand here and —”

“You will lower your voice, Gia.”

“I will not lower my voice.” I turn to face him fully. My hands are shaking. I can feel it. “You are literally selling me to a man I don’t know. Without telling me. So no, I will not lower my voice, I will not comport myself appropriately, and you will have a scene.”

The church is absolutely silent.

Three hundred people look like they’re holding their breath.

My father’s face goes cold, internal calculation behind his eyes, and I hold his gaze because I am so angry right now that I cannot feel scared.

How dare he do this to me, again?!

Then he takes a breath.

“Are you sure? Think about your sister.”

I go still. He wouldn’t…

I look back before I can stop myself. Back down the aisle, to the pew near the rear of the church where Laura was guided minutes ago. She’s standing now. On her feet, small and rigid between the two women in dark dresses, her eyes locked onto me across the length of the church. Even from here I can see the panic in her face, the way her hands are gripped together in front of her.

My chest cracks open.

No. Not her. She has nothing to do with this —

I make myself breathe.

I look at Laura and I hold her gaze and I smile again, reassuring her with my eyes.

It takes a moment. Then her shoulders drop half an inch and she sits.

I turn back to the altar.

The anger is still there. It doesn’t go anywhere. It just folds itself down into something flat, cold and patient that sits in the bottom of my chest and waits. I am aware that this is probably not what my YouTube therapist would call healthy processing, but she is not here and I am.

I walk back to the altar because what else can I do?

Movement beside me. Rafael shifts his weight and turns slightly toward the priest.

The priest opens his mouth.

“A moment, Father.”

The priest slams his mouth shut for the second time.

Rafael turns to my father. “Salvatore. Now.”

The words are delivered with the complete certainty of someone who has never had to wonder whether they’ll be obeyed.

The church goes so still I can hear my own breathing.

And my father walks over.

What. The. Hell?

I watch this happen. I watch Salvatore De Luca, who built an empire on making other men small, cross the floor of this church because Rafael Caruso said so.

Since when does my father do what anyone tells him?!

They step to the side but they’re still close enough that I can actually hear them.

“She didn’t know?” Rafael’s voice is flat. “Your daughter had no idea this was her fucking wedding?”

“That’s not your concern.”

“Like hell it isn’t. I won’t marry someone who didn’t even know she was being married off.”

“She’s not against the wedding.” My father’s voice drops. “This is important for this alliance and you know that as well as her, Mr. Caruso.”

Silence.

Then Rafael leans closer and says something too low for me to catch. Whatever it is, it is brief. And when they turn back around, my father’s expression has done something I have never seen it do in fifty eight years of hard living.

It has gone careful.

Which in my father’s world is very close to fear. He returns to the front pew without another word.

Rafael comes to stand beside me.

His jaw is tight. Shoulders locked. He is angry, genuinely angry, and that alone is disorienting because men in this world do not get angry on behalf of the woman. They get angry about the deal, the optics, the inconvenience. Not this.

I don’t even know what to think.

He turns and looks directly at me, green eyes staring deep into my soul. “Do you want me to stop this?”

Yes. God, yes, obviously yes!

Every functioning part of me is screaming yes.

“You’re supposed to be my bride.” He tilts his head to watch me. “Which means you can tell me what you want right now and no one in this building has a say in that.” A glance toward the pew where my father sits. Then back to me. “So answer me honestly, Little Gia. Do you want me to stop this wedding?”

Little— Little?! I bristle.

I glare up at him.

Say yes. Gia, for the love of everything, say yes.

“If I say yes,” I bite. “What happens to my sister.”

Something flashes across his eyes.

“That’s not a yes,” he grunts.

“No. It’s not.”

He steps close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to hold his gaze, close enough that I catch his cologne again before I can stop myself.

God, he smells so good, I want to push my nose into his neck and inhale deep.

“Then understand what you’re agreeing to,” he says, quiet and even and completely serious. “Not a marriage on paper. Not separate rooms and polite distance. You become mine. Fully.” His eyes don’t move from mine. “Do you understand what that means for a man like me, Little Gia?”

Oh, if he calls me little one more time, I’m going to jail and my YouTube therapist is getting sued.

“Stop calling me little.” I snap and he just blinks, a small twitch at the side of his lips as if waiting for my answer.

“Are you trying to talk me out of this?” I frown at him.

“I’m making sure you know what you’re walking into.” A pause. “So, tell me, Little… Gia.”

Fucking bastard.

I hold his gaze. I think about Laura sitting back down in that pew. I think about my father’s face when he threatened me and the complete absence of any option that doesn’t end with her getting hurt.

“I know what I’m walking into,” I say.

He looks at me for one more beat.

“Tell the priest,” he nods toward the man.

I turn. “We can proceed, Father.”

The elderly man looks between us one more time and clears his throat before picks up where he left off.

The ceremony begins.

I hear my own voice saying the words from somewhere slightly outside my body, which has decided that a full dissociative response is the most reasonable thing it can do right now and honestly, I agree with it completely. My YouTube therapist did an entire video on this. Dissociation as a trauma response. She said to try to stay grounded when it happens, find something physical to focus on, breathe into the present moment.

She did not account for this specific situation. I will be leaving a strongly worded comment on her channel at my earliest convenience.

Vows are spoken. I hear them leaving my mouth. Rafael’s responses are even and unhurried, like he has decided to treat the whole thing as a formality to get through.

The ring comes.

I watch it happen from a slight distance, this gold band sliding onto my finger, cold at first and then warming against my skin. Heavy and uncomfortable.

Then the priest says the words. The ones about kissing the bride.

Rafael turns to look at me again and every dissociated, floating part of me slams back into my body all at once.

Oh! Shit! I forgot this part existed! Shit! Shit! Shit!

His hand doesn’t go to my face. It goes to my jaw first, thumb beneath my chin tilting it up, and then his fingers slide to my throat.

A little gasp leaves my lips at that.

Strong, rough hands wrap around my throat, and squeeze. The pressure is light enough to breathe through but firm enough that I can’t think about a single other thing in the world.

Oh lord.

His eyes drop to my mouth. Then back up. Then his lips meet mine.

I think my spirit leaves my body at some point.

His mouth moves against mine like he has all the time in the world and the rest of the room can wait, the hand at my throat squeezes once, just slightly, and I feel it light up every nerve from my jaw to my collarbone, straight down my spine. It flows down my core, into my panties, hot, wet, throbbing.

Aching. What in the world is going on?

This is a performance, I am enduring it and I will stand here completely locked down until it is over.

The sound that comes out of my mouth is small, completely involuntary and it goes directly into his mouth.

Shit.

He freezes for a second at that, growls and deepens the kiss.

I am dimly aware that I am kissing him back, aware that my hands have found the lapel of his jacket, aware that this is happening in front of three hundred people and I cannot make myself stop, and then finally, slowly, he pulls back.

He looks at me.

I gape at him, breathing hard.

My face is burning. My throat is still wrapped in the warmth of his grip. There is something in my chest that is not fear and not relief and I am absolutely not going to name it or look at it or acknowledge it in any way whatsoever.

I need a real therapist.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the priest announces, voice slightly unsteady, bringing me out of my thoughts. “Mr. and Mrs. Caruso.”

Applause fills the church.

I stand there with gold on my finger and the warmth of his hand still sitting on my throat and the absolute certain knowledge that I have no idea what I just agreed to.

And just like that, I’m married to a stranger.

Again.

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Chapter One

Isabella

If Vittorio De Luca touches me one more time tonight, I’m going to stab him with my salad fork.

The thought races constantly through my mind as he stands beside me at the head table, his hand resting on the small of my back like he owns me. Like I’m already his. Tomorrow, I guess I will be, but for now he should keep his hands to himself.

The Plaza’s ballroom is packed with politicians, mafia bosses, their wives dripping in blood diamonds. Everyone who matters on the East Coast is here to watch Isabella Romano get sold off for an alliance.

Sorry. Married. That’s the polite word for it.

Vittorio raises his champagne glass, and the room goes quiet. He’s handsome in that boring, rich-boy way: perfect hair, designer suit that probably costs more than most people’s cars, a smile that’s all teeth and no warmth.

Blah.

“To Isabella,” he announces, his voice carrying across the ballroom. “The most beautiful woman in New York. Tomorrow, she becomes mine.”

I want to throw up.

Mine. Like I’m a fucking Rolex. Like I’m something he picked out of a catalogue.

The room erupts—applause, cheers, glasses clinking. I keep my smile in place because I’ve been practicing it for three weeks. Sweet Isabella. Dutiful Isabella. The Romano princess who does what her family needs because the O’Rourkes are circling again and we need the De Luca alliance or people die.

I catch Matteo’s eyes across the room. My brother, the Don, gives me the smallest nod. You’re doing good. Keep going.

Yeah. Sure. Great.

And then Vittorio turns to me.

I see it coming but I can’t move fast enough. His hand slides to my waist, too tight, fingers digging in and then his mouth is on mine.

The kiss is hard. Demanding. Possessive. We’ve met maybe five times total. We’ve never been alone. And he’s kissing me like I’m already his property, his tongue pushing into my mouth while his hand grips my hip hard enough to bruise.

My body goes rigid.

I can’t breathe. Can’t move. The champagne glass nearly slips from my fingers and I have to lock my knees to stay upright because suddenly I’m not here in the Plaza ballroom in a designer dress with three hundred witnesses.

I’m thirteen.

I’m in a basement that smells like mold and rust and something worse.

Hands are holding me down, too many. Someone laughs. Irish accent, sharp and cruel.

“She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? Shame we can’t keep her.”

No. No, no, no. Not now. Shove it down. Lock it away. I’m good at this. I’ve had nine years of practice.

Vittorio finally pulls back and the room is still cheering but all I can hear is my own heartbeat hammering in my ears. My hands are shaking. I force them still, force my smile wider, force my lungs to pull in air that tastes like smoke and fear, even though there’s no smoke here.

He touched me. In front of everyone. Like he has the right to.

My chest is too tight. I need to move, to run. My brain is screaming at me to find the exits, two behind me, one to the left, service door near the kitchen. My body is coiled like a spring ready to bolt.

And that’s when I see him.

Enzo.

He’s across the room near the bar, whiskey glass in his hand that he’s gripping so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. His dark eyes are locked on me, and the rage in them is so raw it steals whatever breath I managed to get back.

He looks like he’s two seconds away from crossing this ballroom and killing Vittorio with his bare hands.

And just like that, I can breathe again.

It’s pathetic. It’s fucked up. But seeing Enzo, seeing that fury in his eyes that’s for me, because of what just happened to me, it pulls me out of my head. Grounds me. Reminds me I’m here, I’m twenty-two, I’m safe.

Or as safe as I ever am.

The fear doesn’t disappear. It never does. But it gets smaller, quieter, shoved into the box in my chest where I keep all the things I don’t want to feel.

Enzo’s jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscle jumping. His knuckles are white around the glass. He’s wearing a black suit with the sleeves rolled up, showing the serpent tattoo winding up his forearm—the one I used to trace with my fingers when I was eighteen and stupid enough to think he might love me back.

His eyes drop to Vittorio’s hand still on my waist, and something dark and possessive crosses his face.

Heat floods through me, unwanted and so fucking inconvenient. Even now. Even after everything. One look from Enzo Bianchi and my body forgets how to be normal.

I hate him for it.

I hate that he can still do this to me. That after a year of silence and four years of broken-hearted anger, all it takes is his eyes on me and I’m burning.

Then he turns away, drains his whiskey in one swallow, and the spell breaks.

Right. Because that’s what you do, Enzo. You look away.

Music starts—some slow, romantic bullshit that makes me want to scream. Vittorio leans down, his breath hot against my ear, and I have to fight not to flinch.

“I’ll be right back, tesoro. Need to speak with your brothers and my father.”

Tesoro. Treasure. I’m definitely going to be sick.

“Of course,” I say, because what the fuck else am I supposed to say?

He kisses my temple, another claim, another mark and then he’s gone, moving toward where Matteo, Luca, and Salvatore De Luca are having their little power meeting in the corner.

The second he’s out of reach, I can breathe properly again.

How am I ever going to survive ‘forever’ with that guy?

I grab a fresh champagne from a passing waiter and down half of it in one go. My hands are still shaking slightly. I curl them into fists, nails biting into my palms until the sharp pain overrides everything else.

Get it together, Isabella. You’ve survived worse than a kiss from an asshole.

“Isabella! Sweetheart, how are you?”

I turn and there’s my brother’s wife Alessia, looking gorgeous in burgundy, her warm eyes full of concern. Next to her is Bianca—Dante’s wife, sharp-eyed and small but fierce as hell in navy blue.

I admire them both so much. If only I had just a little bit of the composure and control they do.

“Hey,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel. “Surviving. Barely.”

Alessia pulls me into a hug and I let myself have it for three seconds before I pull back. Physical contact is… complicated. But Alessia’s safe. Bianca’s safe. Most people aren’t.

“You look beautiful,” Alessia says. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

No. “I’m fine. Just counting down the hours until I’m legally bound to an asshole for life.”

Bianca snorts. “Vittorio seems… charming.”

“Vittorio is a spoiled, arrogant prick who thinks he can buy obedience,” I mutter. “But he’s a useful spoiled prick, so here we are.”

Alessia squeezes my hand. “Matteo wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t—”

“Important. I know.” I do know. That’s why I came back from France after a year of trying to outrun my own head. That’s why I said yes when they told me the O’Rourkes were moving again and we needed the De Luca alliance.

Declan O’Rourke. Killian O’Rourke.

Just thinking their names makes my stomach turn over.

“They need this alliance,” I say quietly, staring into my champagne like it has answers. “The O’Rourkes are dangerous. We can’t fight them alone.”

I don’t say the rest. Don’t say that the O’Rourkes are the reason I still sleep with the lights on. That I spent nine years trying to forget what their basement smelled like, what Declan’s laugh sounded like when he—

No. Not going there. Not tonight.

“Still,” Bianca says, and there’s something fierce in her voice. “You shouldn’t have to marry someone you don’t love.”

I laugh, and it comes out bitter and sharp. “Love is a luxury people outside of the mafia world have. I’m a Romano. We have duty.”

The music shifts, and I watch couples move onto the dance floor. Matteo pulls Alessia close, and she goes willingly, smiling up at him like he hung the fucking moon. Dante’s hand settles on Bianca’s waist with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.

They chose each other. They fought for each other.

I chose survival.

“Isabella.”

Vittorio’s voice behind me makes every muscle in my body lock up. I turn, and he’s there, hand extended, that smile on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes. The smile that says he knows he’s won.

“Dance with me.”

It’s not a question. It’s an order. And tomorrow I’m marrying this man, so I better get used to taking orders, right?

I place my hand in his because I have to. Because I don’t have a choice. Because this is my life now.

His fingers close around mine, too tight and controlling, and my stomach drops.

He leads me onto the dance floor, and the second we’re surrounded by other couples, his hand slides low on my waist. Lower than appropriate. Lower than comfortable. His fingers dig into my hip, pulling me flush against him, and I feel every inch of his body pressed to mine.

I can’t breathe again.

The room is too hot, too crowded. His cologne is suffocating and his hand is a brand on my hip and I can feel his breath on my neck and—

My chest tightens and the ballroom disappears, replaced by basement walls and echoing laughter.

I need to run.

Bile rises in my throat. Sweat breaks out across my skin from the inside out, cold and clammy and wrong. My vision tunnels. The music is too loud. The lights are too bright. I need to get out, I need to run, I need—

“You look stunning tonight,” Vittorio murmurs against my ear, and his voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater.

My heart is trying to beat out of my chest. My hands are shaking. I’m going to pass out or throw up or both and there are three hundred people watching. I can’t fall apart here, I can’t—

“Move your hands,” I bite out, and my voice comes out sharp and desperate.

Vittorio pulls back just enough to look at me, one eyebrow raised. “What?”

“Your hands.” I’m shaking. Fuck, I’m shaking and he can probably feel it. “Move them. Now.”

He laughs, actually fucking laughs like I’m adorable. “We’re getting married tomorrow, Isabella. Don’t you think we’re past being shy?”

Shy. He thinks I’m being shy.

The anger cuts through the panic just enough for me to meet his eyes. “We’ve met five times. We’ve never been alone. And you just shoved your tongue down my throat in front of three hundred people. What the hell was that?”

His smile turns into something uglier. Something that makes my skin crawl for different reasons. “You’re going to be mine tomorrow anyway. Why not start enjoying each other now?”

Enjoying. Like I have a say in it.

I try to pull back but his hand tightens on my waist, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “You’ve got some fire in you. I like that.” His voice drops, soft and dangerous. “But you’ll learn. After we’re married, you’ll learn what it means to be an obedient wife.”

The threat is clear. I’ll break you. I’ll teach you. You’ll learn to submit.

I’m going to kill him. Or throw up on him.

I try to pull away again but he holds me tighter, and the panic is clawing its way back up my throat—

“Mind if I cut in?”

The voice is low, deadly calm, and so familiar it makes my entire body go still.

Enzo.

I don’t turn around. I don’t need to. I’d know his voice anywhere. It’s been a year since I’ve heard it directed at me, but my body remembers.

“We’re in the middle of a dance,” Vittorio says, and I can hear the dismissal in his tone.

“And now you’re done.” Enzo’s voice doesn’t get louder. Doesn’t get angrier. But somehow it gets more dangerous. “Let her go.”

I feel the moment Vittorio considers pushing back. His hand tightens on my waist for one second, his jaw clenching.

Then he sees Enzo’s face and whatever death promise is written there. Something in him backs down.

“Of course,” Vittorio says tightly. He releases me and steps back, but not before leaning close one more time. “We’ll finish this conversation later, tesoro. In private.”

Then he’s gone, disappearing into the crowd.

I’m still standing there, my heart racing, when Enzo’s hand slides into mine.

I suck in a breath, every muscle tensing, waiting for the fear to kick in. Waiting for my brain to scream at me to run, for my body to lock up, for the panic to flood back—

But it doesn’t come.

Enzo’s hand is warm, calloused, steady. His other hand settles on my waist, light, careful, nothing like Vittorio’s grip, and my body doesn’t revolt. Doesn’t freeze. Doesn’t panic.

It never does with him. Not since the night he carried me out of that basement covered in… way too many things I don’t want to think about.

We start to move, and I can’t look at him. Can’t let him see how much he affects me. How, even after everything, his touch is the only one that doesn’t make me want to crawl out of my skin.

“What are you doing?” I ask, keeping my eyes on his chest.

“You looked uncomfortable.”

A laugh bursts out of me—sharp and humorless. “So, you decided to swoop in and save me? Again?”

His hand tightens slightly on my waist. Not controlling. Just… present. “Isabella—”

“No.” I look up at him now, letting him see all the anger I’ve been carrying for four years. “You don’t get to do this, Enzo. You don’t get to pretend you care about me now when you’ve ignored me for a year. When you broke my heart and walked away without looking back.”

His jaw clenches. “It’s more complicated—”

“Then explain it.” I’m so close to him I can feel the heat of his body, smell his cologne mixed with whiskey and something darker. Gunpowder, maybe. Danger. “Because from where I’m standing, you saved my life once and I’ve been paying for it ever since.”

We’re moving in slow circles, and I’m hyperaware of every point where our bodies touch. His hand on my waist. My hand in his. The bare inches between us that feel like miles and nothing at all.

His thumb brushes the small of my back, just once, barely there and heat shoots down my spine.

Fuck.

This is so much worse than it used to be. The pull. The want. Four years ago, when I told him I loved him, it was intense. Now? Now it’s a live wire between us, sparking and dangerous, and I can see in his eyes that he feels it too.

“You want to know why I stay away?” His voice is rough, his dark eyes boring into mine. “You want to know why I can’t—”

He cuts himself off, his grip on my waist tightening.

My heart is racing for entirely different reasons now. “Why you can’t what?”

“Before you marry him tomorrow,” he says instead, his voice dropping lower, “there’s something I need to tell you. Something you need to kno—”

The explosion cuts him off.

One second, I’m staring into Enzo’s eyes, my whole body wound tight with tension. The next, the world erupts.

Sound hits first—deafening, glass shattering, people screaming, followed by smoke, thick and choking. Then chaos.

Enzo moves before my brain can catch up. One arm wraps around me, the other hand on the back of my head, and then I’m falling. We hit the floor hard and he’s dragging me, pulling me under the nearest table, his body covering mine completely.

Gunfire.

We’re going to die.

Chapter Two

Isabella

Oh god.

The gunfire is getting louder and nearer.

My hands are shaking so badly I have to grip Enzo’s shirt just to hold on to something solid. The table we’re hiding under won’t protect us for long. I can hear boots on marble, glass crunching, someone shouting orders in that accent that makes my blood freeze.

Irish. Crisp. Cold.

“Fan out. Fucking find the girl.”

I know that voice, the voice from all my nightmares.

Declan.

My lungs seize up. I can’t breathe. The smoke in the air mixes with a smell that isn’t really there. Mold. Rust. Blood.

The basement.

I’m thirteen again and Declan O’Rourke is standing over me with that disgusting, leering smile, telling his father about all the things they could do to a Romano princess before they kill her. How much she’d be worth. How long she’d last.

“She’s pretty, Da. Shame to waste her quick.”

“Can’t I have a little fun first?”

My stomach lurches. Bile rises hot and acidic in my throat.

“Isabella.”

Enzo’s soft whisper cuts through the noise in my head. Low and steady. He’s still covering me with his body, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other wrapped around my waist.

“Listen to me, Isabella.” His mouth is right next to my ear. “I need you to breathe. Can you do that?”

I shake my head. I can’t. My chest is too tight and my heart is trying to claw its way out through my ribs and there’s not enough air––

“Yes, you can.” His hand moves to my face, turning me to look at him. His dark eyes lock on mine. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth. With me. Now, Princess.”

He breathes in slowly. I watch his chest expand. Then out.

I try. My breath comes out shaky and too fast but I try again. In. Out. In. Out.

“Good girl.” His thumb brushes my cheekbone. “Stay with me. I’m getting you out of here. You understand? I’m not letting them touch you.”

The certainty in his voice breaks through the panic just enough. Enzo doesn’t make promises he can’t keep. If he says he’s getting me out, he will. Even if it kills him.

That thought should comfort me. Instead, it makes everything worse because I’ve already watched him nearly die for me once and I can’t do it again, I can’t—

No. Stop. Focus, Isabella.

I force myself to nod. Force my hands to stop shaking. Force my brain to shove all the memories back into their box and lock it tight.

I’m not thirteen. I’m twenty-two. I’m not helpless. I’m a Romano.

And the Romanos don’t break.

More gunfire. Closer. I hear someone scream and then the scream cuts off abruptly.

“Move!” A harsh voice shouts. “She’s here somewhere. Find her!”

Masked men flood into the ballroom. At least a dozen, all armed, all moving with military precision. They’re heading straight for the tables, overturning them one by one.

We’re running out of time.

Then Matteo is there. He moves through the smoke like death itself, my other brother Luca and Dante flanking him, Rafael already taking down two men with brutal efficiency. My brother’s face is cold fury, his gun in one hand, knife in the other.

His eyes find mine under the table and something in his expression cracks. Just for a second. Fear. Such raw fear in his eyes that it is almost as if he was in that basement with me all those years ago.

“Enzo.” Matteo snaps. “Take her. Now.”

