Sins of Rage

Chapter 1

Aoife

The wind doesn’t whisper up here.

It screams.

It cuts through my clothes like a blade, tearing at the edges, howling through the pines above the cliff, like it remembers every soul who stood where I stand now, or worse, who didn’t walk away.

I come up here all the time and never wear a coat.

Why would I? The air bites, but I like the sting.

Tonight, there’s a party at Hollow Hills—the only place where everyone shows up knowing it might end badly.

The Irish, the Italians, the Russians, and a few other families all claim their corners of the hill.

We don’t mix. Blood has spilled here more times than anyone admits.

The war between us never ends. Still, in a few days, we’ll all be back at school, pretending none of this ever happened.

My boots scrape against damp earth, the trail so narrow it feels like a test. One wrong step and I’d drop down into the jagged mouth of the sea where rocks wait, black, broken and hungry.

I keep walking, the cold stings my cheeks, and I welcome it. It’s the only thing I feel that’s real anymore.

Eighteen years of life, and somehow, it already feels over.

They’ve signed me away like I’m nothing more than a chess piece. A pawn in this game of war and power. Uncle Liam didn’t even look at me when he said it, didn’t even flinch.

“You’ll do what’s right for the family, Aoife. They’ve already arranged it.”

Arranged. As in marriage. As in me. To a man I’ve met once. A man more than twice my age who smells of cigars and power and old blood. And the ring on my finger is proof of this stupid arrangement.

A gold band with a stone that looks more like a punishment than a promise.

All because it will benefit the family.

The wind lifts my hair as I walk, tangling it around my face, I don’t push it away. The blast distracts me from the ache in my chest.

Across the sea, through the mist, the shadowed silhouette of Blackstone Academy comes into view, like something risen from a grave. All black spires, stone, and fog. Cold. Watching. Waiting.

On the surface, it teaches lessons in how to navigate and survive in the outside world. Beneath that, a school for monsters born into royalty. Heirs of the underworld. Sons of killers. Daughters of ghosts. It shapes them into executors, teaches them the rules, and most importantly how to survive.

That’s where I’m meant to be after the weekend.

I turn back to the sea, as a giant wave crashes with thunderous force against the rocks, sending plumes of white spray high into the air.

A part of me wonders what it would feel like to fall.

Would it be fast or quiet because the water and rocks would swallow my screams. One thing is certain, it would feel like I’m finally making a decision for myself.

I inch closer, the gravel shifts and then I hear a voice through the wind.

“If you’re going to jump, then jump.”

My breath catches. Startled, I spin, and my boot catches something slick. My balance tips, my arms flail, heart jerking violently inside my chest, as panic rips through me.

Then a hand wraps around my wrist, hard and steady, rings biting against my skin from his fingers. If he lets go, I fall into the crashing waters, ready to eat me up, but he holds me there dangling on the edge.

My pulse is in my throat, beating wildly. I stare up through a veil of hair into the eyes of a boy

No. Not a boy.

Him.

Matteo Messina.

One of the triplets of Massimo Messina.

My stomach twists, as he watches me with a look that’s half smug, half boredom. Like he’s saved me from death for the fun of it, not mercy.

His grip on my wrist loosens, and I lose my balance, almost falling back again, but he tightens it again, and his mouth tilts up at one side in malicious amusement.

He glances down at my hand, at the ring, and smirks.

“With a ring that big and ugly,” he says, voice low, smooth like warm ash, “you’d sink before you hit the water.” He takes a drag from his cigarette, the tip flaring red, and I swear the smoke curls into a grin.

He finally yanks me back, the world snapping upright. My hands land against his stone chest, his grip still locks around my wrist.

I shut my eyes for a moment, the scent of smoke and wood wrapping around me, his cologne threaded with the forest.

He’s standing too close, close enough I can see the ink etched along his collarbone disappearing into the open collar of his black shirt. The triplets all have a tattoo in that area, but they’re all different, it’s how you tell them apart.

We’re mafia, but the Messinas hold more power. If they wanted, they could wipe us out in a blink.

It would be an ugly war, but one the Messina family would fight until the end. The war began when Uncle Liam killed Matteo’s grandmother, long before he was born. That alone is enough for them to want our blood. No matter who you are, if you’re Irish, they hate you.

The silver cross around his neck glints in the dying light. A snake hangs beside it.

