The Rose’s Vow (Mafia Vows of Blood and Love #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

ISABELLA

DAY ONE

Ichose this. I need to remember that.

The heroines in my romance novels always seem to face choices between two gorgeous men or Paris versus New York. Nobody warned me about this version—the one where I'm choosing to leave behind everything I've finally found to save a ghost.

Nora Roberts never prepared me for this.

Three months ago, I would have clawed my way onto any plane leaving Antonio's fortress.

Before that, I was standing on an auction block while men bid on me like livestock, being asked to hide any signs of what cancer treatments did to me. Being asked to hide I was no longer the gracious ballerina I once was. Being asked to forget that those men already treated me poorly years ago.

Like at that gala years ago—before everything fell apart between us—where Henrik cornered me in the garden and Antonio appeared like a shadow, his presence enough to make Henrik back away.

I guess… in a way, we’re trying to save each other this time. Well, after he imprisoned me for months.

Now my fingers won't stop finding the worn edge of his letter in my pocket, the paper soft from constant touching. Twenty-three times I've unfolded it since takeoff. Twenty-three times I've traced his handwriting without actually reading the words.

I'm rationing them. Like pain meds during chemo, when you know the next dose is hours away and the ache is already building.

The paper smells faintly of roses. Most likely Elena's doing.

She'd pressed one of the garden roses between her picture books, a drooping red bloom she'd insisted on giving me "for brave.

" When I'd tucked Antonio's letter into my pocket, the dried petals had crumbled against the envelope, leaving their scent behind like a blessing.

Or a reminder of what I'm fighting to return to.

Ti amo. Come back to me.

His voice echoes in my memory, rough and tender at once, and my stupid heart does that flutter-skip thing that would have nurses running if I were still hooked up to monitors.

The Mediterranean glitters below us, impossibly blue, and I catch myself imagining a different version of this moment.

Antonio's hand in mine, his calluses rough against my skin from years at the piano.

Elena tucked between us, her giggles mixing with the hum of the engines.

Maybe someday. If I survive whatever's waiting on that island.

If my mother is even who she says she is.

My mother. The words still taste like fiction. Like those fairy tales I used to spin for Elena about princesses who build their own parachutes. Thirteen years I talked to marble and air, poured my grief into a grave that held nothing but lies. And now she needs my blood to survive.

The irony would be poetic if it weren't so fucked up.

I glance around the cabin—old habits kicking in despite myself.

Antonio taught me to count exits before entries, threats before faces, weapons before words.

Two exits. Seven potential weapons within reach if you count the decorative letter opener on Alexandros's tray table, which I absolutely do.

Franco sits right behind me and gives me a nod when he sees me staring, his posture deceptively relaxed, but I've learned to read the tension in his shoulders, the way his eyes never stop moving.

Manuel is beside him, the ex-special forces operative Antonio trusted with my life.

Trust them, Antonio said. They're brothers in all the ways that matter.

So I do. Or I'm trying to.

My grandmother's voice echoes from a memory I'd half-forgotten: The women in our family are never just women.

We are keys to doors men spend lifetimes trying to open.

She said that at my mom's funeral. My other father's mother didn't come to visit often.

It was one of the only times I ever saw her.

I didn't understand then. Now, flying toward an island full of strangers who want my blood, I'm starting to.

And then there are the Greeks.

The plane banks slightly, and my stomach lurches with it. We've been circling for ten minutes now instead of descending, and that prickle at the back of my neck—the one I developed somewhere between my father's betrayal and Antonio's prison—won't quiet down.

"There's a bit of a delay at the airport," Alexandros offers, his ice-blue eyes meeting mine. "We should land within the next thirty minutes."

He wants to talk. I can see it in the way he's angled toward me, all diplomatic concern and careful charm.

At the dinner in Antonio's fortress, he'd looked at me like I was a puzzle to solve or a territory to claim.

That hasn't changed. But there's a tightness around his jaw that wasn't there before.

I turn toward the window, pressing my forehead against the cool glass and pretending the drone of the engines is lulling me to sleep.

It doesn't work.

Stefanos's voice cuts through the cabin, sharp enough to slice through my pretense. He's speaking English—for Franco and Manuel's benefit, or maybe mine.

