Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
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."