Enzo doesn’t hesitate. “The others—”

“I have Alessia.” Matteo gestures and I see Dante pulling Bianca toward a side exit, his body shielding hers. “Luca’s got security. Rafael will cover your exit then double back with reinforcements.”

“Where?” Enzo asks.

“Not the mansion. They’ll expect that.” Matteo’s jaw clenches. “One of the hiding places. I don’t care which one. Just keep her alive. You’re the only man I trust with her life.”

The words steal my breath for a second. Because it’s true. Matteo trusts Enzo with everything that matters. With the family’s secrets. With the business. With me.

My life is always safe with Enzo. It’s my heart that isn’t.

Enzo’s hand tightens on mine. “I’ve got her.”

Then we’re moving. He pulls me out from under the table, his body still blocking mine, and we run.

The ballroom is chaos. Smoke everywhere, people screaming, bodies on the ground. I try not to look at them. Try not to see who’s bleeding, who’s not moving. Just focus on Enzo’s hand in mine, on staying upright, on not falling.

We hit the stairwell and immediately I realize the problem. My heels. The tight dress that looked beautiful two hours ago is now a death trap. I can barely move in it, can’t run, can’t—

My ankle twists and I stumble. “Oh!” I yelp.

Enzo catches me before I hit the ground. “The dress. Fuck.”

“I know.” My voice comes out sharp with frustration. “I’m trying—”

He doesn’t wait for me to finish. His hands go to the bottom of my dress and he rips, hard.

The sound of tearing silk cuts through the chaos. I gasp. The skirt splits up to mid-thigh, suddenly loose enough to move in. And Enzo is staring.

His eyes drop to my legs. To the expanse of bare skin now visible. To the way the torn fabric falls around my thighs.

Oh.

Heat floods through me, sharp and visceral. Wrong. This is the wrong time for this. We’re running for our lives and he’s looking at me like he wants to drag me into a dark corner and—

His eyes snap back to mine. Dark. Hungry. Dangerous.

I want it.

“Better?” His voice comes out rough.

I feel that roughness all the way down to my toes. “B-Better.” I find myself whimpering.

Then reality crashes back. More gunfire. Shouts getting closer.

Enzo looks at the stairs, at my heels, at the torn dress. Makes a decision.

“Hold on.”

Before I can ask what he means, he sweeps me up into his arms. One arm under my knees, the other around my back, and suddenly I’m pressed against his chest.

“Enzo!”

“Save it,” he mutters, already moving. He takes the stairs two at a time like I weigh nothing. Like there’s not a war zone behind us.

I have no choice but to wrap my arms around his neck and hold on.

The forced proximity is overwhelming. His heart is racing against my ribs. I can feel the hard muscle of his chest through his shirt, the controlled power in the way he moves. His cologne fills my lungs—smoke, whiskey and cinnamon.

This is bad. This is so bad. Because even with adrenaline screaming through my veins and gunfire echoing behind us, all I can think about is how good it feels to be in his arms. How safe. How right.

How much I want him to never let go.

We burst through a service exit into a corridor. Empty, for now at least.

Enzo sets me down but keeps one hand wrapped around mine. “Stay close.”

We run. The corridor is narrow, dimly lit. My bare feet slap against cold tile. The torn dress flares around my legs with each step. Behind us I hear a door slam open.

“There!”

Shit!

Enzo moves faster, pulling me around a corner. We’re in the service area now. Kitchen smells. Stainless steel. Another exit ahead glowing red.

Three men step out from the shadows.

Masked. Armed. O’Rourke’s men.

Enzo shoves me behind him so fast I stumble. Then he moves.

The first man raises his gun but Enzo is faster. His knife appears from nowhere, a flash of silver in the dim light. He closes the distance in two strides. The blade goes into the man’s throat so smoothly it barely makes a sound. Just a wet gurgle and then the man is falling.

Blood sprays. Hot and red.

My bones freeze.

The second man fires. The shot goes wide. Enzo is already moving, already inside his guard. His elbow cracks into the man’s jaw with a sickening crunch. Bone breaks. The man drops and Enzo’s on him, the knife flashing again. Once. Twice. Three times.

More blood. So much blood.

The third man is backing up, gun shaking in his hands. “Stay back—”

Enzo doesn’t slow down, doesn’t hesitate. He moves like violence is a language he speaks fluently. The gun goes off but Enzo’s already dodged, already inside his reach. His hand closes around the man’s wrist. Twist. Snap. The gun clatters to the floor. Then Enzo’s knee comes up hard into the man’s stomach and while he’s doubled over Enzo grabs his head and slams it into the wall.

Once. Twice.

The man slides down the wall, leaving a red streak behind him.

Silence.

Just the sound of Enzo’s breathing. Steady. Like he didn’t just kill three men in under thirty seconds.

Me on the other hand—I can’t breathe.

My hand is over my mouth and I’m shaking so hard my teeth are chattering. The blood. The sounds. The way that last man’s head hit the wall. Crack. Crack. I’ve seen violence before. Lived through worse. But watching it happen now, watching Enzo’s hands covered in blood, watching the bodies on the ground—

My stomach heaves. I barely make it two steps before I’m bending over, retching. Nothing comes up but bile and champagne and fear.

“Isabella…”

Enzo’s voice. Gentle now. So different from the cold killer of thirty seconds ago.

I hear him move closer but I hold up one shaking hand. “Don’t. Just don’t, please.”

He stops. I can feel him there, just out of reach. Waiting.

I force myself upright. Wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. My whole body is trembling but I make myself look at him.

Blood on his hands. On his shirt. A spray of it across his jaw.

He’s a killer. I’ve always known that. But knowing it and seeing it are two very different things.

“I’m sorry.” His voice is rough. “I didn’t want you to see that.”

“You had to.” My voice sounds hollow.

“Yes.”

At least he doesn’t lie to me or try to make it pretty.

He takes a slow step forward, testing me and the situation. When I don’t back away, he takes another. His hands come up slowly, carefully, like I’m a wild thing that might bolt.

“I need you to trust me.” His dark eyes search mine. “Can you do that? Just for tonight?”

And I can. Because no matter how I feel, I trust this man with my life.

“Okay,” I nod.

Relief flashes across his face. “Come on. We need to move.”

He holds out his hand. After a second, I take it.

We run through the service exit into the cold New York night. The parking lot is chaos behind us but Enzo leads me into the shadows, away from the lights, away from the screaming.

A motorcycle sits in the darkness. Black. Sleek. Dangerous looking.

I stop dead and raise a brow. “You’re kidding.”

Enzo pulls out a helmet. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“Enzo, I’m in a torn dress and no shoes—”

“And you’ll be dead if we don’t move.” He shoves the helmet onto my head, his fingers quick and efficient with the strap. Then he’s shrugging out of his suit jacket, wrapping it around my shoulders.

It’s still warm from his body. Smells like him. I pull it tighter and try not to think about how much I’ve missed that smell.

Enzo swings onto the bike, kicks it to life. The engine roars loud enough to wake the dead.

He looks back at me. “Get on.”

This is insane. Completely insane.

I climb on behind him. The torn dress rides up higher. The bike is powerful between my legs and Enzo is solid in front of me and I have to wrap my arms around his waist just to hold on.

The second I do, the bike takes off.

Oh shit!!!!!!!

I scream over and over and over. Too fast! The bike is too fast!

We weave through traffic like the devil himself is chasing us. Maybe he is.

I bury my face between Enzo’s shoulder blades and hold on tighter. The city blurs around us. Cold wind cuts through the jacket, through the torn dress. My hair whips behind me. The engine vibrates through my whole body.

All I can do is hold on. Press myself against Enzo’s back and trust that he knows where he’s going. Trust that he won’t let me fall.

Time loses meaning. Minutes. Hours. I don’t know. Just the cold and the speed and the solid warmth of Enzo in front of me.

Finally, the bike slows. We’re not in the city anymore. Trees surround us now. Darkness. The road narrows to barely more than a path.

And then I see it.

The cabin.

My whole body goes cold.

No. Not here. Anywhere but here.

Enzo kills the engine and the sudden silence is deafening.

I climb off the bike on shaking legs, pull the helmet off and stare at the small cabin nestled in the woods. The place I vowed never to return to.

Four years ago, I stood on that porch and told Enzo Bianchi I loved him. Eighteen years old and stupid enough to think he might love me back. He told me I was a kid. That I didn’t know what I wanted. That he was Matteo’s Underboss and I was the princess and some lines you don’t cross.

Then he walked away and I didn’t see him again for six months.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” My voice comes out flat. Dead. “Here? Of all places?”

He climbs off the bike, pulling out his phone. “It was the first place I thought of.”

“Why?” I snap. “Why this place?”

He looks up from his phone. The moonlight catches his face, makes his expression unreadable. “Because I come here. A lot.”

That stops me cold. “What?”

“When I need to think. When I need to…” He trails off. Looks away. “I come here. It calms me.”

To the place where I told you I loved you. You come here.

I don’t know what to do with that information. Don’t know how to process it without falling apart.

“So, what now?” I ask instead, wrapping his jacket tighter around myself. “We just wait here?”

Enzo looks back down at his phone. Scrolls through messages. His jaw tightens.

“What?” I move closer. “What is it?”

He looks up at me. “Matteo says we need to stay here. Together. For a while.”

“How long is a while?”

“However long it takes for them to secure the situation.” He shoves his phone in his pocket. “Could be days.”

Days. Alone. In this cabin. With Enzo. And my torn dress.

The universe is laughing at me. It has to be.

“Great,” I mutter. “Just great.”

“Isabella—”

“Don’t.” I hold up one hand. “Just don’t. Not tonight. I can’t do this tonight.”

I walk toward the cabin before he can say anything else. Before I do something stupid like cry or scream or ask him why he comes to the place where I broke my own heart.

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Chapter One

Artyom

The call came just after dawn. Not from him, of course. He never picks up the phone himself. One of his men delivered the message in that clipped, careful tone that means it isn’t optional.

Your father wants to see you.

I almost said no. Although I live on the estate, I try to avoid this house, and every time I step inside it feels like walking backward through time into a version of myself I thought I’d buried. But there are some things even distance can’t protect you from.

The old unease has already settled in my gut.

My father’s house smells like old cigars and power. Rotting, perfumed power. The kind that seeps into the stone until it forgets what clean air feels like. Every sound here carries weight: the echo of shoes against marble, the click of a cane, the soft drag of a dying man pretending he’s still king.

God, how much I hate all of this.

Vladimir Morozov sits behind his desk, the same one I used to stand in front of as a boy. Back then, it felt like a throne, but now it looks smaller.

He glances up when I enter, surprise flickering for only a second before it hardens into the usual assessment. The years haven’t softened him. If anything, they’ve made him sharper. His suit is immaculate, his tie perfect, the old silver ring still glinting on his hand.

“It’s been a while,” he says finally, the words carrying neither warmth nor reproach. Just fact.

“It has.” I stop a few steps from the desk.

A ghost of a smile touches his mouth, but doesn’t reach his eyes. “Still difficult, I see.”

“I learned from the best.”

He exhales through his nose, a quiet huff that might be amusement or irritation. “I expected you to have missed your old man.”

“Let’s not pretend either of us missed the other.”

He studies me for a moment, eyes narrowing faintly, as if trying to decide whether it was worth summoning me at all.

I break the silence first. “Why did you call me here, Father?”

“Can’t a father ask to see his son?”

“You can,” I say evenly. “You just never do unless you want something. So, let’s not pretend and save us both time.”

That earns me a longer look, intended to make men squirm. I don’t.

He steeples his fingers, settling back in his chair. “Straight to the point, then.”

“Always.”

He nods once, as if conceding a minor point in a game he still believes he’s winning. The room feels smaller when he finally speaks again.

“You’ll marry Irina Petrova,” he says, voice low and deliberate. He doesn’t need to shout. He never did. “It’s time.”

I take the chair opposite him, uninvited. “No.”

A flicker of irritation crosses his face. “No?”

“You heard me.” I unbutton my jacket, slow and calm. “I won’t marry her.”

He studies me the way he used to study his enemies before breaking them. “Boris has made it clear that the wedding must take place in one month. Thirty days, Artyom. That’s all he’s given us—thirty days to bring our families together. You’re treating this like a request.” He leans forward, the light catching the silver in his hair. “And what are you, if not my blood? If I tell you this is how the Morozovs survive, you’ll obey.”

The word tastes wrong. He still says it like I’m a child, as if I’m not the one who took his place when his health failed him.

I let the silence stretch before answering. “You stepped down because the doctors said you couldn’t take it,” I say quietly. “I’m the one keeping this family alive now. I don’t obey.” I meet his gaze, steady. “Not to you. Not to Boris. Not to anyone.”

He lets out a dry laugh. “Power doesn’t change blood. You’re only sitting there because I built it all first.”

“You built it, sure,” I say. “I’m the one who kept it from falling apart.”

His jaw tightens. “You think that makes you better than me?”

I shrug. “No. Just not as rotten.”

The air feels heavier. The smoke from his cigar hangs between us, thick and bitter. I’ve hated that smell since I was a kid, but he loves it—loves the way it fills a room until everyone breathes what he wants them to.

He takes another drag, the tip burning red. “Boris Petrov runs Queens and Long Island. Irina’s his heir. This marriage ties everything together—money, protection, legacy.” He looks at me over the smoke. “You’d really throw that away because your conscience suddenly woke up?”

“I’d rather not tie our name to human trafficking.”

He scoffs. “A moral Pakhan. The world will laugh.”

“The world already daes,” I say. “They think you’re too old to matter.”

That lands, making a vein pulse in his temple.

He rises slowly, using the cane like it’s part of the performance. “You’re my son, Artyom, don’t forget this” he says. “And sons don’t defy their fathers.”

I rise. No Morozov ever allows another to tower over them, this is what I’ve been taught and a rule I keep until this very day. “You call it loyalty, but it’s tyranny. You abdicated, Father. When I took your throne, your rule ended. I won’t serve in its shadow and you know very well my approach is different than yours. I won’t deal with human trafficking and I certainly won’t follow Boris’ lead and agree to his ridiculous schemes. Why on Earth would I marry Irina?”

He takes another drag, watching me like he’s measuring weight for a moment, then smiles. “You’ve grown arrogant.”

“I’ve picked up a few habits,” I say.

He gets up and walks the length of the desk, slowly coming towards me, and stops close enough that the tobacco is on my skin. “Do you know what happens to arrogant men, Artyom?”

“I’ve killed enough to know.” The words come out flat.

His eyes go sharp, like something there just woke up inside him. “Irina loves you. And she’s such a pretty girl.”

“She doesn’t love me, she barely knows me,” I answer.

“That’s enough.” He taps the desk with two fingers, as if marking time.

“She despises Mikhail, they have a history, he did something to offend her in the past,” I say.

“That’s not your problem.” He shrugs. “This is politics.”

“It is my problem when I have to share her bed.” The sentence lands harder than I expected.

He snorts. “When did you start caring whose bed you’re in? You’ve slept with women across half of Europe.”

My jaw tightens. “There’s a difference between someone you sleep with and a contract you must sign. Don’t confuse them.”

“You sound like a petulant child,” he says.

I step closer until his chin tilts up to meet my eyes and the room narrows. “A child would have left your empire in ashes, not made it more powerful.”

He studies me a long time; the quiet between us feels sharp. Finally: “You forget—men like Boris demand respect. Refuse his daughter and he’ll take what you have.”

“We are allied anyway, Father, why the fuck would I agree to marry his daughter?” I ask.

He shakes his head, slowly. “Power isn’t permanent. One bad move, one broken promise, and everything you’ve built falls apart.”

“I will not marry Irina Petrova,” I say, plain.

He studies me for a moment, like he’s deciding whether it’s worth repeating himself, then turns and walks back to his chair. When he sits, his voice is calm again. “Fine. Then tell me—what should I tell Boris when he calls tomorrow to confirm?”

I set the glass down and look at him. “Tell him I’m already engaged.”

His head snaps up. “To whom?”

“You taught me discretion,” I say. “Consider this one of your lessons.”

“Don’t make a fool of me.”

“I’m not,” I answer. “I’m simply… protecting what we have.”

He stares at me, trying to read whether that’s bravado or a plan. “If she doesn’t exist,” he says, “Boris will tear us apart.”

“Of course she exists. I’m not a psycho that’d lie and say I had a fiancée if I didn’t. I just don’t bother sharing my personal life with you.”

Vladimir exhales through his nose, something between anger and reluctant amusement. “You’ll have to bring her to Italy then and present her to our allies,” he says, dry.

“Will do,” I say as I head for the door.

I don’t look back. The corridor outside is colder; the chandeliers throw hard light across the marble. Portraits of men who thought fear would save them look down on me; it never did.

By the gate my phone is already in my hand. I dial Lev with one motion.

“Da, boss.”

“Find me a woman.”

There’s a pause. “Specifics?”

“She has to look posh. Not fragile. Smart enough to stand with me and not be a problem.”

He whistles low. “Short list.”

“You have until morning.” I don’t soften the deadline.

“What is this about?” he asks.

“She needs to pretend to be engaged to me,” I say. “Make it look true.”

“Understood.”

I hang up and step outside. The wind catches my jacket, pulling at it as I walk, but I don’t slow down. I keep thinking about my father’s face when he realized I wasn’t afraid of him anymore, how quiet he went after that. Let him rage, let Boris make his threats. They can keep their deals, their daughters, their politics. I obey to no one.

As it turns out, I am a psycho. And a need a fake fiancée now

Chapter Two

Kira

The city feels almost kind tonight. Warm for October, the kind of afternoon sunlight that lingers between the buildings, soft and gold, touching everything it can’t quite warm. For once, I don’t take the car. It’s late, but the streets are bright enough—neon signs, open windows, snippets of laughter from bars spilling into the air. My shoes ache from twelve hours on my feet, but walking feels better than sitting in traffic and pretending the silence beside me isn’t waiting to swallow me whole.

Lilly walks next to me, the rhythm of her steps light and careless. She always moves like the world owes her a favor and I love that for her. “You know, most people celebrate the end of a shift by doing something fun,” she says, sipping her coffee. “A bad decision, a drink that turns into a blackout.”

I smirk. “You’re describing your last Friday, not mine.”

“That’s the point,” she says, bumping my shoulder. “You need one.”

“I had a patient flatline in front of me two hours ago,” I remind her. “I think I’ll skip the blackout.”

She rolls her eyes. “God, you’re such a nun sometimes.”

I laugh under my breath, not because it’s funny but because it’s true. My life revolves around scrubs, double shifts, and bills that never stop multiplying. I can count my reckless decisions on one hand, and all of them involve trusting my brother.

Lilly kicks a pebble down the street. “You ever think about taking a day off?”

“Days off are expensive.”

“So are ulcers,” she mutters. “Come on, Kira. You’re twenty-seven. You should at least have a hobby that doesn’t involve vital signs.”

“I like reading,” I say defensively.

“You like medical journals.”

“And old movies.”

“On your couch. Alone.”

I sigh. “You’re relentless.”

“It’s a skill.” She nudges me again. “What about Lucas? Still MIA?”

A familiar pinch tightens in my chest at the thought of my brother. “Yeah. A week now.”

“Did you call him?”

“Twice. Straight to voicemail.”

She shrugs. “He’ll show up. He always does when he needs your help.”

That’s what I keep telling myself. Lucas always reappears eventually—hungover, broke, full of promises that last about three days. I’ve learned not to panic until the calls start coming from numbers I don’t recognize.

Still, something feels different this time. The air carries the same weight I feel before a bad shift, like the exact moment before a code is called, when everyone just knows.

Lilly notices my silence. “Hey,” she says gently, “he’s fine. He probably just found some new gig.”

“Or some new trouble.”

“You worry too much.”

“I have reason to.”

She looks at me with that mix of sympathy and frustration she’s perfected. “You can’t keep doing this, Kira. You can’t live your life cleaning up after him. He’s not your patient.”

“He’s my brother.”

“And you’re not his mother. He’s not your responsibility.”

The words sting more than I want to admit. I hate that she’s right. I hate that I still flinch every time someone reminds me that I’m not enough to fix him.

We walk in silence for a while. Streetlights flash gold across the pavement. The city hums with its usual chaos of horns and the faint echo of music from somewhere above us. It’s the kind of noise that makes you feel less alone, even when you are.

When we reach my building, Lilly stops at the corner. “Are you sure you’re good?”

“Yeah.” I try to smile. “Just tired.”

“Text me if you get bored and want me to come over with ice cream and wine.”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

She studies me a second longer, as if she wants to say more but knows I won’t listen. Then she waves and walks off, her hair catching the streetlight like copper. I watch her go until she disappears into the crowd.

The air feels colder once she’s gone.

Inside my building, the stairwell smells like paint and old cigarettes. The landlord swore he’d fix the lighting months ago, but the bulbs still flicker like a dying heartbeat. I climb the steps, my legs protesting with every move. The building is quiet except for the hum of someone’s TV through a thin wall and the faint drip of water from a leaky pipe.

By the time I reach my door, I’m half-asleep on my feet. I fish out my keys, push the door open, and step inside.

The apartment greets me with its usual silence. A finished cup of coffee sits on the counter, a pile of medical forms on the table. I drop my bag and kick off my shoes.

It’s a small apartment, a one-bedroom carved out of an old brownstone, patched together with secondhand furniture and prayers. The walls are thin enough to hear the neighbors argue, but it’s the first place that’s ever felt like home.

I shrug off my jacket and toss it over the chair. The air inside is warm and stale. I peel off my blouse next, the cheap polyester clinging to my skin. My bra strap digs into my shoulder, the elastic itching where the fabric’s frayed. I make a mental note to buy a new one, then immediately remind myself that rent comes first.

I undo the top button of my jeans while crossing the room, the dim light from the street slipping through the blinds. It’s enough to find my way through the dark.

The floor creaks as I move toward the kitchen, each step whispering back at me. The sound makes me pause for no reason I can explain. I’ve always hated coming home to silence; it makes every small noise feel amplified, like the apartment is listening.

I flip through the mail on the counter—bills, advertisements, a letter for Lucas. My name scratched next to his in someone else’s handwriting. I stare at it longer than I should before setting it aside. The truth is, I haven’t told the landlord he doesn’t live here anymore. I’m not ready to admit that most nights, it’s just me and the echo of someone who should’ve come back by now.

The fridge hums. I open it, find a half-empty carton of milk and a leftover sandwich that’s turned the color of regret. I close the door. My reflection catches in the window—faint, blurred, almost unfamiliar. God, I look tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes though, and I wonder if I should text Lilly and agree to the glass of wine after all.

The clock above the sink reads 6:47. I should shower, but the thought of peeling off the rest of my clothes in the cold bathroom feels impossible. I light a candle instead. Vanilla, almost sweet enough to cover the antiseptic smell that follows me home from work.

Something knocks faintly against the window. Probably the wind, but it makes me look up. The curtains shift a little. I cross the room and check the latch. Closed. Everything looks normal.

Still, a small chill runs down my spine. I know it’s exhaustion and I’ve seen way too many people turn paranoid after continuous ER nights. But still… something feels off.

The candle sputters.

I exhale through my nose, force myself to move and I see that the bedroom door is cracked open. The blinds let in a faint strip of light from the street—thin and gold, cutting through the dark like a scar. My bed’s already made, the sheet smooth, the sweatshirt folded neatly at the foot.

