Vow of Honor (Chicago Vows)

Chapter 1

CECELIA

Row upon row of grape vines stretched out from our home. It was the most beautiful sight as the sun set, casting pink and purple shadows over the fields.

Some would think it was romantic.

Not me. It was my prison, and tonight I was finally getting out.

I'd spent twenty-two years watching that sunset from this window, and I'd spent the last six months knowing with absolute certainty that if I didn't leave, I wouldn't live to see twenty-three.

Not because of anything I'd done. Simply because of what I was — a daughter in a family that treated daughters like currency.

I took one last look around my room. It was childish, all of it.

A ruffled pink duvet over the white canopy bed that my mother had preened over for months after she bought it.

I would have happily given it up to her, but she was sure I needed it, because apparently it was every little girl's dream.

I'd stopped being a little girl the first time my father hit me, and I was seven years old.

A large oak trunk sat at the end of my bed, filled with all my hopes and dreams for the new life I was supposed to be starting in a month. A life that would end up with me dead, and that wasn't a life I wanted.

I knew what happened to Hector Lombardi's wives.

Everyone did, even if nobody said it out loud.

His first wife, a quiet girl from Naples named Rosa, had lasted eight months before she fell down the stairs in his estate.

His second wife made it just over a year before she drove her car into the sea.

The official story was grief. Everyone knew better.

Hector Lombardi didn't want wives. He wanted obedient objects, and when they stopped being obedient, he disposed of them.

I had no intention of becoming the third.

My father knew. I was certain of it. The way he'd smiled when he told me about the arrangement, watching my face for the fear he knew would be there — that smile told me everything about what my life meant to him.

I wasn't his daughter in that moment. I was a very valuable piece moving across a board, and the game he was playing had nothing to do with my survival.

I'd heard him say it himself.

Three months ago I'd woken at two in the morning to voices beneath my window. My father and his consigliere, Benedetto, speaking in low tones they thought couldn't carry. But sound moved differently at night, over the quiet fields, up through the old stone walls of the house.

She'll give him an heir and then we wait, my father had said. Lombardi is old and his health is failing. Two years at most. When he dies, the territory transfers and I control everything from here to Palermo.

And if he hurts her before that?

A pause. Then my father's voice, completely flat. Then she'll have done her part.

I'd lain in that bed for an hour afterward, staring at the ceiling, and somewhere in that hour something in me went very quiet and very decided.

I was not going to do his part. I was not going to be a stepping stone for a man who looked at my potential suffering and calculated whether it was an acceptable cost.

I was going to disappear.

My father's voice cut through my thoughts now, rising up from below.

Laughing and drinking with his men. The men I'd grown up around, the men who'd vowed to protect my family with their lives, and they were all laughing about the man I was being forced to marry.

Someone made a joke I couldn't quite hear and the whole room erupted.

I pressed my hand flat against the cool glass of the window and breathed.

One hour, I told myself. One hour and you'll never have to hear that sound again.

Glancing at my watch, I had fifteen minutes until I would put my plan into motion.

Turning away from the window, I checked everything one more time.

Passport, wallet, cash — every euro I'd been quietly setting aside for four months, skimmed carefully from the household accounts I managed because my father couldn't be bothered with such things.

A small bag filled with the bare essentials that would get me through a few days.

Nothing that would flag me going through airport security, and now all I needed were my boarding passes.

I was ready.

I'd thought about leaving a note. I'd even started one, twice.

Both times I'd stared at the paper and realized there was nothing to say that wouldn't sound like either an apology or an accusation, and I didn't feel either of those things.

I felt clear. I felt like a woman who had finally understood the terms being offered to her and had decided they were unacceptable.

I left the paper blank and put it in the trunk instead.

Walking out the French doors onto the balcony, I carried my shoes so I wouldn't make any noise.

Over the last two weeks I'd made this walk so often I could do it in my sleep.

The practice runs had felt almost absurd at the time — creeping out of my own room like a thief in my own home.

But I'd needed to know every loose board, every shadow, every guard rotation.

My father hadn't raised a stupid woman, even if he'd never appreciated that particular result.

Passing my parents' room, I knew it was empty. They were both entertaining the soldiers. Keeping to the left, I went down the stairs, stepping over the last step that was loose and made noise.

My feet hit the tan dirt. I kept moving without looking behind me.

This was the thing nobody told you about leaving — that the hardest part wasn't the fear of being caught.

It was the pull of the familiar. Even a prison gets its hooks into you.

I knew every inch of this vineyard, every smell of it at every hour.

I knew exactly how the light looked on the fields in October, and that I would never see it again.

I knew my mother's face, and that I would never be able to tell her why I'd gone.

My mother, who had chosen this life with both eyes open, who had watched my father become the man he was and made her peace with it in ways I never could.

She wasn't a villain. She was just someone who had run out of fight long before I was born.

I hoped she understood. I suspected she would, and that was almost sadder than if she'd been angry.

Looking backward wasn't going to get me to a new future. I knew without a doubt what behind me looked like. I didn't need to take another longing look at a place that hadn't held love or safety. Not for a long time.

Ducking through the grapevines, I walked between the rows and the stone fence to the small gap in the wall. Holding my breath, I slipped through and ran.

