Vows of Blood (Kings of the Underworld #3)

Chapter 1

ISABELLA

“SHIT! FUCK!”

I lean against the wall and grab my foot as the sharp pain slices through my foot. Damned end table leg. I look back at it sorely as it sits near the door, mocking me. Ugh. These pumps are new. My foot had better not swell up.

The window right across from my front door looks like the porthole of a ship during a storm. I don’t know when it started raining, but by the time I was up and out of bed, it was coming down in sheets.

Perfect. I hobble over to the kitchen counter and grab my purse.

As I rush out to the taxi, I hold it over my head in a futile attempt to block the rain.

With my sore toe in my tight ass pumps, the pulsing headache, and the feeling of goldfish swimming in my stomach thanks to a hangover, the last thing I need is to be drenched when I walk into the funeral home.

I’m late. Really late. Dad told me to be at the funeral home at nine. Here I am just jumping into a cab at ten. So long as the traffic doesn’t go full Times Square standstill on the way, I’ll probably make it there around half past.

I’ve been carrying around this heavy feeling of guilt since Damon died.

It’s the oddest feeling. It feels like bricks on my back that I’ve been straining under for weeks.

I know it’s guilt, even though I had absolutely nothing to do with his death.

Damon was the one who had been stupid enough to try and get into our father’s business by dealing drugs on the side.

When I found out what he was doing, I tried to tell him not to mess around with the shit.

I don’t know much about the family business, but I know that Dad always told us to steer clear of drugs.

Damon was stubborn, though. Just like Dad and just like me. Once any one of us sets our mind to something, it’s hell trying to get us to stop. Wild horses couldn’t have gotten in Damon’s way if he really wanted to do something.

I watch the world pass me by from the blurry passenger’s side window. It hasn’t rained in weeks. How ironic that the day we’re burying my brother, the weather should turn biblical.

I catch a reflection of myself in the glass.

It’s quick, barely a silhouette, but I see the limpness of my dark hair and realize how wet it’s gotten.

Dammit, I think as I reach into my purse and pull out a mirror.

I look like a drowned rat in makeup. My pale skin is shiny with rainwater sitting on top of my foundation.

Fortunately, the eyeliner around my bright blue eyes is still in place instead of running down my cheeks.

My full, heart-shaped lips are still fire engine red from my lipstick and my high cheekbones still glisten with the remnants of the pink blush I put on this morning.

Honestly, it’s my hair that’s the worst. I had actually taken the time to straighten it out and curl it before I left. Now my shoulder-length black tresses have dissolved into wet waves that are bound to frizz up once they dry.

All I can do is sigh and close the mirror. It’s just as well.

The rain’s let up a little as we pull up to the funeral home. The sky has opened, shining several beams of light down on the funeral in odd shafts. I pay the taxi driver and put on my sunglasses to hide my bloodshot eyes and get out of the car.

At least my outfit didn’t suffer any from the rain.

I’m wearing a simple black skirt with silver buttons up the back and a black, button-up blouse.

The skirt is long enough to be respectable, but the stockings and garters I’m wearing underneath feel a little damp from the rain.

Or maybe my legs are just cold from the splashing water I just had to run through.

As I walk in, the smells of stale perfume and flowers greet me.

The foyer’s small, with two rooms on either side.

The room on the left is closed off, the double doors shut.

The one on the right is open and I can see the somber funeral scene playing out.

The whole family is sitting in folding chairs on either side of an aisle leading right up to the casket with big bouquets of white flowers on either side.

. At the sound of organ music, I turn to my left.

The room in question is filled with people on either side of a single aisle that leads right up to Damon’s casket.

Everyone’s head is down in prayer. Even the minister at the podium above the casket. Great timing, Izzy. I take a breath and walk down the aisle quickly, stopping long enough to kneel at the casket and make the sign of the cross before standing and looking for a seat.

Analisa, my sister, is sitting next to my dad with an empty seat on the other side of her, which is obviously reserved for me.

I rush over to it and sit down, taking my sister’s hand.

Analisa opens her eyes and smiles at me, then squeezes my hand lovingly.