Lucas used to sleep there sometimes, when he’d show up too drunk to find his own bed. I never said no, even when he stumbled in at 3 a.m. smelling like whiskey and trouble. Some part of me always thought if I kept a place for him, he’d find his way back to it.

The city outside murmurs—a siren far away, laughter closer, a dog barking in the alley. It’s ordinary. Comforting, even.

I pull my hair free from its ponytail and let it fall over my shoulders and I stand, half-undressed, and glance toward the hallway. For a moment, I think I hear something like a quiet shift of fabric, a slow breath that isn’t mine. The sound is so faint I almost convince myself I imagined it.

I move toward the doorway, every sense on edge. “Lucas?” I call softly.

Silence.

My heartbeat drowns out the rest of the world. I take another step.

Something about the darkness feels different now, watchful. Like the second before a lightning strike. My mind flips through every rational explanation. The neighbors. The pipes. The wind. But none of them explain the smell.

It’s faint—cologne, maybe. Expensive. Nothing like Lucas’s cheap spray or the sterilized scent of the hospital. This is darker and way more subtle.

I pause halfway between the bedroom and the living room. The candlelight spills just enough to show the edge of the armchair by the window. The shadow there looks deeper than it should.

My pulse stumbles. I tell myself to move, to grab my phone, to do something, but my body won’t listen. Another sound—a soft exhale, almost a sigh.

There’s someone here. There’s someone in my fucking living room!

Every muscle in my body locks. I can’t see him yet, but I can feel him and I am damn sure it’s a man. A chill crawls up the back of my neck.

No movement. No sound. Just my own heartbeat hammering in my ears. I stand there for what feels like a full minute, my breath coming short and fast. The candle still flickers, steady and harmless. Maybe it was the neighbors. Or the old building settling again. Maybe the sound was mine—a creak of floorboard, a breath caught wrong.

Get a grip, Kira. You’ve been awake too long.

I’ve seen what sleep deprivation does to people—hallucinations, paranoia, the mind twisting shadows into faces. I’ve told patients the same thing a hundred times. So why does the apartment feel like it’s holding its breath?

I run a hand through my hair, force out a laugh that doesn’t sound real. “Jesus, maybe I need the blackout after all.”

The joke lands flat in the dark.

I sit on the couch, letting my body remember the fatigue instead of the fear and I unlock my bra, getting ready to go under the shower and wash this day away.

“I’d let you keep going,” a voice says smoothly, “but things might escalate in a direction I didn’t plan for.”

My body freezes before my brain catches up. The voice isn’t my brother’s.

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Chapter One

Dante

I shouldn’t be here.

The bass from the club floor vibrates through the walls. But back here, in the storage room that doubles as my office when I need privacy, the only sound is Adrian Morelli’s ragged breathing.

I adjust my cufflinks—platinum, understated—and take my time crossing the concrete floor. My three-piece Tom Ford fits like it was painted on, because it was made for me, and the slight give of Italian leather beneath my feet reminds me that everything in my world has its place. Order. Control. Precision.

And if I know one thing it’s that Adrian doesn’t fit anymore.

He’s zip-tied to a metal chair, flanked by two of my men who know better than to speak unless I ask them a direct question. I can see the sweat that darkens his collar. His usually slicked hair hangs limp across his forehead, and his breath—Christ, his breath carries that sour-sweet stink of bottom-shelf whiskey that makes my jaw lock.

I hate drunks.

The smell alone drags me back to places I’ve spent a decade burying, but I shove it down and let the cold settle in my chest where it belongs. Emotion is a liability. Sentiment gets you killed. My father taught me that, even if he learned it too late.

“Adrian.” I stop three feet away, hands in my pockets, my voice even. “Do you know why you’re here?”

His head jerks up, bloodshot eyes struggling to focus. “Dante, listen, I can explain—”

“I didn’t ask for an explanation. I asked if you know why you’re here.”

He swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. “The money. I know. I just need a little more time—”

“You had time.” I pull out my phone, scroll through the ledger Rafe sent me this morning. “March nineteenth. We forgave fifty-three thousand because you’d worked with us for six years. You cried. You promised it would never happen again and that you would return them. Do you remember?”

“Yes, but—”

“April twenty-second. You were back at the tables. May eleventh, you borrowed from a loan shark in Brooklyn. June third, you missed a payment to us. And last week—” I look up, let him see the flatness in my stare, “—you placed a thirty-thousand-dollar bet on a basketball game. With our money.”

“I was going to win it back—”

“But you didn’t.”

The silence stretches and one of my men shifts his weight. I don’t look at him, but I know he’s wondering if I’m going to draw this out or end it quickly. Even they can’t always predict me, and I like it that way.

Predictability gets you killed in my world. It’s why I vary my methods deliberately. Sometimes I’m surgical and quick. Other times I let fear do the heavy lifting, let a man’s imagination run wild with what I might do. Sometimes I’m generous when they expect violence. Sometimes I’m brutal when they expect mercy.

A man who can’t anticipate your next move can’t prepare a defense, can’t plot against you, can’t find your weaknesses. My men respect me more because they never know which Dante they’ll get when they walk into a room. It’s not cruelty for cruelty’s sake—it’s strategy. And that respect, that uncertainty, keeps them sharp. Keeps them loyal. Keeps them alive. And most importantly—keeps me alive.

Adrian’s breathing picks up. “Please. I’ll get it. I swear to God, I’ll get every cent—”

“You have nothing left to get it with.” I slide my phone back into my pocket, then smooth my jacket. “I’ve seen your accounts. Your credit’s torched. Your car’s leased. Your apartment’s two months behind. You’re a financial corpse, Adrian. You just haven’t stopped moving yet.”

His face crumples. For a second I think he might cry, and the disgust rises sharp in my throat.

“One day,” I say, my tone unchanged. “You have twenty-four hours to bring me eighty-seven thousand dollars, or you die. No extensions. No negotiations.”

“I don’t have it!” His voice cracks, desperation bleeding through. “Dante, please, I’ve been loyal—”

“Loyal?” The word tastes bitter. “You stole from me. You lied. You gambled with money that wasn’t yours and lost. That’s not loyalty, that’s suicide.”

I nod to Marco, the man on Adrian’s left. He steps forward, produces a pair of pliers from his jacket, and Adrian’s eyes go wide.

“Wait—wait, no, please—”

“You want more time?” I ask, almost conversational. “Then you need to understand what happens when you waste mine.”

Marco grabs Adrian’s hand, wrenches it flat against the armrest. Adrian thrashes, but the zip ties hold, and my other guy—Sal, built like a fridge—clamps a hand on his shoulder to keep him still.

“Please don’t—”

The pliers close around his left pinky nail.

Adrian screams before Marco even pulls. The sound is shrill and ugly, and when the nail tears free, blood wells up fast, dripping onto the chair, onto the floor. The stench of copper mixes with the whiskey on his breath and I take a step back, keeping my expression neutral even as my stomach turns.

Not from the blood, I’ve seen worse than that. Done worse.

It’s the drunk, pathetic whimpering that gets under my skin.

“Stop—stop, please, I’ll do anything—”

“Anything?” I arch a brow, pulling a handkerchief from my pocket to wipe a fleck of blood from my shoe. “You just told me you have nothing.”

“I’ll work! I’ll do jobs, I’ll—whatever you need, just give me two weeks, please—”

“Two weeks.” I laugh, low and humorless, wondering if this idiot actually understands the trouble he’s in. “What are you going to do in two weeks, Adrian? Win the lottery?”

His phone buzzes on the table beside me, screen lighting up. The vibration cuts through his sobs, and I glance down.

The name Bianca flashes across the display, accompanied by a photo.

I pick it up.

She’s smiling in the picture—really smiling, the kind that reaches her eyes. Hazel-green, I think, though the lighting makes it hard to tell. Long chestnut hair pulled over one shoulder, a simple blouse, nothing flashy. She looks warm. Genuine. The kind of woman who probably bakes cookies for her neighbors and remembers birthdays.

The kind of woman who has no business being anywhere near a man like Adrian Morelli.

“Who’s this?” I ask, turning the phone toward him.

His face goes pale. “That’s—that’s my girlfriend. Please don’t—”

“How long have you been together?”

“Three years. Dante, she has nothing to do with this—”

“Three years.” I study the photo again, something cold and calculating clicking into place in the back of my mind. “And you’ve been gambling the whole time?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Does she know what you do? Who you work for?”

“No.” His voice drops to a whisper. “She thinks I’m just an accountant.”

Of course, she does.

I set the phone down, cross my arms. Marco sets the pliers down, waiting for orders. Adrian’s hand is still bleeding, but he’s stopped screaming, reduced to pathetic whimpering and shaking.

“I can settle this another way,” Adrian blurts out suddenly, voice cracking. “I can repay you. Just not with money.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You just told me you have nothing left, boy, don’t fucking play with me.”

“I have something.” He’s talking fast now, desperate. “Something valuable. My girlfriend.”

The room goes quiet.

I tilt my head, studying him. “Your girlfriend.”

“Yes. Bianca. You can have her. As collateral. She’s—she’s worth more than the debt, I swear.”

No hesitation. The offer comes out smooth, rehearsed almost, like he’s been holding it in reserve this whole time. No stumbling over the words. No visible guilt.

I wait for the backtrack. The moment where he realizes what he just said and tries to take it back. Because his offer is mad. Ridiculous.

But it doesn’t come.

I set the phone down carefully, adjust my cufflinks. “You’re telling me that instead of bringing me my money, you want to give me a living and breathing woman.”

“She’s not just any woman,” Adrian says quickly, desperately. “She’s loyal. She’ll listen. And she’s—” He swallows. “She’s almost a virgin. Never been with anyone but me. That’s worth something, right?”

Marco makes a sound low in his throat, and I don’t have to look to know he’s disgusted.

I am too.

But I’m also intrigued.

Not because of what Adrian’s offering—I’m not some trafficking animal who trades in women like currency. But because this pathetic waste of oxygen just showed me exactly who he is, and in doing so, made me very, very curious about the woman he’s throwing away.

“And how exactly do you plan to deliver her?” I ask, circling back to the practical. “What’s stopping her from running the moment you bring her to me?”

Adrian’s face goes even paler, if that’s possible. “She won’t run.”

“You seem very confident about that.”

“I am.” He’s talking faster now, desperate to close this deal. “I’ve been paying her mother’s medical bills. Cancer. Stage four. Expensive treatment at St. Catherine’s. Without me, her mother loses everything—the care, the medication, all of it.”

There it is. The leverage.

“So, she’s tied to you,” I say slowly.

“Exactly. She won’t run because she can’t afford to. Her mother’s life depends on those payments.” He’s almost smiling now, thinking he’s made a brilliant play. “Bring her here, tell her the situation, and she’ll cooperate. She has no choice.”

I study him for a long moment. The casual way he’s using a dying woman as collateral. The ease with which he’s manipulating someone who presumably loves him.

He’s even more worthless than I thought.

But he’s also handed me exactly what I need.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I say, my voice flat. “You’re going to walk out of here. You’re going to go home, pack a bag, and disappear for a while. Maybe leave the state. I don’t care. But your debt doesn’t disappear with you.”

“I know, I—”

“It transfers to her.”

His face pales. “What?”

“You heard me. Bianca now owes me eighty-seven thousand dollars. And since I’m betting she doesn’t have that kind of money, she’ll be working it off. However, I see fit.”

“But—”

“You offered her, Adrian. I’m accepting.” I lean forward, let him see the flatness in my stare. “And if you ever come near her again, if you so much as text her, I’ll cut off more than a fingernail. We clear?”

He stares at me, mouth opening and closing, the full weight of what he’s done finally sinking in.

Too late.

“Sal, cut him loose.”

The zip ties snap. Adrian stumbles to his feet, cradling his bleeding hand against his chest. He looks at me, then at the phone still sitting on the table, and for half a second, I think he might actually try to take it back.

“Go,” I say quietly.

He goes.

The door slams behind him, and the room feels cleaner without him in it.

Marco picks up a rag, starts wiping blood off the pliers. “You really taking his girl, boss?”

“I am.”

“You think she knows what she’s walking into?”

I look at the phone again. At Bianca’s smiling face, frozen in a moment of happiness that’s about to shatter.

“No,” I say. “But she will.”

Because Adrian Morelli just sold her to the devil, and I always collect what I’m owed.

Chapter Two

Bianca

The last bell rings at 3:15, and the hallway explodes with the sound of twenty-three second-graders who’ve been sitting still for six hours too long. Loud doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I gather my papers, slide them into my tote bag, and step into the chaos. Backpacks scrape against lockers. Shoes squeak on linoleum. Someone’s already crying because they can’t find their lunchbox, and I make a mental note to check the lost and found before I leave.

“Miss Mancini!”

I turn to find Emma Rodriguez clutching a drawing, her gap-toothed smile wide enough to split her face. “I made this for you!”

It’s a crayon masterpiece—stick figures holding hands under a bright yellow sun, one labelled “Miss M” in wobbly letters.

“It’s beautiful, Emma.” I crouch down to her level, accepting the paper like it’s worth a million dollars. “I’m going to hang it right on my desk. Thank you, sweetheart.”

She beams, then races off to join her mother at the door.

I watch her go, feeling that familiar warmth settle in my chest. This is why I teach. Not for the paycheck—God knows the paycheck is barely enough to survive on—but for moments like this. For the chance to be the stable, caring presence these kids deserve.

The presence I never had.

“Miss Mancini?”

Alex Martinez stands at my elbow, backpack dangling from one shoulder, eyes fixed on the floor. He’s small for seven, with dark hair that always needs cutting and a jacket two sizes too big.

“Hey, buddy.” I rest a hand on his shoulder. “You all set?”

He nods but doesn’t move.

I glance at the clock. His mom works until six most nights, and the after-school program doesn’t start until four. That leaves him forty-five minutes to kill, and I know he hates waiting alone in the cafeteria.

“What do you usually do before the program starts?” I ask gently.

His eyes drop to the floor. “I’m not going to the program this year.”

“Oh?” I keep my voice casual, not wanting to embarrass him. “How come?”

“Mom can’t afford it.” He says it matter-of-factly, like he’s used to hearing it. “She said maybe next semester if she picks up more shifts.”

My heart squeezes.

“Well then,” I say, straightening up. “Want to help me organize the supply closet?” I ask.

His face lights up. “Really?”

“Really. I could use an extra set of hands.”

We spend the next half hour sorting through construction paper and glue sticks while Alex tells me about the book he’s reading. He’s smart—too smart for his own good sometimes. The kind of kid who notices everything and feels too much.

The kind of kid I used to be. He reminds me so much of myself it hurts sometimes.

When his mom finally arrives, breathless and apologetic, I walk them both to the door. Alex waves until they disappear around the corner, and I feel that familiar ache in my chest.

I want to give these kids everything. Stability. Safety. The kind of childhood where they don’t have to worry about whether the adults in their lives will show up.

But I can barely keep my own life together.

My phone buzzes as I’m locking the classroom door.

St. Catherine’s Medical Center flashes across the screen and my stomach drops.

“Hello?”

“Miss Mancini?” The voice is professional, clipped and makes the hair on my neck stand straight. “This is Sharon from billing at St. Catherine’s. I’m calling about your mother’s account. Is it a good time?”

I press the phone tighter to my ear, already walking toward the parking lot. “Yes, I can speak. Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” I feel a huge weight falling off my chest. Mom’s fine. “But we haven’t received this month’s payment yet, and I wanted to check in. Is everything all right on your end?”

The breath I’ve been holding releases in a rush. One of my biggest fears is that someday they will call me and tell me the news no child wants to hear, no matter the age. That they’re mom is gone.

“Yes, I’m so sorry. My—my partner handles the payments. I’ll check with him and call you back today.”

“Perfect. We just want to make sure there are no issues with—”

“Miss Mancini!”

I turn to see Alex’s mom rushing back toward me, waving. She mouths thank you and blows a kiss before disappearing again.

I manage a smile, but my heart is racing.

“—coverage,” Sharon finishes. “Just give us a call when you can.”

“I will. Thank you.”

I hang up and lean against my car, fingers automatically finding the gold cross pendant at my throat. Mom gave it to me when I was ten, told me it was a promise that she’d always be there.

Even when she’s not.

Even when cancer is eating her alive and the only thing keeping her in that hospital bed is money I don’t have.

I close my eyes, take a breath, and try to remember the last time Adrian actually answered a question about finances without getting defensive. Why the hell is he delaying the payment?

“Bianca.”

The voice cuts through my thoughts like a knife, and I jerk upright.

Adrian is leaning against the passenger side of my car, arms crossed, looking like he hasn’t slept in days. His suit—usually crisp and tailored—is wrinkled. His tie is loose. And his eyes…

God, his eyes are glassy and unfocused in a way that makes my skin crawl.

“Adrian?” I glance around the parking lot, suddenly aware that a few teachers are still loading up their cars and my boyfriend looks like the local drunk. “What are you doing here?”

He pushes off the car, takes a step toward me. “Came to see my girl.”

The smell hits me before he does—whiskey, sharp and sour. It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and he reeks like he’s been marinating in it.

“You’re drunk.” I take a step back, keeping distance between us. “You need to go home.”

“I’m fine.” He reaches for me, fingers closing around my wrist. “Just wanted to surprise you.”

His grip is too tight. Not painful yet, but firm enough that I’d have to yank to get free.

“Adrian.” I keep my voice low, aware of the lingering eyes. “Let go.”

Instead, he pulls me closer, his other hand sliding to my waist. “Come on, baby. Give me a kiss.”

I turn my face away just as his lips brush my cheek. “Not here. Not like this.”

“Why not?” His words slur together. “I’m your boyfriend, aren’t I?”

Mrs. Chen from fourth grade is watching now, concern etched across her face. The last thing I need is the school administration getting involved in my personal life. I force myself to relax, to soften my tone even as anger burns in my chest. “You are. But I’m not kissing a drunk man in front of my students’ parents. So let go, and we can talk.”

Something flickers in his eyes—hurt, maybe, or shame—and his grip loosens.

I pull my wrist free, rubbing the red marks his fingers left behind.

“The clinic called,” I say, tucking my hands into my pockets so he can’t see them shake. “About Mom’s payment. They said it hasn’t gone through.”

Adrian’s jaw tightens. “Yeah. That’s actually one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”

My stomach flips. “What do you mean?”

“Not here.” He gestures toward his car—a black sedan that’s parked crooked across two spaces. “Come on. I have a surprise for you.”

“Adrian, I don’t—”

“Please.” The word comes out raw, desperate. “Just trust me. I need you to come with me. It’s important.”

I look at his car, then back at him. At the way he’s swaying slightly on his feet. At the panic lurking beneath the alcohol haze.

Every instinct I have is screaming at me to say no. To get in my own car and drive away.

But Mom’s payment didn’t go through. And Adrian is the one who’s supposed to handle it. And if I don’t figure out what’s going on, she could lose her spot at St. Catherine’s.

“Fine.” I grab my tote bag from my car. “But you’re not driving. Give me the keys.”

“I’m fine to—”

“Keys, Adrian. Now.”

He fishes them out of his pocket and drops them into my palm, muttering something under his breath that I choose to ignore.

The drive starts normal enough. Adrian slouches in the passenger seat, eyes closed, one hand pressed to his temple like he’s fighting off a headache. I keep both hands on the wheel and try to ignore the dread pooling in my gut.

“Where am I going?” I ask.

“Take the expressway toward Newark.”

“Newark? Why—”

“Just drive, Bianca. Please.”

So, I drive.

The neighborhoods get worse the farther we go. Pristine suburbs give way to strip malls, then to blocks of boarded-up buildings and chain-link fences. The sky seems darker here, like the sun gave up trying to reach this part of the city.

“Adrian, what’s going on?”

“Work stuff.” He doesn’t open his eyes. “I just need to take care of something.”

“You’re an accountant, not a drug dealer,” I murmur, but he doesn’t say a thing.

The silence stretches between us, heavy and suffocating. I glance at Adrian’s profile—jaw clenched, eyes still closed, that telltale vein pulsing at his temple that only appears when he’s stressed.

Or lying.

“What kind of work stuff?” I press, my fingers tightening on the wheel.

“Just some accounts that need clearing up. Nothing you need to worry about.”

But I am worried. Because in three years together, Adrian has never once brought me to a work meeting. Never introduced me to a single colleague. Never even mentioned specific clients by name.

I thought it was because he wanted to keep work and personal life separate. Professional boundaries and all that.

Now, driving through streets that look like they’ve given up on ever seeing better days, I’m wondering if there’s another reason entirely.

“Adrian, if you’re in some kind of trouble—”

“I’m handling it.” His voice is sharp, final. “Just trust me, okay?”

Trust him.

The words taste bitter in my mouth, but I swallow them down because what choice do I have?

I grip the steering wheel tighter, my fingers finding the cross pendant again. It’s a nervous habit I’ve had since childhood—whenever I’m scared or angry, I reach for it. Mom used to joke that I’d wear the gold smooth one day.

“Turn here,” Adrian says suddenly.

I follow his directions down a street lined with warehouses and auto shops, then into a parking lot in front of a sagging apartment complex that looks like it should’ve been condemned years ago.

“This is your surprise?” I can’t keep the edge out of my voice. “A slum in Newark?”

“Just come inside.” He’s already opening the door, stumbling slightly as he stands. “It’ll make sense. I promise.”

It won’t. I know it won’t. But I’m already here, and turning back now won’t answer any of my questions.

I kill the engine and follow him toward the building, praying I won’t have to put my teenage self-defense classes to use.

The hallway reeks of mildew and cigarette smoke. Paint peels from the walls in long strips, and the fluorescent lights overhead flicker like they’re trying to give up. Adrian leads me to the third door on the left, then pauses with his hand on the knob.

“Just… don’t freak out, okay?”

“Adrian—”

He opens the door.

The apartment is small and dim, curtains drawn against the afternoon light. Smoke hangs thick in the air—cigar smoke, expensive and cloying. There are men here. Four, maybe five, all standing or sitting in positions that feel deliberately casual.

And in the center of the room, standing by the window with his hands in his pockets and his suit so perfectly tailored it looks obscene in this place, is a man who makes my heart stop.

He’s tall. Like extremely tall. Dark hair. Blue eyes that cut through the smoke and the shadows and land on me with the precision of a scalpel.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

Just looks at me like he’s been expecting me.

Like he already knows exactly why I’m here.

“Adrian,” I whisper, my voice barely audible over the blood rushing in my ears. “What did you do?”

But Adrian doesn’t answer.

And the man in the perfect suit smiles.

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Chapter One

Alessia

I shouldn’t be here.

The thought hammers through my skull as I stand on this godforsaken Chicago Street, surrounded by crumbling buildings and broken dreams. Graffiti tags cover every surface like infected wounds, and the smell of piss and decay hits me like a physical blow, making my stomach clench and bile rise in my throat. This isn’t the kind of neighborhood a Moretti wife should be caught dead in…

Which is exactly why I’m here.

I pause near a rusted fire escape, pretending to check my reflection in a shop window that’s completely cracked. The movement lets me scan the street behind me without being obvious about it. Old habits die hard, and paranoia has kept me alive this long. A black sedan idles at the corner, exhaust puffing gray clouds into the autumn air. The driver’s been there since I arrived twenty minutes ago. Too long for it to be a coincidence.

