PROLOGUE #2
Tears prickle as I look at myself in the mirror in my new room at my uncle’s house.
It’s white and black with touches of red, an ominous reminder of the permanent color stain on my hands.
It’s sleek but sterile in comparison to my family home, which Mama had decorated with warm apricots, cream, and bronze.
Textured throws and art added character and charm.
A memory of a beautiful life that feels completely out of reach now.
Everyone will be crying tears for the poor orphan today, but I don’t deserve their pity.
If they knew the part I’ve played in their death, they wouldn’t be able to look me in the eye.
I can barely stand my own reflection—dull eyes, pale skin, sunken cheekbones.
Reminders of my grief and my crimes. I take in my outfit, a new-season Dior skirt suit with accessories to match.
The exaggerated shoulders and cinched-in waist of the buttoned-up blazer make me look more statuesque than my five-foot-nothing.
The silver buttons lining the front are monogrammed with the famous branding, and the simple skirt which should hug my body hangs off my once curvaceous hips, falling at just the right demure length below the knee.
Bag and shoes and the velvet bow holding my hair in a low, sleek ponytail also sport the brand’s logo and complete the look.
I hoped it would feel like armor. Instead, I feel like a fraud in an expensive designer disguise.
Even so, it screams wealth and power. The ultimate goal of any mob family.
And the very same reason there are as many funerals as weddings in Sicily.
I chose the same suit in white for Mama and a black and white pinstripe suit with a red tie and pocket square for Papa. Their deaths may have been undignified, but I made sure they were going out in style.
I toy with my papa’s medallion engraved with the family crest that now sits on a gold chain around my neck.
My uncle insisted we bury my father with it, seeing as he didn’t have a male heir to pass it onto.
One withering look between my hysterical sobs and Uncle Gino knew better than to push the issue.
So what, just because I have a vagina, I don’t have the right to the family heirloom all the Gigioliotti men were given at birth?
Not on my fucking watch. Named my legal guardian until I get my degree, dear Uncle Gino was about to get a one-way ticket into the twenty-first century.
He might hold Godfather power in the Mafia circles, but as I learned quickly, hysterical women are his kryptonite.
A little nugget of information I have stored to use for a rainy day.
And you bet that day is coming. As soon as I finish my studies, I’m getting out of here.
I want to go to New York where my cousin AJ lives.
I know he heads up the family business there, and to be honest, he’s probably more of a hard-ass than my uncle, but he’s less than ten years older than me so he understands the allure of having some sort of freedom that being across the world offers.
His twin brothers, Christian and Matteo, are only a few years older than me and are wealthy entrepreneurs.
They’re never in one place long, travelling around to the clubs they own in Europe, their appearances as much a drawcard as the establishments themselves.
From a practical sense though, what better way to run the trade and clean money for the family business.
Not that any one of them has ever admitted it to me, what they do.
But I’m not dumb. Working in the Mafia means you accept you’re either the hunted or the hunter.
Likely both. I just know that’s not how I want to make my living.
Nor do I want to be with a man who makes his money in a business where life or death situations are the norm not the exception.
Like my thoughts summonsed him, AJ’s gruff voice calls out to me. “Chiara, the cars are here. It’s time to go to the church.”
I open the door to find my cousin leaning against the wall beside it, furiously tapping away on his phone, brow furrowed.
Mob business never stops. Not even to bury the dead.
I want to berate him for being disrespectful.
But the truth is, it’s not his fault either.
This is the life he was born into, one it seems you only escape through death, and I don’t wish that upon him.
Tall, dark, and brooding, with skin darkened by the sun and rugged good looks, it’s easy to see why women and men alike fall to their knees for AJ.
His dark hair, which is a little longer on top and shaved underneath, is combed back, showing off his high cheekbones and strong, straight Italian nose.
A collection of intricate tattoos line his knuckles, and that omnipresent air of don’t fuck with me rolls off him in waves.
Today he’s dressed in an impeccable all-black suit and shirt buttoned all the way up, his gold medallion with our family crest sitting atop it.
A surge of defiance fires through me at the memory of my argument with my uncle about keeping my father’s.
It’s not a daughter’s place to wear that crest, he’d fumed.
When you marry you will take your husband’s name.
It’s tradition—only sons take on the responsibility of keeping the family name and legacy alive.
Yeah, fuck that. We’re in the fucking twenty-first century, yet in my hometown, those with dicks are still considered superior.
And dear uncle, I have plans to forge a legacy of my own. Just you wait.