She’s got a ring of red around her jeweled blue eyes, a sure sign she’s been crying.

She lifts a handkerchief in her free hand and wipes her nose, pink from her crying.

Even in mourning, Analisa is strikingly beautiful.

Her long red hair is tied up in a bun to show off her slender neck, which, even in the turtleneck she’s got on, still looks just as elegant as it does whenever she was wearing something backless.

Analisa is our dad’s jewel. His golden child.

In contrast, Damon and I were obviously the mistakes with Damon’s only saving grace being that he was the sole heir to the Pecora crime family fortune.

Which means I’m just a mistake. I’m the child with the least value to my father.

“Amen,” the minister says. Everyone lifts their heads and suddenly, I’m feeling like every eye is on me. I’m pretty sure I even hear a few whispers with my name attached.

“You’re late,” Analisa whispers. “Where were you?”

“I overslept,” I say. “Long night.”

“Yeah? Which club?”

Analisa’s smirking, which makes me smile. Only she is allowed to joke with me like that.

I look past my sister to Dad sitting on the other side.

He’s a dignified man in his suit and tie, his graying hair with a silver streak in front cut and tapered at the sides.

He looks forward as though he doesn’t notice that I’ve shown up, but I know better.

That man has never once been unaware of anything that we ever did.

It’s the nature of the ‘business’, which is the only way that I’ve ever been allowed to refer to it, especially in mixed company. It’s said that a person didn’t sneeze in Fortune, New York, without Anthony Pecora’s knowledge.

What that means for me is that as much as I might like to think he doesn’t know I’ve been out all night drinking, the truth is that he probably does know… and he’s pissed about it.

That’s a conversation for later, however.

He’s not about to cause a scene with me in public.

That would look bad in front of company, and we just couldn’t have that.

It’s got something to do with being Italian.

Or maybe something to do with being a crime boss.

I can’t make heads or tales of that anymore.

And anyway, I couldn’t care less. I stopped caring about the family ‘business’ when my mother died… or got out, as I like to think of it.

The minister is droning on and on. I look down at my brother in the casket.

He doesn’t even look dead. He’s got Mom’s red hair and it’s perfectly styled.

Much more perfect than he’d ever had in life.

It’s so neatly in place, almost like it’s made of plastic.

His face is relaxed, albeit a little paler than usual.

He looks like he had just decided to lie down for a nap… in a casket.

The suit he’s wearing is his funeral suit, ironically enough.

He has lots of suits that he’d bought over the last year or so.

Expensive, shiny ones that he liked to wear to the club.

This one, though, is the one suit he wore to funerals or weddings.

The dark blue one with pinstripes. It’s a nice suit, and honestly, it’s actually always been my favorite.

The priest’s sermon is finally done and the rest of the funeral ritual is beginning. One of the funeral directors closes Damon’s casket and the sound of one of my aunts’ weeping echoes through the room. Several of Dad’s men stand up to do their job as pallbearers.

I watch them carry the casket down the aisle in slow procession as I, my dad, and my sister all stand to follow.

As soon as we get outside, I hear my dad say in a low voice, “So, you couldn’t be bothered to show up on time for your brother’s funeral?

You’re going to pay for your wild lifestyle, Isabella Marie.

Mark my words. One day, slutting around town is gonna catch up to you. ”

I don’t respond to him. I rarely do these days when he goes on about my staying out all night. My face does get hot, though. That part about my ‘slutting around’ stung.

We get into the limo, and all I can think about is how unfair it is. Dad would never have dreamt of talking to Damon like that and he messed up way worse than I ever have. I mean, he got himself killed. All I did was show up hung over on a Sunday.

The repast is at Dad’s house. Every relative I’ve ever met (and a few I don’t know) has filled the living room with their presence.

They’re sitting on couches with plates of some variation of noodle in red sauce on their laps as they chat in these lively conversations.

It’s more like a party than a repast, really.

I’ve passed on eating anything. I just don’t have the stomach for it.

Not that it doesn’t look good. My dad clearly had this thing catered.

There’s waiters walking around and everything.