My phone buzzes against my ribs, the vibration sharp enough to make me flinch. Only three people have this number, and one of them is dead. Has been for forty-five days now.

The caller ID makes my stomach clench: Don Emilio Moretti.

My father-in-law. The man who owns half of Chicago’s politicians and all of its fear. I can’t ignore him—no one ignores Don Emilio and lives to regret it. But answering means lying, and I’m so fucking tired of lying.

“Papà,” I say, forcing warmth into my voice as I accept the call. The Italian rolls off my tongue like honey, sweet and practiced. “How are you feeling today?”

“Alessia.” His voice cuts through the phone line like broken glass—sharp, cold, unforgiving. Even through the speaker, it carries the weight of absolute authority. “Where are you?”

My free hand finds the small knife tucked inside my purse, fingers curling around the familiar weight. Lorenzo gave it to me on our wedding night, a pretty little thing with a pearl handle. For protection, he’d said, not knowing I’d learn to sleep with it under my pillow. Protection from him.

“At the doctor’s office,” I lie smoothly, my eyes never leaving the street. A man pretends to read a newspaper across the street, but the pages haven’t turned once since I’ve been watching. “Getting some routine tests done. Nothing to worry about.”

“Tests.” The word hangs in the air like smoke. “What kind of tests, daughter?”

Daughter. He only calls me that when he wants something, or when he’s about to deliver bad news. Sometimes both.

“Just follow-up care, Papà. You know how doctors are—they want to monitor everything, especially with…” I let my voice trail off, leaving the implication hanging. The pregnancy that doesn’t exist. The grandchild that will never be born. The lie that’s kept me alive for forty-five days.

“Sì, of course.” His tone softens fractionally, and I can picture him in his study, surrounded by the dark wood and darker secrets that define the Moretti legacy. “The memorial is in one hour, Alessia. You will be there.”

It’s not a request. Don Emilio doesn’t make requests—he issues commands, and smart people follow them. The forty-day memorial for Lorenzo. Catholic tradition demands it, and the Morettis bow to tradition when it suits them.

“Of course,” I say, checking my watch. The appointment inside will take ten minutes, fifteen at most. Plenty of time to get this done and make it home to play the grieving widow. Again. “I’ll be back within the hour.” “Good.” A pause, long enough for me to wonder what he’s thinking, what he knows. “And Alessia? Take care of yourself. That baby is precious to all of us.”

The line goes dead, leaving me staring at my reflection in the cracked window. Dark auburn hair pulled back in a neat chignon, golden-brown eyes that have learned to hide too much, skin that’s finally lost the sickly pallor it carried for months. I look like a respectable mafia wife. The perfect widow.

If only they knew the truth.

I turn away from the window and face the building that is the reason I am in this neighborhood. The Chicago Family Health Center squats between a check-cashing place and a store that definitely doesn’t sell the kind of merchandise advertised in its blacked-out windows. The clinic’s sign flickers on and off, the ‘H’ in ‘Health’ strobing like a dying heartbeat. Paint peels from the door frame, and the single window facing the street is covered with bars that have seen better years.

It’s perfect. No one from my world would ever set foot in a place like this, which makes it invisible. And invisibility, I’ve learned, is its own kind of power.

The door sticks when I push it, requiring actual effort to get inside. The waiting room is a study in despair—worn linoleum floors in a color that might have once been white, fluorescent lights that flicker and buzz like dying insects, and the kind of furniture that’s designed to be uncomfortable. The air tastes of antiseptic and something fouler underneath, something that speaks of too many desperate people passing through these doors.

A receptionist sits behind bulletproof glass, her eyes the color of old pennies and just as lifeless. She doesn’t look up when I enter, doesn’t acknowledge my existence until I tap my knuckles against her window.

“Name?” she asks, voice flat as roadkill.

“Smith,” I say. “I have an appointment with Dr. Carter.”

She consults a schedule that looks like it was typed on a machine from the Carter administration, running one chipped fingernail down the page. “Room three. He’ll be with you shortly.”

I take a seat in one of the molded plastic chairs, crossing my legs carefully and keeping my purse close. The knife inside feels heavier now, more necessary. Two other people wait in the small space—a teenager who can’t be more than sixteen, staring at her hands with the kind of desperation that makes my chest tight, and an older woman whose face tells stories I don’t want to read.

This is where hope comes to die, where desperate people make desperate choices. Where Mrs. Lorenzo Moretti can become just another woman with a problem that money can solve.

“Smith?” A voice calls from the hallway, and I stand smoothly, years of finishing school posture serving me well even here. Dr. Carter stands in the doorway to room three, and he’s exactly what I expected—sleazy smile, receding hairline, and gold teeth that catch the fluorescent light. His white coat has seen better days, and there’s a stain near the pocket that I choose not to identify.

“Doctor,” I say, extending my hand with the kind of cool politeness that comes naturally after years of charity galas and political dinners. He takes it, his palm soft and damp.

“Come in, come in,” he says, gesturing toward the examination room. It’s cleaner than the waiting area, but not by much. “Please, have a seat.”

I remain standing, my chin lifted in the way that used to make Lorenzo’s eyes go dark with rage. Power pose, my mother called it, back when she was alive to give advice. Back before the Morettis decided the Ricci family had outlived their usefulness.

“That won’t be necessary,” I say. “We both know why I’m here, Doctor.” The words taste bitter—I’d had to take an enormous risk calling him, speaking in careful euphemisms about ‘documentation’ and ‘discretion.’ “You know this isn’t a medical consultation.”

His smile falters for a moment, revealing something calculating underneath. “Of course, of course. Though I do usually recommend at least a brief examination, for authenticity’s sake—”

“No.” The word cuts through the air like a blade. I let my smile turn sharp, the kind that used to make servant girls scatter when I was still naive enough to think I had power. “I’m not here for your medical expertise. I’m here for your flexible morals.”

He actually laughs at that, a sound like gravel in a blender. “You’re certainly more direct than most of my… patients.”

“I find directness saves time,” I say, setting my purse on his desk and opening it with deliberate care. The knife catches the light, and his eyes track the movement. Good. Let him wonder if I’m desperate enough to use it. “Time I don’t have to waste on pretenses.”

Inside my purse, beneath the knife and next to the compact mirror I never use, is a thick envelope. I remove it carefully, feeling the weight of necessity and desperation.

Fifteen thousand dollars in cash, money I’d scraped together from jewelry sales during my carefully orchestrated shopping trips, skimming from the household accounts, and a small emergency fund my mother had made me promise to keep hidden for exactly this kind of desperate moment.

I set the envelope on his desk, the bills making a soft sound against the scarred wood. “For this amount,” I say, meeting his eyes steadily, “you’ve never seen me. You never will again. And the documentation you provide will be flawless.”

Dr. Carter lifts the envelope, feeling its weight with the practiced touch of someone who’s made this trade before. He doesn’t count it, we both know I’m good for it, but he opens it enough to see the bills inside. Hundreds, mostly, because fifties and twenties would make the stack too thick.

“Understood,” he says, tucking the envelope into his desk drawer. From the same drawer, he produces a manila envelope, sealed and official-looking. The clinic’s letterhead is printed across the top, the kind of detail that makes forgeries convincing. “Your results, Mrs… Smith.”

I take the envelope, feeling the weight of my future inside. “Pregnancy test?”

“Positive.” He settles back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. “Lab work confirms high hormone levels that match about ten weeks of pregnancy.” He pauses, studying my face. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” I slip the envelope into my purse, next to the knife that’s kept me safe and the phone that connects me to my cage. “This transaction is complete.”

“Of course.” But he doesn’t look away, and something in his expression makes my skin crawl. “Though I do hope you’ll remember where to find me, should you need any… future services.”

I’m already moving toward the door, my heels clicking against the linoleum with sharp sounds. “Doctor, for both our sakes, I hope I never see you again.”

The waiting room feels smaller now. I nod once to the receptionist, who still doesn’t look up, and push through the sticky door.

The air outside tastes like freedom and fear in equal measure. I’ve done it—bought myself another month, maybe two, of protection under the Moretti umbrella. As long as they think I’m carrying Lorenzo’s child, I’m valuable. Untouchable. But the moment they discover the truth…

I don’t let myself finish that thought.

My car sits where I left it, a modest sedan that doesn’t attract attention. I chose it specifically for that reason, the Maserati would have marked me as clearly as a neon sign in this neighborhood. As I walk toward it, my heels clicking against broken concrete, I feel eyes on me. The same sensation I’ve lived with for forty-five days, the weight of being watched.

The black sedan is still there. The newspaper man has moved closer, his position shifting just enough to keep me in sight. My fingers find the knife again, and I adjust my grip on my purse, making sure I can reach it quickly if needed.

I’m almost to my car when it happens.

Footsteps behind me, moving too fast, too determined. I spin, my hand already reaching for the knife, but I’m not fast enough. A hand clamps down on my shoulder, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and I jerk away with practiced desperation.

“Don’t…” I start to say, but the word dies as a black SUV screeches around the corner, tires screaming against asphalt. The door flies open before it even stops moving, and hands—multiple hands—grab for me.

I twist, my body moving on instincts learned through months of survival, but there are too many of them. My fingers close around the knife’s handle just as something sharp bites into my upper arm. A needle, I realize with crystal clarity, even as warmth spreads through my veins like honey.

“No,” I whisper, but my voice sounds distant, hollow. The knife falls from suddenly numb fingers, clattering onto the concrete like a death knell. My legs give out, and I’m falling, the world tilting sideways as strong arms catch me.

The last thing I see before darkness swallows everything is the envelope from the clinic, scattered papers drifting across the dirty street like snow. Like the ashes of all my carefully laid plans.

Then nothing.

Chapter Two

Matteo

She’s beautiful, even like this.

The thought hits me as I watch the surveillance footage for the third time, my fingers drumming against the steel table in my Manhattan warehouse. On the screen, my men carry an unconscious woman from the SUV, her dark auburn hair spilling over strong arms like silk. Even drugged and limp, there’s something about her that commands attention. Something dangerous.

Alessia Moretti. Lorenzo’s widow. The woman who started a war.

I check my watch. She’s been out for a few hours. The sedative should be wearing off soon.

“Boss.” Marco appears at my elbow, young and eager, still trying to prove himself worthy of the Romano name. “She’s stirring.”

I push back from the table and straighten my suit jacket. Armani, black as my reputation, tailored to perfection. Details matter in this business. Power is in the presentation as much as the action.

“Time we had a conversation.”

The room where we’re holding her is exactly what it needs to be. Windowless, dark, with only the faintest light seeping in from under the door. No decoration, no comfort, nothing to distract from the reality of her situation. Just concrete walls, a single chair, and the kind of silence that makes people want to talk.

I position myself in the deepest shadows and wait, watching her slowly return to consciousness. There is a single, dim lightbulb shining over her. She’s already awake, though she’s trying to hide it. Her breathing is too controlled, too measured for someone truly unconscious. Smart, but I’ve seen enough people come around from drugs to know the difference.

I can see her testing her restraints carefully, the zip ties around her wrists, trying to piece together what happened. Her head must be pounding from the sedative—it always does—but she’s fighting through it, thinking, calculating.

After three minutes of this charade, I decide to end it.

“Awake at last.”

She jerks toward my voice, and I watch her strain her eyes trying to see me in the darkness. Her heart rate picks up—I can see it in the pulse jumping at her throat—but she doesn’t cry out. Doesn’t beg. Interesting.

“What’s a woman like you doing in such a bad neighborhood?” I ask, keeping my voice neutral. The kind of tone that makes smart people nervous.

“My business is none of your concern,” she snaps back, and I’m impressed that her voice barely shakes.

“Well-bred girls like you shouldn’t wander into neighborhoods like that, principessa. It invites trouble.”

“That still doesn’t give you the right to kidnap me,” she fires back, lifting her chin in defiance. “And my name is not principessa. ”

I chuckle, genuinely amused. Most people in her position would be sobbing by now. “Bold words for someone tied up and alone.”

I start moving, circling her in the darkness, my footsteps deliberate against the concrete. She tries to track the sound, turning her head to follow my voice, but in the complete blackness that surrounds her, she’s blind.

Her vision adjusts when I walk out of the darkest shadow, her golden-brown eyes find me immediately. I’m standing just outside the circle of light, but she can make out enough. I watch her catalog details with quick intelligence—my height, my build, the expensive cut of my suit.

To my surprise, she doesn’t cower. Instead, she lifts her chin in defiance, meeting my stare with more backbone than most men show me.

I step into the light, letting her see me clearly for the first time. The scar along my jaw catches the light, a reminder of the night my father died.

My tattoos are visible at my wrists, dark ink that speaks of a world she’s only glimpsed from the protected heights of Moretti society. I know I carry myself with the controlled presence that has made grown men piss themselves.

Yet she doesn’t look away.

I can see her mind working, trying to piece together what’s happening. “How long was I unconscious?” she asks, her voice steady despite her situation.

“Long enough,” I say simply.

Her eyes narrow as she processes this. “The Morettis will be looking for me. They’ll tear Chicago apart—”

“They’ll have to expand their search,” I tell her, watching understanding dawn in her eyes. “Welcome to New York. My territory.”

The color drains from her face as the implications sink in. The kind of operation this represents, the resources required to move someone across state lines without detection. Her breathing quickens slightly, but she fights to maintain composure. “Do you know who I am?” I ask.

She studies my face intently, looking for clues. “Should I?”

“Most people would say yes.”

We stare at each other, me patient as death, her trying to put pieces together. I can practically see the wheels turning—Chicago to New York, the kind of operation this represents, the casual way I talk about territory.

Then recognition clicks, and her face goes pale.

“Romano,” she breathes.

I smile, and it’s not a nice expression. “Getting warmer.”

“Matteo Romano.” Her voice is barely a whisper now. “Il Diavolo.”

“Clever girl.”

“What do you want from me?” she asks, and I catch something breathless in her voice.

“You’re the reason the Morettis declared war,” I tell her, watching her face carefully for tells.

Her eyes widen with what looks like genuine shock. “I don’t know what you mean…”

“Sure you do.”

She’s quiet for a moment, processing my words. “I told them Lorenzo was murdered by unknown attackers. If they declared war on you, that decision was theirs, not based on anything I said.” I study her with the patience of a predator, weighing her words, looking for the lies underneath. But there’s something in her denial that rings true. Or maybe she’s just a very good actress.

“Someone so small and gentle shouldn’t cause such problems,” I murmur, moving closer.

I reach out slowly, making sure she can see the movement coming. Her eyes track my hand but she doesn’t pull away when I trace one finger along her cheek. Her skin is soft, unmarked by the kind of violence that shapes people like me.

“Don’t touch me,” she says, jerking her head away from my touch.

But I don’t stop. I let my finger trail along her jawline, curious to see what she’ll do.

Quick as a snake, her teeth close on my finger—hard, sharp, aiming for bone. I pull back just in time, genuinely impressed by her speed and viciousness.

I laugh, I can’t help it. When was the last time someone tried to bite me? “There she is. I was wondering when the real Alessia Moretti would show up.”

The sound of my laughter makes fury blaze in her eyes. “You think this is funny?”

“I think you’re far more interesting than I expected.”

“Interesting enough to let me go?” she shoots back.

“Interesting enough to keep you alive.”

Her jaw tightens. “How generous.”

“I can be.” I circle her chair slowly, and her head turns to follow my movement, cataloging every step. “Tell me about your husband’s enemies.”

“I wouldn’t know. Lorenzo didn’t discuss business with me.”

“Of course not. Good wives don’t ask questions.” I pause behind her chair, and her shoulders tense. “But smart wives listen.”

“Maybe I’m not that smart.” Her shoulders lift in a small shrug, but her eyes cut away, lashes lowering as if to hide something she doesn’t want me to read. Her fingers curl tight against the armrest, betraying nerves her voice tries to disguise.

“Oh, but you are.” I move back into her line of sight. “Smart enough to survive four months of marriage to Lorenzo Moretti. That takes considerable skill.”

Something flickers across her face—too quick to read, but not quick enough to hide.

“You’re fishing,” she says.

“I’m conversing.”

A sound from the darkness makes her eyes dart toward the shadows where my men wait—shapes she can sense but not see. Her breathing changes, just slightly, as she counts the invisible presences surrounding us.

I see the moment it truly hits her. Her knuckles go white around the arms of the chair, her breath stutters, and her throat works in a hard swallow she can’t quite finish. Her pupils dilate, eyes darting to the shadowed corners, as if she’s counting threats she can’t see. Her composure slips in that fraction of a second, enough to show she’s realized the truth: this isn’t some street kidnapping — she’s sitting in the grip of power itself.

Before I can push further, the door opens. Light spills in from the hallway, and Enzo enters first, lean and deadly, his serpent tattoo visible in the dim light. Behind him comes my brother Luca, younger, softer-featured, but carrying the Romano name with quiet authority.

“Matteo,” Luca says, and something in his tone tells me we have a problem. I glance between my men and the woman tied to the chair. She’s watching this exchange with curious eyes; no doubt cataloging names and faces and power dynamics even in her helpless state.

I’m about to leave when she speaks up.

“Are you planning to keep me tied up forever?”

The question is pure defiance, thrown at me like a challenge. Not a plea from a broken woman but a demand from someone who refuses to accept defeat. Even now, even helpless, she’s trying to seize some small measure of control.

I turn back to her fully, and for a moment, I feel something almost like admiration for her unbreakable spirit.

“You belong to me now, principessa, ” I tell her, letting the Italian endearment carry both promise and threat. “What happens to you will be decided by me alone.”

I leave her in the chair. The door shuts behind me, the lock snapping into place.

Luca and Enzo are waiting in the hallway, faces tight.

“The head injury isn’t serious,” Enzo reports, rolling up his sleeves, serpent tattoo catching the light. “No fracture, no bleeding. She’ll have a headache, but nothing lasting.”

A hostage with a broken mind is useless and we both know that. Relief flickers through me, though I bury it.

Luca shifts uneasily, the way he always has before delivering bad news. “We searched her belongings. Purse, keys, phone. The usual. But there was also an envelope from the Chicago Family Health Center. Pregnancy test results. Positive. Ten weeks old.”

I take this in without surprise. Of course, she’s pregnant. It explains everything—their desperation, Emilio’s recklessness. A widow carrying the Moretti heir is worth starting a war over.

“Expected,” I say flatly. “Emilio wouldn’t spill blood over a barren widow. The child makes her invaluable.”

That should be the end of it. Yet something gnaws at me. That clinic—wrong part of town, the kind of place the Morettis would never send their women. And her denials during interrogation… not fearful.

“I want Dr. Reeves to confirm the pregnancy,” I decide. My tone leaves no room for argument. “If we’re going to use her as leverage, I need certainty. I don’t deal in assumptions.”

Both men nod, and I turn away, already thinking about my next move.

War isn’t won on luck. It’s won on information. And Alessia Moretti’s truth is about to become mine.

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Chapter One

Isabelle

I was in a terrible mood. I knew it, my friends knew it, hell, even the noisy kid who sat behind me on the flight knew it.

The moment the plane landed, I pulled out my phone and sent a message to my family to let them know that my plane had landed safely in Italy.

“My valium didn’t kick in, can you believe that? I’m so stressed out that even Valium couldn’t calm me.” I texted my mom, who had been trying to get me to back out of this trip for the past two weeks.

Half a second later, my phone rang. “Hi mom.” I said.

“You know, it’s not too late to turn around and get on a plane back home.” She suggested, and that made me laugh.

“I can’t do that, and you know why.”

“I know, I know, you’re the maid of honor. Honestly, I don’t know why you accepted. If she’s going to have a destination wedding, the most she can do is provide for your transportation.” I sighed. It was a topic that mom had a lot to say about.

“Mom, I’m already here. I just want to make the best of it.” I responded in a tired tone, feeling resigned. Already, my mind was running through the checklist of things I had to do. As the maid of honor, I had some tasks and although I told them I would be late, I was still responsible for helping the bride.

Once the call ended, I considered switching my phone off. My attention was drawn to the carousel, where I spotted my bag. In one swift motion, I stepped forward and pulled it off. From the corner of my eyes, I could see a hand reach for my bag too, but I swiftly moved it out of the way. I didn’t bother looking at the person because I believed it was probably a mistake and I was in a hurry to take a shower and take a nap.

“Hey! Signorina!” I heard someone yell behind me alongside a pair of frenzied footsteps running in my direction. The voice was in a thick Italian accent, and although I hadn’t seen the speaker, I could practically feel the magnetism rolling off the low voice.

I looked around briefly, but the crush of the crowd made it hard for me to see anything, so I quickly put it out of my mind.

My arm felt weighed down a bit by my bag, but I didn’t think anything of it. I was tired and cranky, and no doubt that made my luggage feel heavier than it had when I had checked it in.

“I just need to get to the hotel and rest.” I mumbled to myself, feeling quite exhausted from both the trip and the crush of people all around me.

As I walked, I kept my head down, relying on spotting the feet before me to avoid bumping into anyone. It proved to be an efficient method until I spotted a pair of black leather shoes blocking my way. Without looking up, I moved to the left, intending to sidestep the person, but the person moved to the left too. When I moved to the right, the person did the same. Finally, I lost my temper and looked up so I could face whoever it was squarely.

At first glance, I was stunned. A man stood before me with tanned skin, broad shoulders, dark hair and even darker eyes. He had a sharp look in his eyes, like an eagle looking at its prey. He was wearing a dark suit that sat on his body so well that I had no doubt it was tailored. A had a gold watch on his wrist, and his hands were clenched into fists.

“Who sent you? Where are you going with my bag?” He asked, making me raise an eyebrow. I turned my gaze to the bag I was pulling behind me. It was black with a bright red tag dangling from its handle. It was a distinctive thing, so I knew that I was not mistaken. It felt like the interruption from the man before me was some kind of scam.

“This is my bag. You need to get lost and try your scam somewhere else.” His eyebrows raised at my words, and the look in his eyes grew even sharper, like an unsheathed blade.

“American?” He asked in a thick Italian accent.

“What’s it to you?” I asked.

“Lady, you have my bag and you’re refusing to give it back,” he said as in one swift motion, he stepped forward and grabbed the bag.

“Lady? Buddy, I’m saying you’re trying to scam the wrong girl. You think I don’t know what my bag looks like? I just had it on the carousel.” I felt like the unreasonable one as my voice grew louder, but I didn’t take kindly to being called lady.

Something about how loud I was being must have frightened him because he took a step back before looking around. However, he couldn’t move too far because we were both clutching the bag.

“Let’s be reasonable, why would I want your bag?” He asked after taking a deep breath.

“I could ask you the same thing, pal.” Him telling me to be reasonable just managed to piss me off even more.

“I’ve tried to be nice but I don’t have time for this, lady, let go of my bag now.” All traces of patience were gone as he spoke. Something about his aura shifted as he looked angry and dangerous. The shift scared me for one moment before I felt a quick rush of courage.

“This bag is mine, and since you’re not going to listen, I’m just going to prove it to you.” I finally snapped, tired of going back and forth with him.

I swiftly pinched the zipper before pulling it open so he could see the contents of the bag.

“All the stuff in here is mine…” My words trailed off as my gaze fell on the contents of the bag.

