Chapter 1

JULIA

“Lower your eyes, Julia. Don’t embarrass me.”

My father’s words sliced into me. He has always been this cold and sharp with me. 

I dropped my gaze instantly, my fingers tightening around the stem of my champagne flute until my hand shook. The bubbles fizzed and mocked me, but I dared not look up again. 

Don Augustus DeCavalcante had spoken. When the mafia king of the continent commanded, you obeyed—even if you were his only blood.

Especially if you were his only blood…

The ballroom erupted in applause. Terra spun across the dance floor on Nero Lucchesi’s arm, silk blue skirts swirling as she smiled her angelic smile.

My father’s lips curved with pride. “Beautiful,” he said, loud enough for those around him to hear. “Graceful. She carries the DeCavalcante name as though it were made for her.”

My throat burned. My lips parted, but all I managed was a whisper, thin and trembling: “T-that… that was supposed to be me.”

Don Augustus turned his head slightly, his dark eyes sweeping me like I was an insect. “It was supposed to be whoever best serves this family. Clearly, Julia, that is not you.”

I shrank into myself as heat crawled up my neck. My hand trembled harder and the champagne threatened to spill.

On the floor, Nero bent down, kissed Terra’s hand, lifted his gaze to the room, and the applause roared like thunder. 

For a fleeting second, his eyes found mine.

My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.

He had once held my hands like that. Whispered in the dark that I was enough for him. That he loved me. That he didn’t care if my father barely acknowledged me, even if I was the daughter of a discarded ex-wife.

‘Only you, Julia. Always you. I promise I’ll always be here. I’ll protect you. I’ll make you mine.’

Those words replayed in my head like it’s mocking me.

Because looking at him tonight all smiling beside Terra and basking in my father’s approval that I finally understood.

It had never been me he wanted.

It had always been this. The spotlight and the favor of Don Augustus.

My stomach twisted as the truth sank in. I wasn’t his love. I was only a stepping stone, a temporary comfort until he could grasp something greater.

“Keep smiling,” Don Augustus muttered beside me, his lips tight. “Do not shame me by crying and making a scene on your sister’s engagement.”

My lips trembled as I forced them to curve upward into something that hurt worse than tears. My heart broke, but then again, silence was all I was ever allowed.

Terra’s laughter rang out as Nero spun her again. My father clapped, his expression growing even more delighted.

Livia, his true love and third wife, who was also Terra’s biological mother from a different man, smiled beneath the glittering lights. My father finally pulled his attention away from me and stood beside her, completely focused on her.

My hands shook violently now. Before I shattered the glass, I set it down and turned toward the bar. I needed something stronger. Something that could drown me before my pain gave me away.

“Whiskey,” I rasped to the bartender.

“Make it two,” a familiar, low but amused voice drawled beside me.

I stiffened and slowly turned my head only to freeze again.

Marcus Lucchesi.

Nero’s adoptive father. My father’s trusted friend.

He was a lot older, broader, infinitely more dangerous than his son. His dark eyes swept over me slowly, not kindly, not cruelly—just like a man who saw through everything and cared for nothing.

“You look miserable,” Marcus said, picking up his glass. He didn’t even bother to hide the smirk tugging his mouth. “Let me guess… jealous?”

Heat rushed to my face. “I’m not,” I whispered, too quickly, the words trembling out of me.

“Oh, don’t lie,” he chuckled, leaning an elbow against the bar. “I saw the way you looked when my son kissed your little stepsister. You nearly shattered that glass.”

“I wasn’t—” my throat closed. I couldn’t even finish the protest.

Marcus tilted his head, studying me like I was some interesting puzzle piece left in the wrong box. “You know, I didn’t even want to come tonight. These parties are dull. Pretending everyone here isn’t plotting murder the second the music stops… boring.”

He took a long sip of whiskey, then flicked his gaze back to me. “But watching you sulk in the shadows? That’s the most entertainment I’ve had all week.”

My grip on the bar tightened until my knuckles whitened. I wanted to shrink into the floor, to vanish. But his words clawed under my skin, twisting with the alcohol already burning my stomach.

“I’m not sulking,” I muttered, my lips trembling as the room swam a little.

“No?” his smirk deepened. “Then what’s this look on your face, princess? Heartbreak? Self-pity? Or are you just furious that my son prefers someone else?”

My chest constricted. The alcohol blurred the edges of my vision, but Marcus’s voice cut sharp through it all.

He was mocking me and teasing me. To him, I was just another form of amusement in this gilded cage.

Why was he like this? He was nearly my father’s age. Only a few years younger! Yet every time he saw me, he acted like some teenage bully.

And maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was the ache in my chest. Maybe it was the crushing need to prove, to myself if not to him, that I wasn’t broken.

Before I could think, before I could stop myself, I turned to him, rose on shaking feet… and pressed my mouth to his.

The kiss was clumsy and fueled by desperation and liquor.

I didn’t care. For one second, I only cared about the shock in Marcus’s stillness, the taste of whiskey on his lips, and the burning proof that I wasn’t weak.

When I pulled back, I trembled at the sight of his eyes staring directly at me.

Somehow, those eyes were unreadable and dangerous.