Chapter 1

Antonio's POV

"Why?"

I forced the word past the knot in my throat and held down everything clawing at my chest.

Elena frowned. There wasn't a trace left of the tenderness she used to show me.

"Antonio, when are you going to grow up? You're the illegitimate son nobody's supposed to talk about. Why do you keep trying to take the succession from Luca?"

My father ground his cigar out on the burial-at-sea contract lying across my desk, burning a black hole through the paper.

Not one of them noticed what the contract was.

Not one of them noticed the urn sitting beside it.

"These five years were meant to grind that temper out of you," Dad said. "To teach you your place. Luca is the legitimate heir to the Leo family. That seat was never yours to fight for.

"Be smart about it. From now on you're Luca's cleaner, and you're done scheming."

Scheming?

My mouth twisted into something that almost resembled a smile.

My heart felt as if someone had fired a bullet straight through it.

"I've never schemed for anything," I said hoarsely.

I'd known my place since I was a child.

I was the bastard people whispered about behind closed doors.

I had no standing in the organization, and I'd never even met my birth mother.

In my earliest memories, Dad and the woman I called Mom treated me well enough.

Then Luca was born.

After that, the way they looked at me started to change.

Luca liked spicy food, so every dish on the table burned my tongue.

Luca liked custom handguns, so I carried whatever old piece he'd grown tired of.

The year I turned sixteen I stood a full head taller than him. The tailor came to fit us for family suits, and Gianna made a point of telling him to cut mine to Luca's measurements. For three years I showed up to family functions in jackets with the sleeves riding up my forearms while every cousin in the room laughed behind my back.

Then I met Elena.

She'd just risen to second-in-command of the family.

She was brilliant, fearless, impossible not to look at.

I thought she was my salvation.

I gave her everything I had.

Then she got close to Luca.

And she changed too.

She decided I was lying in wait. That I was quietly playing for his seat.

So that was how it worked.

Even when I wanted nothing, even when I fought for nothing, the simple fact that I was alive looked like theft to them.

I should have understood years ago.

Antonio Leo, they never once thought of you as family.

Maybe something in my face finally unsettled Elena. Her expression softened for half a second, and she held out a cigar.

"Antonio, look forward. We're still family. Luca and I won't shortchange you."

I didn't take it.

Luca immediately put on a guilty expression, clutching his chest as though I'd wounded him.

"Tony, this is on me. Why don't I hand you the heir's seat? Elena and I will go. Would that fix it?"

Gianna crossed the room and slapped me.

Her voice shook with fury.

"Antonio, enough! Elena is carrying Luca's child. That baby is the legitimate Leo bloodline. Do you want it born marked the way you were?"

I stood there, barely able to keep myself upright.

Right.

I was the son my father had with a nightclub dancer when he was young.

To Gianna, I was living proof of her husband's betrayal.

To Dad, I was cheap labor with a gun. Useful, disposable, and not worth mourning if I died.

I'd always known that.

That was why I volunteered for the worst jobs.

I went in first every time the shooting started.

I brought home the most wins and collected the most scars.

I thought that if I made myself useful enough, strong enough, loyal enough, one day they'd look at me and say I'd done well.

Only now did I understand.

They never wanted me to do well.

They wanted me not to exist.

As it happened, that was already taking care of itself. I was dying. I didn't have long.

Elena stepped closer and reached for my arm.

I jerked away.

"Don't touch me."

Five years.

Five entire years.

Before every job that could have killed me, I turned toward the docks and begged the dead for forgiveness.

I kept thinking that if I hadn't insisted Luca and Elena handle that shipment for me, they'd never have been ambushed.

But none of it had been real.

My father. The woman who raised me. The woman I loved. My own brother.

All four of them had run a five-year performance together.

I looked at Dad.

My voice trembled.

"You told me that safe room was being reinforced. You just didn't want me finding out they were living on the other side of it, did you?"

He frowned, then gave a dismissive laugh.

"So what if I did? It was for your own good. It kept you from pining after things that were never yours, and it kept you doing your job."

"For my own good?"

I laughed, and tears came with it.

"You watched me stand at an empty dock every year and beg forgiveness. You watched me carry the blame for getting Cosimo Barone killed, five years of it. Every stretch of ground I nearly died taking went into Luca's name. And you call that good for me?"

"Antonio!" Gianna snapped. "Is that any way to speak to your papa?"

Her patience was already gone.

"Luca and Elena love each other. They had to play dead to stay out of their enemies' sights. They've given up enough. What more do you want from them?"

They love each other.

The words hit harder than any bullet ever had.

At that exact moment, my phone lit up.

I looked down.

[Mr. Antonio Leo, your burial-at-sea service is now active. When your monitor registers that your heart has stopped, your location will be transmitted automatically. Our recovery team will reach you within two hours.]

I locked the screen.

Then I took the Leo family tag I'd worn around my neck ever since Luca "died" and set it on top of the burial contract my father had burned through.

"Fine," I said quietly. "I'm done making a scene."

What I didn't say was that I'd finally run out of hope for every one of them.