Money. Stacks of it. Clear bags of white powder. Maybe drugs. And worse, four black handguns. There was no mistaking them for anything else.

I could feel the blood drain out of my face. Immediately after I saw those things, I let go of the bag as fast as I could. My hands started trembling and I slowly lifted my gaze from the bag to the man holding it. I couldn’t see the expression on his face through the blur of the tears that were forming in my eyes.

“See? Definitely not my bag.” I managed to stammer. However, I didn’t need to see the look on his face to tell that I was in serious trouble.

Chapter Two

Vincenzo

I had just met this woman, but she was already getting on my nerves in ways that I couldn’t have imagined. I could see the fear in her hazel brown eyes and I couldn’t help but sigh. All of this could have been avoided if she had not been so stubborn. I had started to get suspicious when she had been so adamant to claim that the bag was hers. Who had sent her?

I looked into her eyes and I thought I saw a hint of a plea there, but I knew I couldn’t let her go. This woman might not have just been a random stranger. Who knows which one of my enemies may have sent her?

I zipped up the bag quickly, making sure not to take my eyes off of her. She had already seen its contents, who knew what she would do next?

With one hand I picked up the bag and slung it over my shoulder, with the other, I pulled her close to me, her brown curls coming loose from her updo and cascading down her back. Quickly, I brought out my gun from my jacket and held it firmly against her small waist. I could feel her whole body go stiff the moment she felt the cold metal against her side.

“Don’t make a scene,” I whispered, moving even closer to her. I took in a whiff of her scent. She smelled amazing. I could feel every hair on my body standing straight. Who the fuck was this strange woman, and why did she have such an effect on me’ I liked it and hated it at the same time.

“Focus,” I thought, snapping myself out of it. Now was not the time to bask in this strange woman’s scent, or even admire how beautiful her hair sat in soft curls on her shoulders.

Her eyes were now as wide as golf balls and looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets. I could see that she was scared and it almost made me smile; what had happened to the confident woman from a minute ago? It was then that I noticed that her eyes were not just hazel brown, they also had emerald green specs in them.

“You’re coming with me,” I whispered, pulling her close and taking in more of her scent. She smelled like roses with a hint of chocolate, and it was slowly becoming addictive.

“One wrong move and I’ll make sure you regret it.”

I could tell that she understood the gravity of the situation then.

“Walk,” I said, holding her tighter. I made sure there was enough force in my voice that she would take me seriously.

I ignored the looks of people around me and continued to move towards the entrance. I couldn’t tell what they were thinking, but I knew that my face and my demeanor was keeping them at bay. They dared not approach. When we got there, I signaled to my driver to bring the car closer. He nodded and moved the car in front of us.

“Where…?” she started to ask, but a look from me shut her up immediately. She was practically shaking, but I didn’t care. If she was really my enemy, she deserved what was coming to her.

My driver stepped out and opened the back door for me to enter. I kept ignoring the inquisitive looks of those around me and shoved her into the back of the car.

“Get in,” I said. She seemed like she was about to resist, so I pushed her harder until she was fully seated. I couldn’t afford for her to make a scene in a place that was as crowded as the airport, it would not end well.

I didn’t need to tell my driver what to do, because as soon as the door closed, he sped off, away from the airport, leaving the bustling terminal behind. I didn’t take my eyes off her for a second. I had a feeling that if I let my guard down, she would do something stupid. I watched her, waiting for her to make a move, but she didn’t; she just sat there, looking like a deer caught in headlights. I kept the gun trained on her still, unwilling to give her any chance; who knew what she was capable of. I no longer had to hide it, so I lifted it a little bit higher, directly above her chest.

All of a sudden, she started breathing heavily, casing the gun to move up and down. She was looking around frantically, as if she suddenly realized how much danger she was in.

“Keep quiet and behave,” I said, lifting the gun so that it was now pointed at her head. She calmed down instantly, raising her hands a little as if trying to tell me that she was up to nothing. I let my grip on the gun relax, not because I trusted her, but because I knew that I could overpower her if she tried anything. The car was now very silent, the tension so thick that it was palpable. I cleared my throat and began to speak.

“We are heading to my estate. There, we will have a little chat about your involvement in all of this.”

She said nothing, she just continued to stare into the distance. She was now gripping her thighs. I could tell that she was scared. Even though she was scared, she clenched her jaw, staring stubbornly ahead.

I suddenly became curious about her. Who exactly was she? If she had been sent to spy on me, at this point she probably would have started begging for her life and spilling the secrets of the master that sent her, but instead she was quiet. She said nothing, she didn’t even look at me. She looked scared and stubborn at the same time. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of her.

She then turned to look out the window, gazing at the sights around us. It was like she was looking at everything except me. I shrugged, thinking that it was probably because I was her captor.

I looked outside and saw that the sun was already setting over Palermo. Though it was beautiful, it meant I had to hurry and get to the bottom of the situation that I found myself in.

Her eyes were now darting nervously around, I just watched her. It was good that she was nervous, that was more of a normal reaction than her staring straight ahead. She was probably reacting that way because of the opulent gate we were driving into.

The estate, a sprawling villa nestled among the trees sat ominously at the top of a hill. I glanced at her and I could see that she was still looking around nervously. Her face was now pale, and her knuckles white as she gripped her seat.

The tall gates were open, revealing meticulously maintained gardens and

the imposing mansion that served as the Caruso family’s stronghold.

“Out,” I ordered, as soon as the car came to a stop.

She hesitated for a moment before she finally stepped out. She took one hesitant step after the other before she stood, looking around her in awe and a little bit of apprehensiveness.

I quickly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the entrance. She got the message and started to move, matching my steps. Soon we passed the foyer and went up the staircase. I could tell that she was trying to hide her emotions, I could tell that the house was very impressive to her. I had lived there all my life so I was no longer moved by the grandeur of the mansion.

Soon, we reached the guest room and I dragged her to the bed, waiting for her to snap out of whatever she was feeling.

“You will stay here,” I said, in a calm tone. I wanted her to understand that I was serious, “Don’t even try to escape,” I said, looking straight at her.

I could see a flash of defiance in her eyes, but I ignored it. She would realize soon enough that there was no escape. Even if she tried to run, she wouldn’t get far. The room was far too high for her to use the window, and if she ran, one of my staff members would shoot her before even letting me know, because that was just standard practice, and they were always watching.

I closed the door behind me and locked it. I waited a moment, knowing I would hear her try to open it. When she did, I almost laughed, then I shook my head and left. She just doesn’t listen.

“Pietro!” I called, putting as much volume behind my voice as I could. I knew he was around the house, and I needed him now.

He appeared soon enough, with an eyebrow raised, as if asking me what I needed. Pietro and I had always been different. He was a calmer, more relaxed version of me, but that didn’t mean that he was any less dangerous. We had received the same training, we had had to, for our survival. Even now, he was wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt with sunglasses while I was in a dress shirt, pants and dress shoes. He was my second in command, the one I asked to do almost everything when I wasn’t available. I trusted my brother with my life.

“Take the suitcase to the buyer,” I said, giving him the box, “make sure everything goes smoothly.” Pietro already knew about the suitcase so I didn’t need to explain too much. He also understood how important the suitcase was and why it had to get to the buyer. Pietro nodded, not needing an explanation.

After he left, I went back to the guest room and unlocked the door, taking a moment to prepare myself for the interrogation ahead.

When I entered the room, she was pacing nervously. She was moving so fast that it was almost dizzying. She also didn’t notice that I had entered the room until I stood in front of her. She stopped immediately, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and determination. I stood on the tips of my toes like a cheetah about to pounce. I didn’t know what to expect from her.

“What is your name?” I asked.

She looked confused and then shocked.

“I said what is your name, do you not speak English?”

“Isabelle,” she said. She looked both confused and shocked that she had spoken..

“Sit, Isabelle,” I commanded, pointing to a chair by the window.

She looked like she had something to say, but she moved quietly to the chair, albeit reluctantly.

“Why are you in Palermo?” I asked, standing directly in front of her. I made sure to sound as serious as possible, so that she knew I wasn’t playing.

Isabelle took a deep breath then started talking. She was talking about a lot of things but at the same time she wasn’t saying much. I realized that she had started rambling out of nervousness. I let her speak, perhaps I could find something useful if I listened well.

“I’m here for my best friend’s wedding. I didn’t even want to come, but she insisted. My ex-boyfriend is the groom, and it’s just… it’s a nightmare, honestly. I thought your suitcase was mine. It was an honest mistake!”

I raised an eyebrow, watching her speak. For someone who seemed so quiet, she certainly talked a lot. It was a bit comical, the speed at which she was talking. If not for the seriousness of the situation, I might have laughed.

“You really expect me to believe everything you just said?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.

“Yes!” She answered immediately. I just continued to stare at her, really studying her. I searched her eyes and saw that there was nothing but earnestness there. In my line of business, you had to be very good at reading people, and I was not sensing a single bit of deceit from her.

“Do you understand what you saw in that suitcase?”

I was leaning down now, making sure that my eyes were on the same level as hers.

She nodded, swallowing hard, so hard that I could see the lump go down her throat.

“Ye-yes, I’m not stupid,” she was stuttering now, just like that, her confidence has evaporated, “I know what it is, I also know that it’s illegal.” She paused, searching my eyes. She was trying to figure out if she had said something wrong.

“Oh really?” I asked, raising a brow, “do you understand what happens to people who get involved in things like this?”

She froze. Leaning back a little, I could tell that I had scared her. Good. I maintained my stance, making sure not to look away from her eyes. I saw see fear in them for a second, then it faded away, she now looked defiant.

“You can’t kill me,” she said, her voice firm at first, then trembling. “I’m supposed to be at the wedding. If I don’t show up, people will notice. Authorities will be alerted. I’m the maid of honor. It’s the wedding of the year.”

I leaned back, looking at her, trying to figure out if she was lying. She never once looked away from my gaze. She was telling the truth.

If she was right, then I really couldn’t get rid of her. I couldn’t afford to draw attention from the American police right now. It could jeopardize my position in the election for the Cupola, I needed to be careful.

“Fine,” I said, with a long sigh. I was going to play along, for now, “if your story checks out, you can go to the wedding.”

I rolled my eyes when she mumbled a weak “Thank you.” She must’ve thought she’d be free to go.

She didn’t know I had a condition.

“But, I’m coming with you. And I won’t let you leave my sight, not even for a second.”

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Chapter 1

Virgilio

This devil is out to bargain.

After being cleared by some bodyguards just outside the door, I step into the VIP section of this Bratva-owned club.

I stop at the entrance and scan the room. It is not my turf, and while I do not feel uncomfortable in any way, I know it’s better to study the environment you are entering, just in case.

That is why I also brought along four bodyguards.

I finally spot Mikhail, the Bratva Pakhan I’m here to see, sprawled on a semi-circle French rose lounge couch, with fairy lights in the same color hanging down from its headrest to the floor.

This will be a simple and quick negotiation.

I take a step in Mikhail’s direction. At the same time, a girl in a glimmering, deep-colored, very skimpy bikini with fairy-like feathers strapped to her, saunters elegantly on strappy heels to his table with a champagne bucket and bottle, and flutes.

She is an exotic dancer, and I’m fully aware that after this meeting, this place will be crowded with men who come here to have their pick for the night.

I know these are girls who no longer own their lives. They have been kidnapped and reduced to nothing but objects. This bar is exclusive for a reason. The girls have nowhere to go and are at the mercy of the Bratva until they outlive their use.

“Ettore Russo,” Mikhail calls to me. “Welcome.” The man has always blended perfectly with all the trends.

I already hate more than half the human population, so my hatred for him is just a grain of sand on the beach.

I strut to him. No rush.

“Champagne?” Mikhail asks as I approach him, hand pointing for me to take the seat beside him. It is another semi-circle lounge couch with a better view of the cubicles.

“Water,” I sit. “Thank you.” I ignore his drawn-together eyebrows at my request for water, and after contemplating it for a while, he snaps his fingers at the girl who brought the champagne.

She tips her head, and then with the same grace, she saunters to the large, stretched bar under the hanging cubicles to a bartender dressed in the same slutty fairy costume.

“The bartender makes a good mix with eh…” he circles his forefinger, trying to remember, and then snaps his finger when it comes to him, “bourbon, scotch, or whiskey,” he smiles, leaning into his seat with satisfaction for remembering and thinking he sounds classy.

Never seen a man with so much access to class and yet no class of his own.

It is not how he dresses; he pays to look good and he mostly does look put together. He is buffed, tall, and very lousy.

Other than his appearance, though, every single thing that comes out of his mouth that isn’t business-related is classless. It speaks of the rottenness inside the man.

The girl returns with a tray holding a glass of water with a slice of cucumber. She stops by the table beside my seat, and without meeting my eyes, she drops the tray.

“She is beautiful,” Mikhail swells. “All my fairies are.” He taps his lap, and the girl goes over to him, but instead of sitting on it, she kneels beside him and drops her head on his lap, tilting her head in a way that one side of her cheek is on him, making her look like a loyal dog.

I’m bored. “Business?”

“Sure,” he clears his throat, “you never hover, Ettore. Always business, business, business,” he sways, like he is making music with the word, thickening his accent, “All work and no play…” I scowl at him, and he grunts, “Fine, business.”

I’m here to discuss an anti-trust agreement concerning our mutual supplier—the Colombian Cartel. There’s enough cake for both clans; we only have to figure out how to slice it.

“Good enough?” Mikhail asks after stating the conditions of our agreement that he thinks will be favorable to both parties.

“Good enough,” I will give it to him when it comes to business. He knows just how to handle things. He is practical, and I admire that.

“Good,” he claps his hands and pours himself some champagne. “We should do this more often,” he lifts his glass. Life shouldn’t be about business alone; men need to have fun,” he strokes the ponytail of the girl, who is still kneeling on the floor. “Too many toys for a grown man,” he chuckles. “Am I right?”

I won’t dignify his words with an answer. Because if I do, I might just undo whatever truce this meeting has done for both clans.

“I was told you are no fun,” he leans forward, bringing his stoned dark eyes to a snit.

“I have no time for fun while dealing with business matters, and I’m here for work, Mikhail,” I haven’t touched my glass of only the fucking devil knows what, so I pick it up for the sake of courtesy, and stroke the cold glass, enjoying the condensation. “But thank you for…”

My following line of words drowns as I catch a shocking sight in my peripheral vision.

I snap my head in the direction of what feels like a hallucination.

But it is not.

Zoe.

Hell, it is her. Unmistakably her. The light and heavy glitter makeup has done enough to mask her, but I would recognize her anywhere.

The exotic dancers in the cubicles retire, and Zoe, along with another lady dressed in the same fairy costumes, saunters elegantly up the stairs to the cubicles. I watch, unable to tear my eyes off her as she climbs in, waits for the song to cue her, and then starts to dance around the pole like a diva.

She is alive.

I sit straight but then remember where I am and regain my composure.

Zoe is alive. After fifteen fucking years, she is alive and has been under my nose all this while. A slave, stripping at the Bratva club for men who will buy her for the night and use her as a toy.

“See something you like?” Mikhail sips from his champagne.

“How much is she?” I cut to the chase, “The one on the left.”

“For the night or the weekend?” Mikhail leans forward, eager to sponsor this new side of me he sees for the first time, “I can let you have her for a night for free.”

“I want to keep her,” I lean back on my seat, masking my eagerness. I would raze down the club to get her out of here with me if possible. “Forever.”

“No,” Mikhail tuts and shakes his head, “She makes the costumes for the fairies, and people love that shit,” he sips his champagne and then shakes his head again as if he is still thinking about it, “Too valuable.”

“Everyone has a price, Mikhail,” I keep calm, but I want to rip him apart thinking of the inhuman ways Zoe must have been forced to survive, “Name it.”

She has been declared dead for fifteen years now. Was it he who took her and declared her dead to the press?

Fifteen fucking years of being a fucking sex slave.

I grit my teeth harder as I realize she wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t meddled. She wouldn’t have had to fucking live this life if I hadn’t fucking intruded.

I brought this on her.

I can’t fucking leave here without her.

“A price, Mikhail,” fucking damn it, just say your fucking price, for fuck’s sake.

“Still no,” he says as he chugs his champagne, some of the liquid spilling on his beard and suit jacket. “Save your money. I can give you any other girl, but she is too valuable.”

I observe him, “Would six figures be a good start?” I lean forward, resting one elbow on my knee, and in this position, I can see him breaking. Ultimately, they got these girls to make money off them, “On top of it, I will allow you an open request for personal business in the future.”

Now, that one piques his interest, and he sets his champagne flute down on the table. He unbuttons his suit jacket and then harrumphs lousily.

He knows I’m quite influential in our world and very beneficial to anyone who has me on their side. I can give him access to the people he has spent all his bitter years trying to access.

“Five million dollars,” he thinks the amount will make me back away.

“Two million dollars,” I’m determined to bargain. But I’m all too aware that I’m willing to give him whatever he wants if he refuses. I want her. And I’m not leaving this club without her, “Two million and my influence, starting from getting you an invitation to the underground gala next month.”

“There is an underground gala happening next month?” He taps the cheek of the girl kneeling beside him, and she stands, taking that as a dismissal. She saunters away.

“Yes,” I know no one would invite him, especially not the host, but the host owes me a favor, and he can stand Mikhail for a few hours if I tell him to.

“And that’s just one thing I will be getting out of this?” He asks curiously, and I nod.

“Two more invitations and you can tell by the first that they will be completely worth it,” I wait for him to break.

It’s simple.

Being accepted means something to him. He has a wounded ego from being stereotyped. He wants to be accepted because, in truth, we are all made from the same soil. The men who won’t accept him are no lesser evil than he is.

“Three million,” he doesn’t mean it. He can take the two million. It’s an outrageous amount, but I know she is worth it.

I try not to look at her as I make my bargain so he doesn’t see my desperation. I can tell by the look in his eyes that he wants this deal more than anything.

“Two million, but if you want three, I take back the invitation…”

“Two million is fine,” he shrugs, “I can let her go for two million,” he makes a sad face, putting up a caricature show as if he is losing something of irreplaceable value. To me, she is that and more. To him, he can cut the bullshit.

“So?” I lean back in my seat.

“I will get the paperwork ready; let her entertain you while I do that,” he says, reaching into the inner pocket of his suit and bringing out his phone. “I didn’t know you were into slaves.” He smiles as if he has just found a buddy in me.

“I’m not,” I set the glass of shit down on the table, then turn my eyes to stare at her as she spins around the pole, then slides down to do a split.

I’m not into slaves.

I’m into her.

Chapter 2

Virgilio

I try not to touch Zoe as I open the door of my car outside the VIP parking lot for her to go in.

I can’t help staring down at her. The same blue eyes that remind me of the glistening ocean on a sunny day. The same mousy brown hair, chin-length, a little duller than I used to remember, but still the same.

She stands by the door. Her hesitation is like a slingshot aimed at the door of my mind’s dungeon, where I locked up the memories that now make up all of my nightmares.

The last time I saw her, she hesitated. And maybe I should have listened.

She didn’t want to follow through with it, even though a part of her knew it was for her own good.

“Are you sure?” Zoe stuffs her mouth with peanuts like she always does whenever she is anxious, and right now, she is a wreck of nervousness.

“Yes,” I answer again. It doesn’t matter that she has been asking the same question since we got here; I will keep giving the same answer until we get out of here and for good. “You will love Milan,” I add because I have seen pictures, but it’s not that we are leaving just for the love of Milan.

Zoe is pursuing her dream of becoming a fashion designer, and I am pursuing my dream of watching her succeed.

We are so close to putting everything and everyone behind us, and each step we take, hands interlocked, leading to the airport terminal feels like a step into the promise of a new beginning for both of us.

She is leaving her abusive father behind, and so am I.

All the hard work she has put into designing and having me model for her became fruitful when she got picked to be part of the breaking-out designers to showcase their collection in this season’s Milan Fashion Week.

“We are never coming back,” she smiles, and then more peanuts get poured into her mouth directly from the pack.

No more covering up her bruises with makeup. No more masking her pain, pretending to be happy. Now, she can truly live and live freely. She has been given a shot and I’m grateful just to be a part of it.

We breeze through the crowd, and I can feel the excitement inside her just by glancing at her face from the corner of my eyes.

“Did you remember to get the toothbrush?” She asks, not stopping like she normally does when she remembers something she has forgotten.

“Yes,” I chuckle, “But I told you we don’t need to fly across countries with toothbrushes,” I resist the pinch to suck my teeth, “No one does that.”

“It’s better to be safe, to be prepared,” she ruffles through the pocket of her faded copper hoodie, my hoodie that she is never giving back. With her hand holding the pack of peanuts, she brings out a rumpled paper that is our to-do list: “You get rashes when you don’t use your soap. Did you bring a bar at least?”

I laugh now, loving that she remembers so much for both of us, “I will take a rash anytime in Milan with you…”

“Did you bring it, Virgilio?” She frowns, and I come in front of her, walking backward to give her my best reassuring smile that everything will be fine, but then, in the distance, I see him.

Cold skates through my veins and goosebumps rise on my skin, visible through the parts of my lower arms that aren’t covered by the folded sleeves of my ivory sweater.

Officer Joseph Gray.

Her father and, what’s worse, he is in his cop uniform, meaning he will be unstoppable. All he has to do is flash a badge and alert airport security that Zoe is his daughter.

I can’t let him win. We are so close to freedom. Maybe not we, but she is. She can go to Milan. I can always catch up with her. But if he gets her now, I doubt he will let her out of his sight ever again.

“I need to use the restroom,” I shrug out of my backpack and shove it to her, making her halt from the weight and force, “Zoe,” I keep my cool as best as I can, observing that Officer Gray is now standing and talking to airport security, “You go and never look back.”

She snorts, “You want to use the restroom, why would I not wait for you?”

I smile at her, then tenderly brush her cheek with the pad of my thumb. “Board the plane,” I say, leaning down to kiss her on the lips. I savor the moment, knowing it will never be like I dreamed it to be. I wanted our first kiss to be in Milan.

She follows my gaze to see her father behind me, and her blue eyes go wide in panic, “No, I’m not leaving you behind, Virgilio, we are doing this together, please,” she grips my sweater, my backpack smothering between us, “You can’t be here alone with him. He will kill you.” 

“Listen, he must not see you. If he does, all of this will go to waste,” I drop my hands on her shoulders. “Get to Milan, and I will be right behind you, I promise.” I know I might never be able to keep my promise, but I make it anyway. “Go, now,” I bark.

She clasps my backpack to her chest, the one with all our savings, hesitation waving in her now teary eyes. She nods and then dashes past me to slip into the crowd.

I take a detour in case Joseph sees me so he doesn’t look straight behind me and find her. I aim towards him, and he lifts his eyes from the airport security to me.

“Where is she?” He thunders, his brows weaving in a straight line, his forehead beaded with sweat. Brown eyes like his hair, the same color as hers. Aside from that, they have nothing else in common. I have seen pictures of her mother and thank heavens she took after her.   

He closes the distance and tries to move past me, but I tackle him to the ground with all the strength I can muster.

Right now, the best form of defense is to attack him.

He is a big man, and I’m a tall kid, but I do not stand a chance with his build and height.

He switches, turning me over, and then the punches come down like a gush of wind. Everywhere he hits hurt like shit, and I’m screaming my guts out, spurting blood. He keeps hitting.