I try to step back, but his hand still grips my wrist, burning against my skin.

Finally, he lets go, only to raise the cigarette to his mouth, his eyes still fixed on me as if he’s reading secrets.

Does he know who I am? He can’t. If he did, he wouldn’t have pulled me up, he would have let me fall, and no one would ever know it was him.

My heart hammers from fear, from the cold, from him. “You’re shaking,” he murmurs, the cigarette balanced between two fingers. “Is it the wind, or me?”

I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. My throat’s too dry, my body too aware.

He steps closer, the space between us vanishing, and suddenly his mouth is right next to mine. Not touching, but close enough I can feel the heat of him.

He exhales, slow, deliberate, and smoke fills my lungs, sharp, smoky, his. I don’t move, I feel it settle inside me like a secret.

His lips curve. Barely, and then, softly, he speaks. “Didn’t expect to find an O’Brien trying to throw herself off a cliff before term even started.”

I freeze.

He knows.

My chest rises sharply, but he doesn’t move. His eyes drop to my mouth, then to my throat, watching my pulse pound a hundred beats a second.

“Careful, little lamb,” he murmurs. “Wolves like me hunt up here.” And with that he turns and walks back into the darkness of the woods.

The trees swallow him.

One second he was here, breathing smoke into my lungs like he owns me, and the next, gone. Shadows close over where he stood, and the only thing left is the slow sting in my chest, the echo of his voice still rattling around in my head.

“Careful, little lamb. Wolves like me hunt up here.”

My fingers twitch at my side, every nerve sparks where he touched me.

No one’s ever looked at me like that before. Like I’m a puzzle he already knows the answer to. Like I’m a fire he wants to pour gasoline on.

He knew my name. O’Brien.

I turn back to the cliff, boots digging into the gravel, as I look down at the waves, wondering if tonight was the night I would have jumped. The mist thickens in the air, maybe it’s the cold, maybe it’s the mess inside my chest.

He should’ve let me fall.

I wish he had. It would’ve been easier.

I tug at the sleeve of my sweater, my hand brushes the ring, and I freeze. It’s still there. Stupid and shiny and heavy. A symbol of the deal that sealed my fate, a medieval contract disguised as gold. I yank at it but it won’t come off.

Maybe it knows. Maybe it knows I’m stuck.

They’ve locked me in gold chains and called it honor. They’ve tied me to a man I can’t even look at without wanting to vomit, and all I get in return is the power it gives the O’Briens in Hollow underground. A seat at a table. A future I don’t want. A name I already hate.

The woods start to thin as I walk toward the hilltop to join my family. I can hear the low thump of bass now, carried on the wind from the party deeper in Hollow Hills. Laughter. Voices. Someone shouting someone else’s name. Bottles cracking open. Music pulsing like a second heartbeat.

It’s strange how fast you can go from the edge of death to the center of a party.

Hollow Hills always throws the unofficial “start of term” get-together for the students of Blackstone Academy. This year, like every year, is invite-only, and this year, like every year, no one says the word mafia.

We see each other’s rings. Our family crests. Our names whispered like threats.

I walk toward the fire in the middle of the field. Clusters split by blood: Russians at the rocks, Italians on the benches, the Irish with our backs to the trees.

I don’t belong with any of them.

I never have.

Not even with Cillian and Conor, my cousins, who nod like we’re on the same side.

We’re not.

They know what Uncle Liam did. They know what he’s promised me to.

And they don’t care.

I don’t stop at the edge of the firelight. I keep moving, aiming for the drinking table, somewhere I can hide and maybe warm my fingers.

I feel eyes on me. Not just watching me; weighing, measuring. The girl from the cliffs. The O’Brien girl with the haunted eyes and the ugly ring.

I look up, and there he is again. Matteo. Leaning against a black car, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other. Shirt half open, necklace gleaming, tattoos crawling from his sleeves. His brothers flank him, mirror images except for their ink.

His eyes catch mine. No smile, he only watches.

Like he’s still hunting.

I tear away, pour vodka into a cup, and throw it back. It burns, but not as much as the fire still crawling under my skin.

I don’t know how I’ll survive Blackstone Academy.

But I know one thing.

Matteo Messina is the last boy I should ever speak to again.

So why does it already feel like he’ll be the reason I don’t survive?