Chapter 1
LELANI
Nineteen years old
New York
Fists of clumpy, wet dirt fall over the mahogany casket, which displays an ostentatious high-gloss finish and decorative golden accents.
It looks like an advert for the most expensive funeral home in New York. The best casket money can buy.
The Gallo family has spared no expense in turning this dull, gray, rainy day into a glorious event, and ultimately, the triumphant culmination of her brief, volcanic life.
Lowered into the water-drenched ground with a casket spray on top––an elaborated arrangement of white lilies and roses––the container speaks of a finality that is hard to swallow.
All the drama she stirred up over half of her short life is now stifled by the silence.
So much struggle for nothing.
I hug my coat closer and drag a jaded stare over the crowd as the freezing rain pelts down. It mostly spares the people’s coats but not their fancy shoes.
Dark umbrellas that look like dome-shaped airships with broken moorings hover over their heads, providing protection and partly concealing their expressions.
Bianca Gallo, for sure, would’ve wholeheartedly resented the nasty weather if she had a say in what her big departure day would look like.
On a different note, being the shallow person that she was, she would’ve gaped in awe at the craftsmanship that went into the men’s suits.
The timeless mix of wool and cashmere, the hand-stitched lapels and buttonholes. And also the designer dresses and sophisticated overcoats draped over the women’s frames.
Silk, gossamer, luxurious crepes, and the finest wool are layered in a decadent sartorial world that speaks of opulence in no way foreign to her.
Bianca Gallo, my mother, the heiress to the Gallo empire, is now the dead heiress to the Gallo empire.
Knowing her, she’d come from the dead and haunt me for the rest of her life if she knew she’d stupidly cleared the path for me to ascend in the ranks and become a mafia princess.
I glance around the crowd again.
Although carefully concealed, the guns tucked in holsters inside the men’s jackets keep everybody on their best behavior and add a film of civility to the otherwise dark crowd.
My eyes move over the women’s legs.
Sleek high heels rise from the concrete like polished vines blossoming into rhinestone-studded bands wrapped around their ankles.
Statement jewelry the size of my hand gives heist artists something to dream about, while stunning designer bags add a pinch of frivolity to their looks.
Hats trimmed with dark voile cast a kernel of doubt over their expressions, obscuring that hint of frantic glee that could clue people in on the true story behind Bianca’s stormy life and unexpected death.
The men’s expressions are carved in stone, as always, too stoic to reveal anything about the rampant gossip surrounding my mother’s premature passing.
The men standing around the casket look dangerous––because they are–– despite their subdued behavior and gloved hands conveniently hiding their tattooed knuckles.
With that being said, their blank expressions hardly conceal the viciousness dripping in their blood.
These men routinely put more people into the ground than the gravediggers do in this cemetery.
My eyes hover over the crowd again.
Many people have shown up today, but let’s not fool ourselves.
Despite being the first in line to inherit the Gallo empire, no one has truly liked Bianca.
They like her more now that she’s dead than they liked her when she was alive.
Notorious for stealing the women’s husbands, lovers, boyfriends, even their exes, and then discarding them like they were trash, she hasn’t made any real friends throughout her life.
She did what she did out of vengeance, with no regard for anyone, not even her family.
Not even me.
Things appeared to have cooled off after she married him, her third husband, but that didn’t last, did it?
She’s in the ground now, perhaps smiling at the world she’s left behind, taking her darkest secrets with her, cloaked in our collective hate, and forever burdened by the regret of being rejected by him.
By her own husband.
The only man she couldn’t have.
Or so I like to believe.
I’ve heard rumors.
But even without the rumors, I know his ignoring her drove her up the wall and pushed her into Xavier’s arms, her now deceased lover.
The man she cheated on her husband with is not buried here for obvious reasons.
My family––their wishes trump everyone else’s––wanted him cremated, his ashes spread into the wind, and his memory forever erased from our collective memory.
So, he’s gone.
No one is talking about him.
They’re all concerned with who might be lowered into the ground or taken to the crematory next.
No one knows who that might be.
No one ever knows, which leads me to him.
What will happen to him? Callum O’Hara? Bianca’s husband?
Nothing ties him to our family anymore––now that she’s gone––yet he is here today, acting like the man of the house, and I can tell that he still is.