The pain is not unfamiliar thanks to my father but this feels different because, with every blow, I think of how she has had to endure this.

Even when someone tries to get him off me, he still manages to get them off to continue with his assault.

I’m fighting back as much as I can. Crowds gather, chaos breaks out, and it’s the perfect mix to keep buying her time. Just a little bit more and…

The announcement for our flight comes on, and I cave in, allowing my bruised body to rest before I push it too far and get dragged out of this airport as a dead body.

It would have been worth it to die for her, but she needs me alive.

I drop to the floor, but it’s fine.

The sound of the boarding call for her flight makes me smile as my body and mind fold into numbness.

She is on her way. She made it. And that means we made it.

Chapter 3

Zoe

Mine?

Why?

I stare at the bedroom I have been given in my new owner’s estate, tugging at his shirt—the one he took off to give to me when he noticed I was cold in his car.

Why would he give me his shirt?

I also wondered why he wasn’t saying anything or asking to sample his purchase.

I thought about the fact that I had never been owned for more than a few nights, and then, somehow, he bought me for himself. For life.

I flip my eyes from the queen-size bed covered in black sheets to the window behind it. A glass wall gives a view into the expanse of New York, one I have never been privileged enough to see.

Except for the whiskey-gold lights arranged around the floor and ceiling, my bedroom is completely black. The color scheme is the same as the charcoal-dipped exterior, with more whiskey-gold lights lining the rails of the staircase.

He cannot be handing this bedroom to me. I’m a slave. The only time I’m glamorized is when I have to perform on stage. It’s the only time I’m worthy of anything flashy or fancy. Not expensive, just eye-catching so I can make more money for my owner. Former owner.

This is not for me. I shake my head, taking a step back, refusing to accept this space as mine. It’s new and clean. It’s not a place for me.

I cringe at the neatness of it.

I can sleep in the garage or somewhere else. If he is giving me this, what would I have to do to earn it?

My former owner made me work and owned my body because it was a way to pay for the food I ate, the water I had access to, the mattress, and the four walls I was given. Still, I could never pay off their kindness.

What would I have to do to earn this?

I can feel his eyes on me as I step back again. His breathing on my neck spikes the hairs on my skin.

I gulp down nervous knots in my throat and take a step forward.

I turn to him, clasping my hands in front of me, feeling out of place since I’m still in my costume and this is not a stage. Or could it be what he wants me to be? A stripper. I can be that. I have been trained to be that.

I take cautious steps towards him, hearing the sound of my clattering heart and berserk pulse. He hasn’t said anything to me. He has been quiet. I don’t like quiet. It forces me to think. It forces me to remember. It forces me to accept reality.

I stop in front of him, not sure what to do with myself or what to do for him.

I do want him to say something. I want him to give me something to work with. Tell me what to do. Give me an order. State the rules. Lay out the punishments.

Tell me how many times I will be allowed to eat in a week or how many times I will be allowed to bathe with warm water. I want him to tell me something.

I lift my eyes from his black dress shoes, trace the seam of his black slacks, the loop of his black leathered belt, the black-stoned cufflinks hooking the collared sleeve of his black dress shirt, the rings on his fingers, the traces of tattoos that disappear into the sleeves of his shirt, back to the black-stoned buttons, and then I pause when I get to the small opening around his neck.

It is not that I find his scars scary, but I wonder if he wants me staring at them.

I want to throw my head back down and keep my eyes on the floor, fearing that I will get punished for this, but again, I should frame his face, even if for the last time.

I suck in air charged by the poignancy of his scent. It’s strong. It’s black. Bold. Daring. Evoking. Provocative. Like him.

I lift my eyes from the slashes of burn marks on one side of his neck, watching the division on his full, perky pastel-pink lips, with one side shrinking from the scars, stretched in a glossy slash.

I keep going, tracing the swipe of the burns until I meet his eyes—dark eyes, black as the color of his hair and aura.

But in them is a pull of familiarity like I have looked into those eyes before. I would remember him if I had seen him somewhere. It would be hard to miss remembering someone who makes something that is supposed to be bizarre and hideous so divine.

It’s like an eclipse on his face. It’s like war in his eyes.

He wears his scars in a way that makes me unashamed to have mine. He wears them beautifully. And he is beautiful.

I drop my eyes, then flutter my lashes to send the thought back to wherever it came from.

More silence.

Deafening. Brain-screeching. Mind-chugging.

We stay breathing, and with each breath I draw, I feel like clawing at my skin because of how the silence crawls on me.

“Food will come,” his voice is the same as everything about him. Black. Only this time it feels the same as molten, still retaining the heat but clogged already from the absence of fire.

It makes me shiver. He makes me shiver.

“Eat and go to bed, it’s been a long night,” he turns to leave, but I catch up quickly.

“Please, music,” I shrink as I feel his eyes on me, and I don’t wait for him to ask why, “I can’t sleep without noise, please,” I explain anyway. “Master?” It’s a question because I don’t know what he would want to be addressed as yet.

“Alexa,” he thrums, the timbre ricocheting in my clattering bones, “Play something… classical.”

A sound booms through invisible speakers, and I shudder, darting around searching for it. Then the music comes. Classical is my favorite.

Tears swell in my chest and mound my eyes as the song fills the room.

“Tell Alexa whatever you want to listen to,” he spins and struts with glacial steps out of the bedroom that is supposed to be mine.

I sit on the floor, pulling my knees to my chest as the soft harmony forms a bubble wrap around my worn-thin frame. I feel like a fabric that has been overworn and patched too many times, and at any point, I will turn chafed between the hard crush of fingers.

I drop my head on my knees and hug myself, marking this position as mine because I’m not leaving this spot. Everything else feels too good to be real.

He feels too good to be real.

But more than that, he feels familiar. Like the missing piece from the center of a puzzle. Like something I’m missing. Like someone I’m missing.

He might be a good thing—the first in fifteen years.

He might be the worst thing to happen to me yet.

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Chapter One

Audry

“Ten minutes to go.” Kylie’s sultry voice in my ear was like a caress and if I didn’t know that she was happily engaged, I’d think she was flirting.

“Why do we have to talk like we’re Navy seals again?” I asked grinning like a mad woman, as I pretended to peruse the shelf of leaflets opposite the hotel reception.

“Shut up and go with it. He’s coming down the stairs.”

“No elevator?”

“Apparently not.”

“What about the underboss?”

“Our interceptor is ready to go as soon as he steps foot in the lobby. That’ll give you a window of maybe three minutes. Don’t waste it.”

“Have I ever been known to waste a single minute?”

Kylie just snorted in my ear. It was a good thing that we were such good friends aside from her being my PA, because otherwise I would be obliged to fire her on the spot. My target, Marco Cassio of the Cassio Cosa Nostra crime family stepped into the lobby. I’d seen pictures of him, of course – Kylie is very thorough in her research – but whoa the man… clean took my breath away.

I mean, those shoulders alone should be illegal, and nobody would blame me if I just walked up to him and buried my head between his pecks. Furthermore, who really had that shoulder to chest ratio in real life? Movie stars maybe, not ordinary human beings with crime families to run. It was just so unfair, why did he have to look so good?

The black hair, black eyes, black suit really add to the air of danger about him, and weirdly enough, the scar on his face just enhanced the mystique instead of being off-putting.

Oh, I am going to enjoy this job.

“Stop salivating and get in position, Audry. Interceptor making contact… now,” Kylie interrupt my musings. With a sigh I begin walking towards the bar. Through the corner of my eye, I saw Dominic accost Marco and his bodyguard, his glasses askew and looking earnest.

“Mr. Cassio, I have a proposal for you, please read it,” he said loudly, thrusting a bunch of papers at the crime lord. Marco simply glanced at his underboss and walked away. Valerio Cassio, Marco’s brother and right-hand man, grabbed Dominic and began to drag him towards the exit of the hotel.

I crossed my fingers. It was sink or swim time. If Marco didn’t go towards the bar, I would lose my window. I watched with relief as he strode across the room and into the bar. His appointment wasn’t for another hour and a half. Kylie was currently in traffic, making sure his vehicle was delayed, and Dominic was making it very difficult for Valerio to let go of him, as he tried to convince him that his proposal was the best thing that could ever happen to Marco.

“He’s really good at this,” I murmured to Kylie, impressed at the boy’s commitment. We’d hired him from an improv group, told him it was an acting gig.

“The longer you can keep the bodyguard occupied the more you’ll be paid.” I had told him. I could see he was going for gold.

Bravo, I thought as I sauntered towards the bar where I could see Marco ordering a drink. The bartender put the drink in front of him and I picked it up and drained it. “Hoo boy, I needed that.” I twirled around to face Marco with a grin, “Thanks for the drink.”

When I turned, he had been glaring but then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped, face paling as if he’d seen a ghost. “Amy?” He croaked in disbelief.

I stuck my hand out to be shaken, “Good guess, but actually, my name is Audry. Pleasure.”

He stared at my hand as if I had offered him a cancerous tumor to hold. Then he looked up at me. His face tilted to the side. Then he straightened up abruptly. “Apologies. I thought you were someone else.”

I smiled sultrily and took a step closer to him running my red polished nail down his lapel. “I’m up for a little role play if you like.” I grinned cheekily, biting my lower lip and winking.

To my surprise he recoiled, his face closing up. “No thanks,” he said coldly signaling to the waiter. My window was closing rapidly. His brother would be back at any moment.

I lean even closer to him, reaching for his chest, “Aw, you’re no fu-aaah!” I affected to trip, falling against him and letting him catch me with his body.

His strong arms closed around my waist. He picked me up – seemingly effortlessly – and put me away from him. I have to admit it made me a little breathless, the ease with which he did it. Mission accomplished though; it was time to get out of there.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” I feigned embarrassment, shuffling my feet and then hurrying off. On the way I passed his underboss headed towards Marco.

Phew, cutting it rather close.

I opened my hand, looking down at the keycard nestled in my palm. A grin spread over my face, “The eagle has landed or whatever.” I said in my ear.

I could just see Kylie rolling her eyes. “I take it you got the key card.”

“Yep.”

“Good, because Marco’s car is just drawing up at the entrance. I’ll follow him to keep an eye out.”

“Excellent. Going up.”

From my place behind the indoor plant that stood between the elevator and the stairs, I watch as Marco walked out of the hotel, his gait a graceful lope like a gazelle or some big cat. His shoulders filled the doorway, as he stepped out and I shiver, remembering how hard his body felt when I leaned against him.

He could definitely crush me with one hand tied behind his back. He could probably lift me up and break me in half on his knee, twist me around and smash me flat. All without breaking a sweat.

I didn’t know why I was breathing hard. As far as I knew I didn’t have a masochistic streak.

Chapter Two

Marco

“This meeting could have been an e-mail,” I complained to my brother as we once again hit LA traffic. It was a real pain in the ass, even in the cool air-conditioned Lexus I was traveling in.

“But how could the clans impress upon you how worried they are about the Bratva if this was an e-mail?” My brother Valerio replied. He thought he was such a comedian.

“Not helpful.”

“Wait,” he said, glancing back at me from the driver’s seat, “what’s up with you? Something’s wrong.”

I turned away from him to stare out the window, hating how perceptive he always was. I tried shaking my head but he cut me off. “Bullshit. What’s bothering you? You need a clear head for this meeting so you might as well tell me now and get it over with.”

“It’s the weirdest thing,” I shook my head in wonder, “I met some girl at the bar, and she was the spitting image of Amy.”

Valerio remained silent for a handful of seconds while keeping his eyes on the road, clearly caught wrong footed. Whatever he’d expected me to say it wasn’t that. “What do you mean spitting image?”

“I mean copy and paste, dude. She was like a flirtier, sassier version of Amy.”

“You’re not saying you…?”

“No, fuck you. Of course I didn’t sleep with her. Since when have you known me to pick up chicks in bars?”

“Okay so… what did you do?”

“Nothing. She kind of seemed to want to hit on me, but then she tripped and fell and got embarrassed, so she left.”

“And you just let her go?”

“What else was I supposed to do? Tell her, ‘Oh hey you’re the doppelganger of my dead fiancé, crazy huh?’. Or what?” I gave him a look of disgust through the rearview mirror.

He stared back at me through the small mirror, something like pity in his eyes, long enough for it to get slightly uncomfortable. I opened my mouth to tell him to stop but he spoke before me.

“It was probably the light. Those hotel bars are so dark. All she would have needed was some brown hair and eyes, the right height, the right weight…”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I looked away not wanting to argue with him about what I saw. I knew he was just trying to comfort me but, it was coming off a bit like gaslighting.

***

Maybe the Cosa Nostra was no longer what it used to be, but it was still a force to be reckoned with. Nicolò De Luca sat at the head of the table, the head of the largest clan in LA. His specialty was girls and drugs – so there was plenty of business in Hollywood for him. To his right sat Mauro Leggieri, owner of the largest gambling ring in America. To his left, me. Our specialty was transportation – we did it all; guns, drugs, illicit goods, anything that needed transportation, we were your guys. The only thing we refused to transport were human beings.

We left that to the Russians.

Down the table were the smaller outfits, distributors mainly – essentially our main customers.

“Gentlemen welcome.” Nicolò said looking around the table. “I know you’re all busy men, so I appreciate you taking the time to come out to Malibu.”

There were various nods of acknowledgment up and down the table. I waited for him to continue, appreciating that he usually did not waste time before getting to the point.

“Today we are here to discuss the incursion of the Russians into our territories. They’re a little too entitled for our comfort.”

“Not to mention acting up and attracting too much attention.” I added.

Nicolò nodded in my direction. “Yes, thank you Marco. I know your business has been particularly affected by their activities on the docks.”

“Yeah, the authorities don’t look too kindly on human trafficking.”

“That’s why we’re all here today. To discuss solutions.”

I sighed inwardly. I was not a fan of the endless talking we’d been doing all these months while the Russians continued to disrespect us. If I couldn’t convince the other families to ride with me, my options would be very limited. I’d either have to go rogue, or else accept the inevitable.

Both those options sucked.

Chapter Three

Marco

Try as I might, I could not get that woman out of my head.

Even as Nicolò droned on about the importance of maintaining a low profile so as not to attract the wrong kind of attention, I was busy wondering who she was.

Note to self: find out if Amy had any long-lost relatives.

It somehow felt like I was being haunted. Just when I was gearing up for a meeting to discuss Aleksandr Yegorov, I was visited by the ghost of the woman I had loved and that he had killed. The Italians had strict rules about keeping family out of business matters, but the Russians had never gotten that memo. They came to my pre-wedding dinner and opened fire, killing my father and my fiancée.

All just to send a message about trade routes.

What did they think would happen? Did they think I’d just roll over and hand them those routes? It had been ten years, and we were still grappling, albeit surreptitiously. I knew Aleksandr would like to kill me just as much as I would give anything in the world to kill him. But the cowardly clans would not sanction it for fear of setting off a war. Instead, they held talks with the Russians, who conceded that we could keep the disputed trade routes.

Ironically, those routes were already ours, for fuck’s sake. They were the interlopers.

“Don Nicolò, I know we have to think strategically but we need an actual plan for dealing with the Russians once and for all.”

“All in good time, Cassio.” Nicolò said, much to my unending frustration.

The meeting ended without any real resolution, simply more platitudes and action plans I wasn’t sure would ever materialize.

I walked to the car, where Valerio was waiting. He opened the door for me, and I slid into the back, digging into my pocket to pull out my phone. I switched it on, bracing myself for whatever messages were waiting. The meeting had gone on for three hours, so I knew I’d have a bunch.

I wasn’t prepared for just how many though.

My accountant alone had sent thirty messages. I clicked on them with trepidation.

I don’t think selling Accords shares will go down well with the Lamberts. I would also have appreciated it if you had let me know of your intentions.

I frowned, wondering what he was on about. I was about to call him when I read the next message.

Colbert’s too? That deal was part of our overall agreement. Did something happen? I need instruction, Marco.

My heart sank. What the fuck was going on? I called Jade right away.

“Mr. Cassio, finally. What is happening?” she asked sounding frazzled.

“You tell me. I haven’t sold anything. I’ve been in a meeting for the last three hours.”

“What do you mean by that? All the correct authorizations were given for the transfer.”

“You didn’t think to call me first?”

“I’ve been trying to call you!” she screeched. I winced, moving the phone from my ear.

“Yeah okay, send me all the data you have on what’s been sold and when. We need to know who did it and why and we need that info fast. Before I talk to the Lamberts or Colbert, the Hellers or anyone else. Quick, Jade.”

“On it.” She said and hung up. I straightened up, my heart racing with anxiety. Of course, my first suspicions were the Russians, but I didn’t think they were bright enough to pull this off. I had to trust that Jade’s hacker would be able to find out who had done this so I could have the pleasure of killing them once I got all my money back.

And I would get it all back. There was no other option.

I was filled with simmering rage and was determined to find a target for it very soon. I got out of my vehicle and strode into the hotel, wanting to collect my belongings and get back to the office as quickly as possible. There wasn’t much in my hotel room, as it had just been a temporary base of operations in Santa Monica, and a much shorter drive to Malibu compared to my headquarters in Pasadena.

All I had there were some clothes, my iPad, a few burners, and some cash.

I should have just gone ahead to Pasadena and let Valerio collect all this shit.

Tapping my foot, I waited for the elevator, my brother a taller, calmer presence behind me. We walked in silence to my room, and then he held me back as he checked the door and the booby traps we usually left.

They were still intact, and I nodded as he stepped back and let me enter. He would stand outside and wait for me, probably very glad to be away from my simmering spirit for a few minutes, unless I called him in.

I was walking straight for my closet, one hand stretched out to open it when I realized the room wasn’t empty.

Giving a shout, I reached for my gun when the woman on the bed raised her hands. “Don’t shoot.”

She was lying on my clothes, my iPad next to her, cash spread all around her, wearing nothing but a black teddy and some red soled heels. It would have been comical any other time, but now it just played into my paranoia.

“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in here?” I growled even as the door flew open and Valerio came barging in. He saw the woman on the bed and dived, grabbing her hands, and detaining them in his. He looked up at me, “Should I kill her, boss?”

I smirked a bit, cocking an eyebrow at her, “Well?” I asked, “Should he kill you?”

She batted her lashes coyly at me, “Not if you want to know where your money went.”

Chapter Four

Audry

The strategy was risky, I’ll be the first to admit it – stealing from a trigger-happy gangster is one thing. Sticking around and confessing is truly unhinged behavior. Kylie told me so many times. However, I could see no other way to infiltrate his many layers other than to offer myself up to him.

He didn’t make it easy, but I’m not one to complain. His iPad had his passwords saved. His fingerprint, I simply lifted from his key card. Oh, and the booby traps on the door… amateur hour. Too easy to set up again for the eagle-eyed infiltrator; that is, me.

Months of study and research, including a very drunk and high night with his accountant’s assistant, had given me the correct authorizations. Transferring the money from one place to another was a matter of moments. I was really proud of myself for this one.

Brilliant work Audry.

If nobody else was going to pat me on the back, I sure was. But now this bodyguard was holding my hands way too tight, and it was a little painful I admit. Difficult to maintain a flirty mien when you’re in pain. But I did my best.

“It’s rude to keep a woman waiting. Where were you all this time?”

His eyes literally flashed at me. It was scary sexy. I might have been a little wet. “Who do you work for?” He asked me coldly.

“Hey, come on, if you’re going to interrogate me you should at least ask what my name is.” I changed to a preppy British accent, “We haven’t even been properly introduced. What would Emily Post say?”

His lips twitched the slightest bit, as if he was tempted to laugh.

Got him! I thought triumphantly.

Marco looked at his underboss. “Cover her up and bring her along. We don’t have time for this.”

He watched as his underboss manhandled me, taking off his coat and covering me with it, before gathering his belongings off the bed and stuffing them into a bag. He walked out of the room without another glance at me, the body guard following behind, his hand like a vice around my arm.

I went meekly, determined not to provoke anyone any further problems by making a fuss. Marco’s shoulders flexed, and I could feel his annoyance. He seemed to be quite volatile at the moment and I couldn’t really blame him. Still, had I made an effort to look attractive for him. The least he could do was notice.

They bundled me into a black Lexus with tinted windows and luxury leather seats. There was a drinks bar in front of us and the leg room was ridiculous. I’m tall, so I notice those little touches. Of course, Mr. Gangsta’s Paradise happened to be much taller than me, so I suppose the leg room was for his benefit, not mine. He sat across from me, glaring malevolently, his icy blue eyes boring into me like a piston.

“There’s no need for all that.” I said as softly and sultrily as I could, “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Who are you?” he barked.

“I’m Audry.” I made to stick out my hand, “And you are…?”

He quirked an eyebrow. I have seen many people do that, but never so elegantly. “You hacked into my accounts, and you don’t know my name?”

“No of course I know it. I was just being polite.”

“Why?”

“Hmm?” I furrowed my brow in pretend puzzlement.

“Why did you rob me?” he snapped, grinding his jaw like he wanted to bite me.

I sighed dramatically, looking out of the window. “Why does anyone do anything? For the fun of it of course.”

He reached out and grabbed the lapel of the coat I was wearing. “Listen here bitch, if you don’t give me a straight answer, I’ll-”

“Okay! Okay.” I tried to placate him, “Listen, I want to answer you, I do. But I can’t.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

His mimicking of my accent was really quite good. I grinned at him. This was going to be fun.

Chapter Five

Marco

“So, you can’t tell me why you stole from me? What can you tell me?”

“I can tell you that I can get your money back.” She looked me in the eye as she said it, nothing flirtatious about her tone. Maybe she was even serious.

“I see. And why should I believe you?”

“Give me your computer and I’ll give you a demonstration.”

I threw back my head laughing cynically. This woman was really too much. “What kind of fool do you take me for?”

She looked at me batting her lashes like some Victorian lady. “I don’t think you are a fool at all Mr. Cassio. The problem is you think me a fool. However will we manage if we can’t take each other seriously?” She laid it on thick with the Victorian accent. I couldn’t help feeling it was all a game to her.

My eyes raked over her frame, “You wanted to be taken seriously in that Victoria’s Secret cosplay you got going on?”

“Ouch. And here I thought you might appreciate the eye candy.”

“Hoping to lead me around by my dick?”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to be so crude about it.”

I snorted bitterly, “Well sorry, you tried it with the wrong man.”

She leaned forward, eyes wide, eyebrows raised. “Why? Are you homosexual, monsieur?”

I had to laugh at that, shaking my head as I gave her a derisive look. “What hubris. To think every man who isn’t attracted to you is gay. You must be delusional.”

The irony was that, with her strong resemblance to Amy, I couldn’t help but look twice, thrice, my body reacting to the familiar even as my mind tried to tell it to stand down. Her resemblance to Amy was really messing me up and I couldn’t help thinking that someone was deliberately fucking with me.

Only one name came to mind.

Aleksandr Yegorov, my nemesis.

***

The compound in Pasadena looked like an ordinary estate on the outside. A standard split level estate style house set in three acres, surrounded by ten-foot-high concrete fences topped with electrified barbed wire. Underground though, there was an entire warren of rooms for storage, accommodation, training, and even dungeons. It was its own little city, and I was the mayor.

Valerio dragged Audry out of the car and marched her into the house with me following behind. She was remarkably cool and calm for someone who had essentially been kidnapped.