"Eight million. Eight fucking million because the Albanians pulled out of the Thessaloniki port deal."

My eyes stay closed, but every sense sharpens.

"Stefanos." Alexandros's warning is ice-cold. "Not now."

"Why not?" There's something raw in Stefanos's voice, something that reminds me of Antonio when he talked about his mother. Grief wearing rage like armor. "She's going to find out eventually. The Corsicans are laughing at us. The Calabrians are moving into our territory while we've been—"

"Honoring a debt."

"Hemorrhaging money." Stefanos's laugh is bitter, jagged.

"We tied up half our liquid assets in that medical facility.

And someone's been bleeding us on top of it.

Loss after loss, shipments vanishing, accounts draining overnight.

" His gaze cuts toward Alexandros. "You blame the Albanians, but the pattern's wrong.

This is someone who knows our systems from the inside. "

"Enough." Nikos's voice is sharp.

"Why? We're no longer in Italy having to pretend.

She should know what she's walking into.

Oh we may pretend well. And we're doing much better than some of the Italian families.

But shit, if our money keeps being used that way, we're fucked.

And why? Her grandfather saved ours? Her fucking Italian grandmother hated Luciano, her own son, so much she created a document to save her granddaughter?

Do you notice the past tense?" Stefanos's tone turns venomous.

"This whole operation is rotting from within.

And nobody wants to ask who's holding the knife. "

The cabin goes quiet. I keep my breathing steady. In through the nose, out through the mouth, just like before PET scans when panic wanted to claw its way up my throat.

This is new. None of this came up during the dinner at Antonio's fortress. The Greeks had seemed powerful then, in control. Now I'm hearing desperation. The kind that makes people do stupid, dangerous things.

What exactly has my mother gotten them into?

Nikos finally speaks, his voice carrying that edge of cunning I remember. "The pharmaceutical connections alone—"

"Worth what?" Stefanos cuts him off.

"Fifty thousand this month," Nikos says without looking up from his phone. "Sixty-two last month. The trajectory is unsustainable."

“And the ports we're losing? The protection money the Sicilians are now collecting from our people?" Stefanos’ voice drops, turns venomous. "Your mother promised us access. Influence. A seat at tables we'd never reach on our own. And instead we got a dying woman and her daughter's blood."

Your mother.

Not her mother. He's talking to his brothers, but the accusation lands on me like a slap.

I sit up, abandoning the pretense of sleep.

"So you're broke, losing territory, and tied to my mother's schemes.

" I keep my voice level, the way I learned to during treatments when doctors delivered bad news with practiced calm.

"No wonder you need me alive. At least until whatever this miracle cure is actually works. "

Stefanos's Mediterranean-blue eyes snap to mine, and I see it—the grief churning beneath the rage. At the dinner, I learned he'd lost someone because of my mother. A lover, maybe. Someone who mattered enough to turn him into this.

"Your mother," he says slowly, "promised things she couldn't deliver.

Made deals she never intended to keep." His voice breaks.

A tiny hairline fracture but I hear it. "Marco believed her.

Marco trusted her research, her connections, her promises of legitimate funding.

And now he's dead, and she's still here making deals with new marks. "

"Who was Marco?"

Stefanos's composure cracks. Raw grief, bleeding through the rage.

"Someone I—" He stops, jaw working. "Someone who deserved better than what this place became. He was a researcher," Stefanos continues, quieter now. "Immunology. He thought he was going to help people—real help, real medicine. Instead..." He trails off, shaking his head.

It was a lover. I can hear it in his voice, see it in the way his whole body tenses around the name. Marco was his lover, and my mother got him killed.

No wonder Stefanos wants to watch her suffer. Maybe, he wants me to suffer, too.

I hold his gaze. "I'm not my mother. And I'm not my father."

Surprise flickers across his face. But Alexandros speaks before either of us can follow that thread.

"No one is suggesting you are." Smooth. Diplomatic. The eldest brother, always managing the room. "You're here because your mother needs you. And because we honor our debts."

"Right." I almost laugh. "And what are the rules here? Am I a guest? A prisoner?" I pause. "A protected visitor?"

The term earns me a flicker of respect in Alexandros's eyes. "You've been paying attention."

"I've had good teachers."