My lungs screamed for me to stop, but my brain pushed the feeling aside and I kept going. The road was dark and the night air was cool against my face and I ran until my chest burned and the lights of the vineyard were just a warm smear behind me.

Then I saw Nicola's car, headlights off, tucked into the shadow of the old olive tree at the bend in the road where we'd agreed. And something in my chest cracked open with relief so intense it felt almost like grief.

"Oh my god, I didn't think you would show.

" My best friend whispered as I hopped into her car.

She leaned over the stick shift and hugged me, her black hair tied up in a high ponytail, her arms tight around my neck.

She smelled like the perfume she'd worn since we were fifteen, something floral and warm, and I held on longer than I meant to.

"Are you sure about this?" Her words were whispered, and I knew it was out of fear. What we were doing was dangerous, but there was no other option.

"I am." Pulling back, I looked at her face properly. Her dark eyes were bright with unshed tears, and I knew she was as scared as I was — maybe more so, because she was staying behind. "Drive. I have to be on the plane in two hours."

My eyes were locked on the road in front of me as the car lurched forward. With every turn of the tires I felt my soul getting lighter. This was the right decision. I had no doubt.

"Are you going to check in with the head family there?" She asked, her piercing dark eyes able to see into my soul. I doubted I even needed to answer her.

"Absolutely not. I'm no longer in this life, so there's no reason for me to have to look for anyone. Besides, if I do, then people will know where I am." My words sounded a lot more sure than I felt. I knew I was supposed to check in, but I needed to stay under the radar as long as I could.

Headlights behind us made me turn in my seat, but they took a side road we'd already passed. Breathing a sigh of relief, I turned around and stared ahead again.

"Chicago," Nicola said quietly, and it wasn't a question. We'd talked about it in the abstract, in the careful coded way you talked about dangerous things. "You actually picked Chicago."

"It was the last place anyone would look.

" The irony of it wasn't lost on me. Running from one mafia family straight into the territory of their oldest enemy.

But that was exactly why it worked — my father would never believe I'd go there.

He'd spent my entire life telling me the Venosas were monsters, aggressors, the source of every problem our family had ever faced.

He'd built them up into something so frightening that the thought of voluntarily entering their city would seem like madness to him.

Which was precisely why I'd chosen it.

"Promise me you'll be careful." Nicola's voice was tight.

"I promise."

"Promise me you'll contact me when you're settled. One message, just so I know." Her hands tightened on the steering wheel.

"Nicola—"

"I know it's not safe. I know." She exhaled hard. "Just one. So I know you're alive."

I looked at her profile in the dark car, at the girl who had been my closest friend since we were eight years old, who had never once in fourteen years told anyone my secrets, who had driven to this dark road on this dangerous night without hesitating.

There was so much I wanted to say to her and none of it would come out right.

"One message," I said. "When I'm settled."

Nicola pulled up to the airport thirty minutes after I left my house. "Are you sure you don't want to come with me?" I asked as she pulled up to the airport doors.

"My life is here, CeCe." She turned to look at me fully, and her eyes were wet now, not bothering to hide it.

"You're strong, and you can handle anything that comes your way.

I'm not. I'd rush back here the first chance I got.

" She reached out and gripped my hand hard.

"Promise me you'll let me know when you're in Chicago? "

Tears filled her eyes, and I wanted to plead with her to come, but I knew she was right.

"One day, when my life is amazing, you're coming to live with me." I hugged her fiercely, breathing her in, trying to memorize the specific warmth of her.

"You bet your ass I will." She laughed, wet and unsteady, against my shoulder.

Letting her go, I got out of the car and turned back to look at my best friend one last time. She smiled through her tears and waved, and I waved back and then I turned and ran through the doors and didn't let myself look again.

I found my terminal and sat in the uncomfortable seats, bouncing my leg nervously as I waited for the flight attendant to start boarding. I splurged and bought a ticket in first class. I was used to a private plane, so I wasn't about to be squished between five other people.

"We will board first class now," the man said over the speaker. Grabbing my bag, I rushed to the front of the line. Sitting out in the open was risky. Everyone knew one another here, and I needed to get out of Italy before anyone spotted me.

Flashing my passport and boarding pass, the man nodded me through and I almost ran down the boarding bridge.

"Welcome to Paris Air." The flight attendant's smile was impeccable and her blue eyes sparkled. I looked out my window. A sinking feeling of homesickness washed over me. Come on Cecilia, you've barely left your hometown. It's too early for this. My brain was right. I needed to keep moving.

Finding my seat, I pulled the curtain around me and waited.

Why did it take so long to fill a plane?

I needed to go. Surely someone would have checked on me by now?

Well, they probably wouldn't have yet, unless the wine ran out.

I huffed a laugh. Wine running out at a vineyard? That would never happen.

The bang of the large door slamming shut was the most welcome sound I'd ever heard, followed by the flight attendants going over their safety talk.

Engines whirred to life, and before I knew it we were speeding down the runway.

Front wheels off the tarmac, back wheels up, landing gear clunking into place, and we were in the air.

A tear slipped down my cheek as I realized I'd made it through step one of my new life. Below me, the lights of Sicily grew small and then disappeared into the dark.

I'm sorry, Nicola, I thought. Be safe.

I didn't sleep the entire flight.