Unless this was part of her plan.

I couldn’t imagine why she would want to be kidnapped but then again, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would be insane enough to steal from me. I had her hung up by her wrists, toes just scraping the ground, in her sexy little teddy outfit, and turned the heat all the way down. I figured by the time I made some phone calls, and had a meal, she would be ready to talk and give me some real answers.

I was so heartily sick of her quips; and much as I hated to admit it, she was fucking me up. Hearing her words coming from Amy’s face was making me feel like I was going crazy.

Aleksandr Yegorov you will pay for this.

I called my accountant.

“Bad news Marco. My hacker said he traced the transaction to the source. And the source was you.”

This did not surprise me seeing as she probably used my iPad. I have to admit that was pretty clever of her. She could have gotten away with it completely, if she hadn’t waited for me on my bed in her underwear.

Taking a deep breath, I knew it was time to call my associates – the Lamberts, Colberts, and Hellers. They had to hear from me what was going on.

I explained as best as I could that an issue had arisen, but I was sorting it out. “I’ve already found the source of our problem. I’m getting them to fix it now. All I ask for is a little patience.”

Seeing as, in ten years of working with them, I hadn’t once let them down, it was the least they could do for me.

This business doesn’t exactly operate on trust, and I knew they would be fidgety until the money was back where it belonged. That meant I had to get Audry to tell me where my money was. Now that she had marinated enough to reflect on just how bad this could go for her, it was time for me to play good cop.

I went to my sister’s room, and collected a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, as well as some vans. “Here’s hoping you’re the same size as Amy.” I murmured to myself knowing that my late fiancée and my sister had worn the same size.

I stepped into the dungeon, to find her struggling. Her nipples were peaked, their shape apparent through the thin silk of her teddy. She was twisting from side to side, her face contorted with the effort, as her feet strained to touch the floor. I knew she had to be exhausted and cold.

I walked right up to her, looking into her liquid brown eyes. They were so like Amy’s, and yet not. Amy hadn’t been a shrinking violet, but she had been shy and retiring, her eyes demure, and soft. A shy smile always peeking out through them. It’s the thing I miss about her most – the fact that she smiled with her eyes.

Audry had the very same eyes, but they weren’t smiling. They were regarding me very cynically. Even in her pain her lips were twisted in a smirk. Her eyes dared me to do my worst. They told me that I could never touch her soul, whatever I did to her body. It was such a mind fuck.

I put my hands around her neck, eyes locked with hers and squeezed. I wanted to see the fear come into her eyes, the realization that she’d lost.

“Harder daddy.” She whispered, tilting her head to give me better access.

I snatched my hands away, eyes narrowed in annoyance that she’d got to me so easily.

“That all you got?” she whispered.

I blinked, reaching up to unlock her shackles. Maybe she had a fetish for pain. If that was so, she wouldn’t get any satisfaction from me.

She dropped to her feet with a sigh of relief, rubbing the feeling back into her wrists. I thrust the clothes at her. “Get dressed. Then we can talk.”

I moved towards the door turning my back on her. I figured she would try and attack me, and then try to escape, but even if she managed to knock me out – which, frankly, doubtful – there was no way she could negotiate the maze that was our underground layer, and escape, without being caught.

To my surprise, she didn’t try anything. I heard the rustling of fabric, and then a loud sigh. “I’m decent,” she said snarkily.

I turned around to face her, and smiled. The clothes fit her perfectly. “You did as you were told. That is an excellent start. Good girl.”

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Chapter One

Kate

6 months ago

I take just a moment longer to pull my hair from the bun that I’ve had it in all day. Billy likes my hair down. Long bright blonde ringlets fall past my shoulders in waves and curl prettily around my face as I fluff up my hair just a little. I re-button the top few buttons of my blouse that I had undone and adjust things to be a touch more modest. I reapply a thin coat of lip gloss on my full lips and rub some of the blush from my cheeks before grabbing the bag of takeout food that I’ve brought home. Billy will be happy that I came home early. I’ve been busting my ass to get this case closed early. The higher ups were so thrilled with my work that they are even giving me a bonus. Billy will be thrilled! I can just see the look on his face now when I tell him that we can expect a hefty sum to be deposited into our joint accounts in the next couple weeks. Maybe I can even convince him to spend a little bit to take Liz to the zoo this weekend. I could make a picnic and we could make a whole day out of it!

Now we can watch that streaming movie that everybody is talking about, have a family night and have a good dinner that I don’t have to cook. It’s shaping up to be a pretty damned good evening. We need a good evening. It’s been far too long since it’s just been… easy.

I balance everything carefully in my arms as I kick the car door shut with my foot and start to head inside of our ranch style three bedroom. There have been times where I felt that maybe our starter home was a touch too modest, but not today. I don’t think that there’s much that could dampen my spirits today.

At least, not until I hear the crying.

My heart drops into my ass instantly. My keys nearly fall out of my trembling hands as I hurry to open the door, already fearing the absolute worst. It’s a strange sort of adrenaline that nearly knocks me off my feet. I drop the take-out food to the ground and hear it squelch on the ground as it falls, but I can’t bring myself to care. I use my other hand to brace my trembling one. I’m only two seconds from kicking the damned door in when the lock opens and I shoulder my way inside.

“Liz?!” I scream instantly, but my voice cuts off mid-sound.

The source of the crying is abundantly obvious. For one second, just one sharp inhale of breath, I register just what it is that I’m seeing in front of me. Billy is standing up beside the dinner table. The warm yellow light of our outdated fixture creates a sort of circular spotlight on the perverse spectacle in front of me.

Billy’s hand – he always had such large hands, he played just about every sport under the sun in college – is on the back of our young daughter’s head. He’s bowed over close enough to snarl spit into her ear as he screams at her. The raspy voice of his that I had until this very moment always found so endearing is now a deadly venom that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

“I don’t get what is so fucking difficult for your tiny little brain to fucking comprehend” Billy shouts as he shoves Elizabeth’s head toward the workbook. He shoves her forward and her forehead hits the workbook and table hard enough that it makes an audible thump. She’s going to have a bruise. He’s hurting her. My husband is hurting my daughter. She’s crying. My mind refuses to put those pieces of information together.

Elizabeth’s tiny hands are braced against the lip of the table so tightly that her skin is white from the pressure of forcing herself away from the table and the splayed open workbook in front of her. It looks like homework. She must have asked for help. She’s found most of her second-grade homework simple, so it must have been her math work. She’s bright, nearly two whole grade levels ahead. Yet, for some reason Billy is mad enough at her that her tears have formed a circle across the workbook that I can see all the way from across the room.

He hasn’t heard me.

He doesn’t know that I’m home yet.

“I’m sorry!” Liz yells through her tears. She doesn’t know why her Daddy is hurting her. She doesn’t understand why anybody would hurt her. I don’t understand why anybody would hurt her.

“I don’t want to hear your bullshit lies! I want you to fucking do better! Always whining! Always complaining! It’s not my fault that you’re stupid!” Billy seethes.

Something in his face chills me to my very marrow.

Something more than rage, more than anger or a fit of his alcoholic rage, there’s pleasure there. He’s enjoying scaring her.

I snap.

One breath, I’m frozen, the next I’m across the living room and tackling my husband. My six foot three, two hundred and something pound husband built like a damned linebacker while I’m only five foot three.

My body colliding into his doesn’t do much more than sway him. But at least it gets his hand off my daughter. “Go to your room!” I snarl at her. I will apologize later. Liz is up from the table a second later, and Billy reaches for her.

“Don’t you fucking leave this table, bitch!” Billy snarls at her as she dodges him and runs as far as she can, howling her whole way down the narrow hallway to her room. I hear the door slam shut and something in my chest loosens only a smidge. Billy rounds on me – something that I expected – those same large hands hitting me in the middle and knocking me back hard enough to lose my breath as I collide with the half wall separating the kitchen and the small dining room space. “Who do you think you are, interrupting me?!”

How many times did her head hit that table?

How long has he been screaming filth at her?

I start to stagger to my feet, and he hits me again – backhands me hard enough that I collapse. My whole body folds around my face as I cradle the injured skin with both hands. It feels like my eye is about to pop out of my skull. My teeth feel rattled.

“Those little shits these days, that’s the only teaching that they know! Their teachers are too soft on them, everybody is too soft on them! She needs to learn!” Billy snarls, spit falling from his mouth and landing in a glob on the carpet between us.

“She’s only six! Billy! Nothing can justify what you were just doing to her!”

“A smack is the only thing that teaches! A good dose of fear will have her acting right!” Billy reasons. I can see in his face that he believes his words. He truly doesn’t think that he’s done anything wrong.

“You want to keep talking back to me?” He sneers at me, and normally when this sort of thing happens, I know better than to get up off the ground. He will go back to his chair and calm down. I’ll bring him another beer and everything will be okay. Tomorrow he will be sober and apologize.

But tonight, instead of leaving me on the ground he starts down the hallway.

I only endure this for her. A girl needs her dad. I sure did growing up. But this? My dad would have never laid a hand on me. I never knew if that was because he wasn’t that sort of man, or if it was because my mother was in the same situation as me but just dealt with it better.

I can’t let him get to Liz.

I would rather die.

I lunge forward, my hands catching the pants leg of his jeans and holding on with everything that I have. He starts to drag me along with him, scraping my body against the carpet as the buttons on my blouse catch and rip open from the friction – I’m going to be covered in carpet burn in the worst of places, but I can’t let go. I can’t.

“Bitch!” Billy yells at me as the foot that I’m clinging to catches, and down he goes. He hits the ground so hard I swear that the whole house shakes. But now he’s mad enough at me that he’s going to forget about our girl, who is likely still crying in her room. That’s all that matters. He just needs to leave her alone.

He scrambles over the carpet to me and crawls on top of me. I slap, hit, and bite every inch of him that I can to at least try to be on the offensive. He grabs hold of my wrists so tightly I swear my bones bark in protest as he pins my arms down on the carpet. He bends forward and bites the first bit of exposed flesh that he can get his teeth on – the swell of my breast. Hard enough that I know he broke skin. I know it. Blinding pain sears through me as I buck and kick and scream and cry.

His fist finds my gut, then my ribs. Never the face, of course, not unless he’s really out of his mind. That’s only happened twice. The slap alone is going to be hard enough to cover up for work tomorrow.

All of my breath whooshes out of me in a wheezed rattle and the fight leaves me. How can it not? It’s not like I could actually win against him. He’s more than twice my size. Fighting for oxygen, Billy sits back, trapping me under his weight and making it just that much harder to breathe.

“You done now?” Billy smirks and grasps my jaw in his hand. There will be bruises from his fingertips. I can already feel them forming. “Sometimes I think you must like it when I get rough with you. You know how stupid it is to fight back, dirty bitch.”

I don’t talk back this time. I know it’s pointless now. Besides, Liz is safe in her room, he won’t touch her now.

“Much better. Now, be a good girl and go touch up your makeup. You look fucking revolting.” Billy smirks and lets go of me roughly. He pushes off me, rolling back through his heels until he’s standing over me.

I know better than to try to stand.

Crying silently, I roll through the pain onto my hands and knees, crawling slowly through the agony that’s building in my ribs. I hope he didn’t break anything. I don’t look back over my shoulder, but I can feel him following me.

“Leave the door open,” he commands as I finally reach the sink and to struggle to my feet. He’s right. I’m revolting. My face is swollen and my makeup is ruined. I grab my makeup wipes and clean my face as carefully as I can. Only then do I dare glance at the reflection of the man watching me so intently from the mirror.

How is this my life?

How did I let this happen? Why am I not strong enough to stop him? I can’t keep doing this.

Even as a fresh tear rolls down my face, I push it away with my hands as I start to apply more makeup to cover the damage he’s done.

“See? It’s much better when you know your place, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.” I answer meekly. The adrenaline has left me and all that I’m left with now is exhaustion.

“Hurry up now. I’m starving. What’s for dinner?”

***

Everything hurts.

More than hurts.

I don’t think I’ve ever had this many bruises before. I think I might need to actually go to a hospital this time. But I don’t have time. Who knows how long he’s going to be asleep. I have to do this now. I can’t let another day like this pass. I can’t. I can’t do it. I could endure it if it meant Liz would grow up with a loving dad, but he hit her too. I can’t let him hit her ever again.

I bite on my lip so hard that it bleeds as I slip from bed to keep from crying. Again, when I pull on the softest pair of sweatpants that I own. I leave my phone. I don’t want him finding me. I take my laptop and slide it into my bag. I pull a loose hoodie over my head and tie my hair up in a messy bun. Only the heirloom jewelry that I entered this marriage with and all the cash that I have saved up. I don’t want to risk trying to take another single fucking thing. It’s going to be hard enough to lift my daughter as it is, when I’m almost positive that he’s broken at least two of my ribs.

I can’t let that stop me now.

I can do this.

In an hour, I’m going to be far, far away from this house of horrors. I can do this. I’m going to be free. Liz won’t grow up thinking that this is okay. I will change that generational curse and I will do better. I swear that I will.

I slip into her room silently, grabbing her shoes and most beloved stuffed animals and shoving them into my purse. I take only a single change of clothes for her to wear tomorrow and stuff that into my purse too. The bag is getting heavy enough that it’s cutting into my shoulders. I bend and scoop her up, still sleeping, blankets and all into my arms. I sway and rock her the best that I can as I silently move through the living room toward the front door.

I jump at shadows and every single sound until I have Liz safely asleep in her car seat in the back of my modest car and slide into the driver’s seat. Moving hurts. I can do this. I can overcome this. I have to. I lock the doors and slowly slide out of the driveway and I don’t breathe again until I’m on the interstate.

I glance at the back seat at my daughter, my whole reason for living, for fighting.

I make a silent vow to her and to myself.

Never again.

Chapter Two

Kate

Present Day

Perhaps the very best thing about divorcing a psychopathic monster is that the experience makes you feel like you can survive absolutely anything.

At the beginning of my career, I used to be scared of coming to the high security prisons like this. I was worried that one of these criminals might find me, and ruin my life. I was constantly worried that somehow, one of them was going to hurt me. Now? I dare them to try. Touch me at your own peril. I know that some of them may see it as a challenge, but I no longer care.

I’m not the meek woman that I once was.

The meeting that I’m headed to today would have made me pause before. But in the last four months at my present firm, I’ve made a reputation for myself. They call me the barracuda. I’m frightening because I’m the very best at what I do. Which is why I’ve been hired to take on the case that absolutely nobody else would touch. Nikolai Volkovich – murderer, former Bratva leader, human trafficker and drug lord. Just to name a few of his former titles. But now? He’s a leashed little cat, harmless as a kitten. Just like all the rest of the poor bastards in this particular high security prison.

My heels click softly on the concrete as I head inside with my chin held high.

I feel the vibrating of my phone in my pocket. I truly do. I recite case details to myself in my head, I try to ignore the fact that my ex-husband has apparently found my new cell phone number and presumably my location. Billy may want me to go back to him badly but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to do it.

I know what the texts are bound to say anyway.

He wants me back. He can’t live without me. How dare I steal his daughter from him and break up our family. If he’s feeling particularly sad, he might be on a rant about how selfish I am. The messages can be anywhere from sweet and adoring to downright menacing. Very on brand for my ex-husband. Good to know that the six months that we have been apart have resulted in no personal growth for him.

It was the opposite for me.

I didn’t realize how desperately I needed freedom for Liz and myself until I had it.

I won’t let that go for anybody.

Never again.

“Ms. Thorne?” The guard beside the gate addresses me with a polite wave and a bow. I smile kindly at him, although I rarely manifest warmth these days. I think I left that behind in my marriage as well. Billy took all the parts of me that were good and light, and he beat them out of me. What’s left? A cruel, business-minded bitch unless I’m dealing with my daughter. I like it that way. I wear my reputation like armor.

I hold up my badge, identifying me and the firm that I work for instead of answering.

The guard’s smile falters and he ushers me inside of the gate quickly. He leads me through the prison slowly, stopping at various security checkpoints. I pointedly ignore all the cat calls and jeers from the inmates that we pass along the way, savoring the fact that they know I’m free and that they will rot behind these bars. Normally, once one enters this particular prison, there is no parole, there is no leaving.

If it weren’t for a very specific addendum in my own contract with Alek, I wouldn’t be here either.

But my new employer has offered me something that I covet, something that I cannot obtain on my own and I know for a fact that he can provide. In addition to generous financial compensation, he’s promised protection for me and Liz. Lifetime protection. Nobody will ever lay a finger on us again.

The guard stops in front of a small square room. No observation windows. Just a table that’s been welded to the floor and two chairs. One of which is also welded into place, for my protection of course. The prisoner inside will have their hands cuffed to the table and their feet chained to the floor. Their waist will be secured to the chair that they sit in. The man will not be able to so much as stand without permission, and he certainly will not be able to touch me. I don’t think that I would have taken this meeting in person otherwise.

“The room is equipped with no microphones, for client and attorney privilege, in accordance with all laws. But there is a live camera feed for your protection. That’s just protocol.” The guard explains. “You will have fifteen minutes with the prisoner, and after that time the light above the exit door will sound an alarm and blink red. Thirty seconds after that and I will enter the room and escort you back out again. Any questions?”

I don’t bother answering. I already knew all of that.

Besides, Alek assured me that the camera feeds would be turned off, thanks to one of his more technologically savvy men. Mr. Volkovich and I will have utter privacy for the next fifteen minutes.

Alek also warned me at great length of all the violent things that Mr. Volkovich is capable of. If it weren’t for that deal I made with Alek, the man who hired me, I would put Nikolai into the dirt myself for the things that he’s done. Heinous, despicable things. I understand better than almost anyone why a woman would need to get divorced from a monster like him at all costs. I know what I’m walking into. I’m prepared.

I certainly did not come unarmed.

The guards missed my ceramic pocketknife and taser – just like Alek promised they would – in case Nikolai pulls anything stupid. I had considered the pepper spray, but that might have caused more harm to him than I could explain away easily. I can’t afford to have any negative reports about this meeting. Not if I’m going to get what I want.

“Ready?” The guard asks.

I nod, holding my attaché case in front of my body as he opens the door and waves me inside. I keep my head held high as I saunter into the room, heels clicking. However, the man at the table isn’t at all what I had thought he was going to be.

The Nikolai Volkovich that had been described to me was supposed to be larger than life. He was supposed to be akin to the boogeyman who haunted children’s nightmares. The man in front of me might have been that once, but the life appears to have been sucked out of him.

I can tell from his frame that he’s in incredible shape. He hasn’t lost any muscle tone, but he’s certainly sicklier and paler than described. His hair isn’t as short as it was in the mug shot that I was given, and the stubble across his chiseled jaw doesn’t look natural on his face. He looks… haggard. A dangerous sort of devilishly handsome. Given the nature of this prison, I’m not wholly surprised. I’m sure that there’s a great deal of people in here that would love nothing more than to have his guts for garters. No wonder he’s been so willing to cooperate with everything that I’ve requested of him thus far. He must want out of here something fierce.

Even still, I don’t want to come within five feet of him.

But I don’t have a choice.

His soulless black eyes track my every movement as I cross the room and delicately slide into the metal chair provided for me. His posture is nearly relaxed. There are no lines of tension in his shoulders and his bound hands are uncurled. Like a lion in wait. He’s taking my measure, I’m certain of it. I cross my legs at the ankles, ignoring the way that I can feel his eyes raking over my body. I’m dressed fairly modestly today, despite the tailored cut of my outfit. Pencil skirt and blazer, emerald green silk blouse tucked into my skirt. Modest, natural makeup suits me best when I have to bother with it at all. I don’t like what a lot of makeup on my face tends to trigger within me, so If I can avoid it now, I do.

“Are you my birthday present?” Nikolai asks, his thick Russian accent curling around the words to make such a simple statement sound utterly filthy.

Chauvinistic pig.

“I am your attorney.” I answer flatly as I pull out a legal pad and a pen. I click it pointedly and train my hand in a writing position before I deign to grace him with a look. “I was under the impression that you were the one who requested this meeting.”

Nikolai’s tongue presses into the top of his mouth. I see the exact moment that his attention dips to my breasts. I am tempted to throw my pen at his damned head, but he would likely use it as a weapon somehow. A man like him? With his reputation? You never can be too careful.

He slowly eases back into his chair and shrugs a shoulder. “Can’t blame a man for hoping.”

I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a man be quite so comfortable in his damned skin. Even now that he’s a shadow of his former glory, I can easily see why so many women fall for him. Visually, he’s damned attractive. He’s got every bad boy aesthetic in the world going for him. Tall, muscled, jawline that you want to ride, perfect hands and tattoos covering most of his exposed skin. I have absolutely no doubt that if I were to crawl over this table and straddle him, that he would give me the most mind-blowing orgasms that I’ve ever had. Sometimes you can just see it in a man.

But unfortunately for him, I’m not like the other women whose lives he’s ruined.

He’s not going to benefit from the fact that my own trauma has ensured that I need that sort of man to get off. I have plenty of other options for that.

“I assure you, Mr. Volkovich, that this will be an entirely professional exchange between us. I will not allow a conflict of interest to jeopardize my case, or my perfect track records.” I say plainly, but I can’t help but smirk at the end. “I’m sure it is surprising to you, that a woman could keep from dropping her panties at the mere sight of you, but I’m sure you will live.”

The corner of Nikolai’s lip quirks up. I can see the exact moment that he takes the challenge that I’ve presented for him.

Maybe I’m a bit of a sadist. Maybe I do like the violence his gaze promises.

Nikolai leans forward in his metal chair, the chains around his body clinking softly as he narrows his focus down on me. “I know the cameras are off, are you sure that that you don’t want to give me a little present?”

My nose wrinkles in distaste. The only thing that I’m likely to give him is a swift kick in the balls if he doesn’t stop coming on to me. I keep my face stern and disinterested despite the hungry look he’s giving me. I’ve handled myself against worse. “Mr. Volkovich, if you aren’t going to take my counsel seriously, then why am I even here?”

Nikolai grins and it transforms his whole expression into something that nearly takes my breath away. I have to cross and re-cross my legs under the table under the intensity of his expression. It’s not joy, not at all. It’s something sinister, but alluring. He was testing me. I can see it. He notices the moment that I catch on, too.

“Can’t be represented by somebody so easily swayed, now can I?” Nikolai shrugs.

“And if I had said yes?”

Nikolai shrugs a shoulder away and feigns an innocent expression. “Win win for me then.”

“How about we stick to business, Mr. Volkovich?” I pull the paperwork that I have come here to have him sign from my bag. I pointedly ignore the way my phone vibrates in my bag, the screen illuminating every few moments from the barrage of texts and calls that I’m getting. I don’t know how that bastard Billy keeps calling despite me blocking his number every time. I have changed my number three times already and he just keeps finding me. I take a calming breath and place the neatly organized paperwork on the table in front of Nikolai. “As I was saying–”

He cuts me off and looks at my bag. “Something the matter?”

“No, nothing. Thank you for asking.”

“That’s twice today that you’ve lied to me, and I’m supposed to trust you to represent me?”

He wants me to ask him what it is that I’ve lied about. I’m not going to play into his little games. “I don’t think you have much of a choice, do you? Seeing as I’m the only lawyer on this continent willing to represent you, let alone woman.”

The muscle in his sharp jawline ticks. He knows that I’m right.

Now it’s my turn to smirk.