There must be more to the story. More than I know, for sure.
Their marriage was not the usual boy-meets-girl-and-they-fall-in-love cute story.
He was never obsessed with her.
Some of her men were, and they were all crazy enough to risk their lives for her, but not him. He never cared about her.
Never wanted to touch her.
He wouldn’t put that on display for public consumption, of course, and he had played the role of a dotting husband, but he had never fooled me.
Besides, we’re not that kind of people.
The most authentic passion shatters like a Murano vase against a hard unforgiving wall when it meets the duplicitous critical thinking in our house.
Everything in this family is about power. The most abject, criminal, physical kind of power.
The kind that breaks people, robs them of their most precious valuables, and turns them into useful tools for other people’s benefit.
Acquiring money comes next.
And after that comes sex, which is often filthy and decadent, with people you have no business being with.
Bianca was onto something as she was seeking sex that always left someone dead.
But back to her husband.
Callum struck a deal with Giorgio Gallo, the patriarch of our family, Bianca’s father, and my grandfather.
The deal was… Uh… I don’t know exactly what the deal was. They never shared that kind of information with me.
It must’ve been worded in some pretty harsh, immutable terms, since he has kept his end of the deal throughout this time.
By staying married to Bianca, he created a powerful alliance with the Gallo family.
Bianca wasn’t privy to the details of their agreement, either, nor did she want to.
All she needed to know was that she’d get the most handsome, dangerous husband money could buy, and with a little bit of luck, she’d share her bed with him.
Their connection was never about love or forging a real marriage.
Their tale was about a woman who wanted to play in the big leagues, and a man who knew how to keep his cards close to the vest and benefit from playing a role.
She wanted to believe they were a thing, but resting six feet under, dolled up in the only outfit she’ll wear in eternity, proves her wrong.
It doesn’t matter in the end, does it?
I drag my eyes to the side as the people inch closer to the big opening in the ground and pay their last respects.
Funerals, in general, can’t ruin my day. I don’t care about them either way.
To me, they’re an afterthought, but today is a special day for many reasons, and the most important one is the man standing next to Giorgio and Sylvia Gallo.
Callum O’Hara.
The starched collar of his crisp white shirt dips into his muscular neck as he keeps his chin down, his eyes fixed on the casket, his lips naturally curled into that dismissive, villain-like look that has sent tingles down my legs more than once.
Tasked with holding an umbrella over his head, the man behind him seems unsure of whether to step closer to his boss or keep his distance.
He’s probably been instructed to stay away.
My focus glides to the man in front of him, and my heartbeats become erratic as I stare at him with hunger I can’t contain.
Glinting with power, his eyes are a pale shade of light gray like the silkiest dove feathers, while tiny rain diamonds glimmer in his jet black hair.
Even now, as I side-eye him and his gaze trails down, resoluteness carved into his features, I can’t suppress my fascination with him.
My cheeks burn under the traitorous kiss of the coming winter, and my heart spins into oblivion, drunk on the longing ravaging my blood.
Every time I look at him, a fire devours my insides, and savage needs smear my awareness.
He wears a three-piece suit, a monogrammed hankie in his suit jacket pocket, a navy tie, and a long coat.
His shirt is pure like freshly sifted snow.
That’s about the only thing pure about him.
An expensive watch gleams around his wrist like a memorable cold sunset, and his lips could start a century-long war. They’ve already done it for me, and it’s a war I’m losing every day.
I love everything about this man.
How he looks, how he carries himself, and how stingy he is with his smiles.
I’ve never seen him genuinely grin or add a trickle of warmth to his expression, except for one time, in one of the darkest corners of the house, when a pinch of cynical humor morphed into an invisible hand and tugged at his lips as he had finally acknowledged me.
My eyes glide away again.
Several men stand behind him. Those are his men. He doesn’t go anywhere without them.
These men are loyal to him.
They fix problems and keep his businesses running smoothly.
Some of the men wear hats, while others are bare-headed like him. They look like monsters carved out of bald stones, and there’s a reason they surround him.
Things have been volatile these days, especially since she died. Again, I know he and my family have an understanding, but an agreement is like saying yes to the wind in our world.
Things can shift at a moment’s notice.