I tilt my head to the side and bat my long lashes at him pointedly. “You do know that it’s greatly beneficial for a woman to have been assigned your case, don’t you? I would think that instead of sitting here testing me when I’ve more than earned my reputation, you should be attempting to convince me that you’re a man worth saving. I am the last thing between you and the death penalty. Your smart mouth won’t stop that poison from being injected into your veins. Will it, Mr. Volkovich?”

Sitting before me is a man that has been in control of every single aspect and person in his life for a very long time. Nothing happened in his Bratva without his permission. Nobody moved an inch without his say so. Being helpless here and at the mercy of a petite blonde woman? It’s got to be driving him absolutely mad.

I tuck my ankles under the chair and lean forward. I make sure that the angle of my arms pushes my cleavage up for his perusal and lean into the airheaded bimbo act that so many men like to think that I am. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

“You can sit there and think of all of the ways that you would handle a woman like me. You can imagine bending me over this table and hate-fucking me all you want. Whatever you need to do in order to sleep at night, Mr. Vokovich. But it will do nothing to change the facts here. I have you by the balls in all of the ways that you don’t want. If you don’t start doing exactly as I say, when I say it, then it’s not going to work very well for you. Understand, pumpkin?” I wink at him for good measure before sliding the papers toward him with the ballpoint pen. “Be a good boy and sign these papers for me so that I can do my job. Then, when you’re breathing free air again, we can see whose dick is really bigger. Mine or yours.”

I’ve got him. We both know it.

I ease back into my chair as he stews in his anger. He has to let me talk to him however I want. He’s helpless. I don’t think he’s ever had to sit with that particular emotion before in his life. I’m happy to be the one to cause the feeling. Nikolai takes the pen, clicking it angrily while he scowls. I won’t even try to deny the thrill of feeling powerful over a man like Nikolai as he signs page after marked page. When he’s finished, he flicks the papers toward me and I take them with a saccharine sweet smile. “Good boy.”

Nikolai’s grin widens into something bordering on feral. The lack of emotion shining back at me through those black eyes almost makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Somewhere deep in me awakens a very real and primal urge to run from him. Nobody with a soul can look like that.

Dammit if it isn’t fucking sexy though.

I stand on my side of the table, frozen, as his tongue wets his lips before he speaks.

“For the record, mine’s going to be bigger.”

I sure hope it is.

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Chapter 1

Fabio

“Are you drunk, Eva?”

“Would that make my request viable?”

I have had my few moments of idiocy here and there, but that particular one haunts me to this day. It inhabits my sleep and crawls under my skin when I am wide awake.

Like a fucking blood-hungry predator, its talons dig mindlessly, close to ripping away every shred of sanity I have left. It also doesn’t help that I have to see my tormentor every day, since, much like oxygen, she is unavoidable.

It hurts to be around her, yet there is no greater pain than not being around her.

“Eva, I am not kissing you.”

“But you want to. I know you do.”

Her words were the beginning of my downfall. Because I did fucking want to. But limiting myself to just wanting to would have been better.

Because then, I could have just lived with wanting to kiss a girl that I had watched grow into a woman. Not that this would have made me feel any less guilty. But wanting to kiss her would have been better than what I did next.

I kissed her.

She was eighteen. Yet, my desire for her was unbearable. Like a dog with a bone, I jumped at the slightest opportunity to taste her. One fucking kiss and here I am years later, unable to fill up the indentation of that moment.

I clear my throat as I glimpse her off in the distance, her camera around her neck and her thick glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Her pitch-black hair twisted to resemble a doughnut on her head, her baggy black cargo pants, and her strappy lemon-green crop top.

I occupy my mind with the task of adjusting my suit as each of her steps brings her closer to me. Perhaps I am nervous. An emotion that only Eva has been capable of evoking in me without even trying.

I struggle not to fidget and scowl while glancing at the vibrant yellow garden around her studio. It stands in stark contrast to the impending darkness I feel within. Just like she is a contrast to that part of me.

She is pure. Something about her always makes the world feel a lot better, the damn sun shine brighter, and even the fucking wind feel more soothing on the skin.

An angel. My angel… No, no, she is just an angel. Not mine. So innocent, but yet so devious. An innocent sinner. She reminds me of Eden, of Paradise, but I am afraid I am already a man doomed for hell.

This will be harder than I had envisioned. It’s meant to be a talk. A quick talk.

“You look like you will hate this session,” her voice is like a soothing balm, her smile like toppings on ice cream, “You didn’t have to agree to it,” she stops before me. So dainty and crushable that I want to wrap a fragile label all over her.

“Hmm,” is all I say, and the fact that I am known not to be much of a talker is good in this case since, around Eva, I am mostly fucking lost for words.

“Hmm?” She snorts dryly, “Want to get on with it then? I take it you have zero seconds to waste.” She is not far from the truth. The longer I stay around her, the hazier the lines begin to look.

The pattern of torture has always been the same. I want to be near her, but I need to fucking maintain some distance between us. I have so much I want to say, but I also have to keep quiet around her so I don’t utter things I can never be heard speaking. It’s amazing how my tongue feels numb when I see her—not out of cowardice, but because I am mesmerized.

“My studio is behind you,” she points with her chin and I slant, giving her access to the door, “For the record, I wanted my father,” she chews the inside of her mouth. “He, at least, never looks like I am holding a gun to his head when I ask him to be my model,” she takes a step towards the door, “And I didn’t even ask you,” she spins, the proximity too fucking close and I do us both a good.

I step back.

She didn’t ask and everyone was surprised I had, in fact, offered. Her father didn’t give much thought to it. But Vittoria, her stepmother, that conniving matchmaker… well, she seemed pleased by the idea. The truth is, I offered because I needed Eva’s attention for a quick while, and I wanted it to be just the both of us.

They might have misinterpreted it as me coming around to accepting what Emanuele has tagged as inevitable, which is me getting married to her in order to become part of the Teso clan. I wonder what he would think of me and my fucking honor that he keeps babbling about if he knew that I kissed her on her eighteenth birthday.

“After you,” I take another unnecessary step back.

“He can talk,” she laughs softly, but as she reaches to push the door open, I step forward and help her with that. Old habits die hard, “I can open my door, Fabio,” she professes, and I nod, not budging. I want to hold it for her and she is going to fucking let me.

She swings her head from side to side as if considering it, then walks in. That’s more like it.

It was difficult to get a moment alone with her. If I am not working around the clock to get things running, I am with her father or with all three of them: him, Vittoria, and Eva. I need time with her to do what I am about to do.

I step into the monochrome space. White walls, black furniture, black equipment, and emotion-strapping white and black pictures taken by her plastered on the walls. I would never understand her inspiration behind this choice of art. Not the photography but the implementation of the art itself. Considering her effervescent personality, I would think she would choose to capture bright colors and rainbows.

She drags a stool and slaps the top of it. “Sit,” she leaves to start assembling lights and other things she thinks she will be needing.

There is no fucking way I am sitting and playing model. I am here to talk and leave. As quickly as possible.

“Eva,” one hand goes into the pocket of my dress pants, but she seems to be ignoring me, dragging as many lights as she can with her. I step forward to help her but the spears from her eyes as she glares at me force my hands into my pockets.

“We are taking pictures, right?” She lets go, stands upright, and rests both hands on her waist.

“To talk,” I clear my throat.

“Now you want to talk?” She lifts both eyebrows, an expression that brings her father to mind in a whiplash.

“We have both been busy.” Or I have been avoiding her. Talking generally is stressful, talking with Eva is close to having a seizure.

“I don’t want to talk.” She skirts me and heads around to the corner, where her laptop, a desk, and a couch are set up. The pencils, stick notes, fountain pen, and a mint green pen holder on the desk are the only items of color in the room.

“But we have to,” I am inching towards her, and when I realize my mistake, I walk to the stool.

She sets her camera down on the desk and I relax a little. I never know what to expect when she is holding that weapon that brings all my insecurities to the surface.

“Humor me,” she turns to face me, arms folding across her chest. A miracle, to say the least, since it’s keeping that view concealed. My mind is fucking filth.

“Did you…” I pause, thinking of the best possible way to ask this question without ticking her, “Did you tell your father about it?” I gulp, waiting for her to understand, but when she squints her electrifying tidal blue eyes, I can tell she has no clue what I am insinuating.

“It being?” She lets out a breath that tells me she is tired of trying to be difficult. I was waiting for it. Her span of being difficult is short.

“The kiss,” I grind out.

“What kiss?” She contorts her face, then lets it fall, then her eyes shut for a quick bit, and then they open, “You are joking, right?”

“No.” I am not. I never look or sound like it because I possess not one jesting vein in me.

“That kiss?” She scoffs. I am relieved that she thinks of it as nothing now. I can imagine she has had more, perhaps better, experiences with boys her age, and that, although mine was her first, it has no place in the grand scheme of kisses.

However, I also want to shoot anybody who has ever come that close to her.

“That kiss,” I confirm.

“That was years ago, and you are asking now?”

“Did you tell him?”

“Why would I?” She lifts both shoulders. “Did it happen?” She stands, and I grit my teeth.

“Eva…”

“You act like it never happened,” she intersects, “I could have been tricked by your actions into believing I dreamed about it,” she stands and circles the desk to plop on the couch behind it. “We can keep it at that, can we not?” she takes off her glasses and drops them carefully on the desk.

I nod once. “That we can do.”

She gets up and moves a bit too hastily, almost tipping over the items on her desk. “That would be convenient for you, wouldn’t it?” she asks, stomping out from behind the desk and dashing toward me through the light stands and other props she brought out for the never-to-take photo session. “Acting like you never wanted to kiss me.”

I bite down my tongue because now it wants to speak. It wants to tell her how fucking much I had wanted that kiss and how it had felt like a defibrillator, waking me up from a life of gloom. But that she will not be hearing from me.

“I have always done my damn best to keep away from you and show restraint where you are concerned, Eva,” this truth she can hear me say. A glimpse of the truth. A snippet of my hell. The torture I have to go through every fucking day, perhaps for the rest of my life, depending on what her choice is.

“That makes the both of us,” she swallows, and I am not sure what to make of that.

“I will do you a favor,” I lock eyes with her so she knows that I mean what’s about to come out of my mouth, but I feel like the blood in my veins runs hot from her proximity, her eyes, her body. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t have to do what?” She folds her hands across her chest again, lifts her chin, and glares at me through lengthy, encasing obsidian lashes.

“You don’t have to marry me,” I stand, a mistake that I can’t undo because of how clumsy it will make me appear and I value Eva’s judgment of my person a little too much than is considered healthy.

“It’s not up to me.”

“It is…”

“Did you not hear my father?” She throws her hands in my face. “Did he sound like he is going to ever change his mind?”

“I am telling you, you can choose differently,” I am fucked because I both want to be chosen and not be fucking chosen. I take a moment to breathe her in and say, “I won’t do anything to you.” She smells like life, fuck. “I will keep my distance until after the marriage, that might not even happen if you so much as say the words.”

She flutters her lashes, scoffs, and takes a step back, “What do you mean?”

I don’t have to close the distance, but I do. I do not have to touch her face to explain myself, but my hand goes up of its own accord. It’s like every part of me functions independently when she is concerned.

“Eva,” the pad of my fingers brushes her porcelain skin, a little stroke from her cheek to her cheekbone, and she shudders out a breath, “You can marry whomever you want,” and I am making it difficult for both her and me by not keeping my fucking hands to myself, “I will disappear and never show my face again if that is what you want. If that will make you happy. If it means you get to have the life of your dreams.”

I tilt my strokes to brush a wandering strand of her hair behind her ear, then brush the ear with my thumb and index finger, relishing her irregular breathing. It mirrors my heartbeat being this fucking close to her and touching her this way.

“I will go against your father’s desire, all you have to do is say the word, Eva,” I grit, wishing I could clip my tongue for that slip.

She steps forward, her body subtly plastered to mine and my body singing songs of arousal. She tilts her head, straining as she throws it back to hold my gaze.

“Go to hell,” she grips my hand and rips it off her face.

It is exactly the place she and her father will send me to when they find out about my secret, I think bitterly. She deserves better and better is nowhere near me.

I tip my head, understanding that I have been given a direct order.

Fair enough.

Chapter 2

Eva

Epic declaration of nothing.

He is telling me that he would vanish from the face of the earth, and I have no doubt that he could, but for what reason?

He would much rather disappear, acting as though he is letting me make the choice.

We are looking into each other’s eyes, and I’m waiting for the unlikely possibility that he may back away.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” I drop my hands on my waist.

My body, my heart, my mind, my everything spring alive at the scent of him. Being this close to each other is as exhausting as it is exhilarating.

“Whatever you wish to do with it,” he maintains his expression void, but it is not his face that is my tell-tale, it is his eyes. Those rich green orbs disclose all that he tries to repress. And right now, they are telling me he cares about something. I am not sure what, though.

“Being forced to marry me must be horrible for you, isn’t it?”

“Eva, I didn’t mean…”

“You had to say it this way so as not to hurt little Eva’s fragile heart,” I puff my words out, enunciating all the way as if it will balm the sore spot his rejection has punched in my heart, “But I have good news for you.”

More like lies. Anything to make me feel like I am not groveling at his feet, waiting to be chosen by him. I have never known Fabio to take a step back when he wants something. He always has a way of making things work. If he is indecisive about this, about me, about us, if there is an us, then it only means one thing.

He does not want any of it. He doesn’t want me.

“You have it all wrong,” he grits, his jawline turning razor-sharp. It surely doesn’t help that he is what dream men are made of. It doesn’t help that his beauty smites and keeps one smitten for life. From hair to dress shoes, “I am not…” I lift a finger and he nods, grinding his teeth.

“I don’t care for anything you have to say,” I shrug. I have had my fair share of rejection this morning and I will not stand here for more, “I don’t care about the marriage and now seems like the best time to let you know I have a boyfriend.”

Aha!

His eyes. My tell-tale. He doesn’t like this information. And I get what I needed from the way his eyes fold and open gently to hinder the slipping of emotions behind them.

“Hmm,” he scoffs. I was expecting that one. His go-to answer for all things Eva.

“Yes, hmm,” I step away so the truth behind my own eyes does not call my bluff. I don’t have a boyfriend. I have never even thought about having one.

I have felt… satisfied with my life. Like I had everything I needed. Everyone I needed. But now they are forcing my hand to lie. Lie and pretend to be the typical college girl who is somehow mixed up with some… God, I hate this.

I strut to my desk and tap on it, my other hand stuffed halfway into the back pocket of my pants.

“Who is he?” He gruffs.

“A human,” I shrug.

“Does he have a name?” He is moving, coming closer to me and my heart is spinning, making me dizzy.

“He does have a name,” I puff, keeping my tone light-hearted.

“What is his name?” I could have guessed his next question.

“It’s Nunya.”

“Nunya?”

“Nunyabusiness,” I drop my head to the side to smile at him as he stops behind me. If I can lean in, just a little, not so much, just… I take pull head back, pushing down the urge.

“What does he do? How did you meet him? Who’s his family? Do you have a picture of him?” He prances to one wall to stare at a picture of a model I had taken recently. He is shirtless, holding a surfboard and smiling at the camera like it’s a wave, “Is that him?” He flips to face me. Is that jealousy I hear, or is he just being the overprotective Fabio I have always known him to be? “Answer me, Eva,” he growls.

“Why should I?” I strut carelessly to the armchair behind my desk and throw myself on it.

“Because it is important that I know,” he grits back at me, placing both hands flat on my desk.

I sit upright, squaring him up, “Why?”

“I need to know if he is worthy of you.”

“Worthy of me?” If the air wasn’t charged with both fervor and annoyance, I would have laughed so hard.

“Is he?” He bites out.

“That is yet to be seen, and why should I worry about it whatsoever anyway?” I pick up my camera, “Love doesn’t need any of that. We are young and in love,” I take hold of my camera and begin to fidget by adjusting the lens back and forth.

“I will find him,” he stands straight and takes one step back, then another. He breaks off the stare as he gets to the door, spinning and plucking himself out of my studio.

Good luck with finding the mystery man.

It appears that we will both be searching for my boyfriend.

I puff, drop my camera gently on the desk, put my glasses back on, and sink into my seat.

When he agreed to be my model, I should have known it was a trick. Fabio would never let me take pictures of him. I was eager, I was a little over the moon but a part of me knew there was something else to it.

He couldn’t even pretend and let me get one shot before coming clean.

I hate it.

I sulk, wishing Vittoria was here. She always knows what to say…

“You can do better kiddo,” at the sound of Salvatore’s voice, my heart drops to my stomach. I am one thought away from bolting, but he lifts a pistol and swings it in the air recklessly. “Kill the thought,” he snaps, as if reading my mind, and then scowls at my studio. It is good to see his hatred for my art is ever-blazing.

“Salvatore?” It is him. I know this. It’s obvious. But I cannot stop myself from wondering how he is here, in the estate. I can see he came in through the window but how did he get past the security at the back and front gate?

“In the flesh,” he smirks, “You don’t look too happy to see me,” he strides to the stool I had kept for Fabio and sits on it, “That makes two of us,” he scratches his stubble.

There is something being evil does to someone. It’s like it comes with its own makeup to rebrand a person. His curls have lost their sheen. His eyes and cheeks are sunken. His cheekbones are more acute. His collarbone almost tearing out of his skin.

I have always known he had it in him to be ruthless but to betray his family and take sides with the same man who murdered his mother, fought his father tirelessly for years, and threatened his family? That is a different level of ruthlessness.

“What are you doing here?” My eyes drift from his face to the gun in one hand and an envelope in the other.

“We will get to that, but first,” he stands and goes to the door, “I have a question for you, kiddo,” he locks the door and walks back to sit on the stool. He has always been the one to not care about his appearance, but he seems to have made an effort today. By this, I mean his white T-shirt is white and his blue jeans look bright.

“Stop calling me that,” I clip, trying for bravery because it looks like he does not wish to use the gun if I don’t give him a reason to. But I won’t put anything past him. If he can try to kill his father, our father, I don’t see why killing me will be any problem for him.

“I am in the mood to be a good big brother, and to make sure you don’t make mistakes,” he rests one hand, the one holding the gun, on his lap, “Tell me, how is it that you like that guy?”

I am trying to understand what he is asking.

“Fabio,” he throws hastily, “How can you even like him?”

“What gave you that impression?”

“It’s all over you,” he swings the gun up and down at me, “You were sulking, and I could give you some tips but that would go against my own plans.”

“Thank you but I can only imagine the kind of advice you would give me,” I gulp.

“I know you might not agree with me, but I want what’s best for you,” he stands, “You are my little sister.”

“You could have fooled me,” I pick up my glasses and put them back on with trembling fingers. I have seen guns before, but I have never liked them—let alone one in Salvatore’s hand aimed directly at me.

“Eva,” he grits and stalks to stand in front of my desk, “Let me do the talking, we can fight when all of this is over.”

“Over to you then,” I try to look at the bright side, but I can’t see any in this situation.

He drops the envelope on the desk, dragging his free hand through his hair, down his face, and then lingers to scratch his stubble. He digs his hand into his back pocket, brings out a cellphone, and tosses it on my desk.

“You could have at least shaved,” I grumble.

“Shut up,” he bites out. He looks like a shadowed version of our father.

“Just saying,” I fold my arms across my chest to help apply pressure on my pouncing heart.

“I said shut up,” he barks and I clamp my lips in a whimper, “I did not come here to have you bug me,” he uses the tip of the gun to slide the envelope towards me, “I have good news,” he smiles but it doesn’t leave his lips. “I am now the new head of the Bratva,” he blows out air like he is living a dream come true.

“Do you even hear yourself?”

“Yes, and the last time I said something, it was that you should shut the fuck up,” he flicks the gun at the envelope, “Pick it up,” he nudges.

I reach for it hesitantly, unsure of what it might be. It can be a letter bomb. My hand halts, hovering above the envelope.

“Chill, Eva. It’s an invitation. I made sure Boris never made any attempt on you when he was alive and that should mean something,” he strides back to the stool and sits.

Boris, the man who waged war against my father and sent his daughter Nina to woo, with triumphant success, my brother into joining their side. All of which came to an end when Salvatore messed with Vittoria, his arranged fiancée. Now my father’s wife, our stepmom.

“Thank you,” I reach for the envelope. If it is thanks he needs, I will give them. Anything to make him deliver his message and leave.

“You are welcome. Now, open it.” I pick up the cream and brown envelope and open it, only stopping briefly to admire its maze-like design. “I don’t have all day,” he bites out his irritation and I hurry to pull out a card from inside it.

I adjust my glasses and read it.

He is getting married?

My head shoots up, and he gives a mocking bow, “You are invited,” he stands, “Now, I would love for you to be there without being forced. You know, show up happy and support your big brother as you should.”

If I am getting him correctly, I will be there either of my own or through coercion.

“I don’t…”

“You don’t have a choice, kiddo, in case what I said earlier wasn’t clear enough,” he strides to the window that he came in through. “It’s my wedding and you are the only family member I find less irritating and want to see there.”

“I see,” I whisper to myself.

“Until we meet again. You can reach me and Nina through that phone. It’s a burner and it has our numbers saved on it. I know you miss me, big brother to the rescue,” he has lost his mind. “And Eva, you are young and beautiful, for fuck’s sake, leave that old dude the hell alone, focus on…” he darts his dark eyes around my studio and then shakes his head, “Just focus on something,” he makes an expression of irritation. He climbs onto the window and I am not foolish enough to scream because I know he means business with that gun.

I watch him as he sits at the window, and a part of me wants to reach out to the brother I never really had. The brother I could have had. I cannot say when or how it went bad, but it did and it never got better again.

“I know you are itching to go tell Father, so,” he jumps to the other side and pokes his head, “go ahead then,” he flicks his gun at me and then disappears.

I don’t even let his exit cool off, I push off my seat and scurry with staggering heartbeats outside my studio, heading for papa’s office.

I walk to the main building, clutching the burner phone and invitation to my chest, my heartbeat ricocheting in my ears, my vision hazy from tears mounding because of the panic jamming in my stomach.

“Eva,” my father’s strong arm catches me by the waist and plasters my quivering body to his, his buff frame enclosing me, “Hey, love,” he clamps his arms around me, and the longer I inhale his familiar, comforting scent, and see his wave of gray hair and beard, the more my heartbeat slows down.

He and Fabio are standing a little distance from the main door, but I hadn’t noticed them.

“He came,” I gulp more air and untangle gently from his embrace, “Salvatore.” I stretch the burner phone and invitation to him. The sound of Salvatore’s name makes him slit his onyx eyes, a shadow of guilt and pain masking his expression like the dark button-up shirt and slacks he is wearing. He reads the invitation and puts the phone into his pocket.

“Where is he?” Fabio asks, his demeanor changing to menacing and his eyes darting like that of a predator.

“He left through the window of my studio,” I point at nothing over my shoulder. “He is getting…” I point at the invitation, but my father is already on it.

“It’s okay,” he grinds, hugging me. “I will take it from here. You are safe, love,” he says, giving me a reassuring peck in my hair. “Fabio will be your bodyguard until I put a stop to this.”

I want to protest that the last person I want following me around is Fabio, but I bite my tongue. While this will be hard on me, I can sense from the change of his energy after my father’s declaration that this will be much harder on him.

Good.

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