Chapter 2

The moldy oak barrels smelled sour and rotten. Moisture crept up through the floor, seeping into the wounds on my knees.

I sat against the cold stone wall. Every breath made the bruise on my stomach throb.

Four armed sworn members stood outside the iron door. I could hear their boots on the floor.

But for three hours, not one of them dared to open the door, come in, and cuff me.

Five years ago, Luca had a capo butchered in front of the family's top brass. His crime? Touching my shoulder.

That rule was still written in the Marchetti family's code. "Anyone who lays a finger on her will be chopped to pieces and fed to the dogs."

And now, the very man who'd made that rule had beaten me bloody and thrown me in here.

I pushed myself up against the wall and looked around at the stacks of vintage wine in the dim lamplight.

I kicked over the bottom rack. More than a dozen bottles of high-proof spirits smashed onto the floor, spraying glass and alcohol everywhere.

The liquor soaked the dry straw piled in the corner to keep out the damp. Its sharp smell filled the cellar.

I pulled the lighter hidden in my hair and flicked it on. A small orange flame danced in the darkness.

I touched it to a strip of cloth soaked in alcohol. Fire raced across the floor, catching the hem of my black dress.

Expressionless, I took out my phone, snapped a photo of the flames eating my hem, and sent it straight to Luca with a text.

"If you're not here in ten minutes, I'll burn myself alive."

Message delivered.

I dropped my phone and headed for a concealed door at the back of the cellar.

It was an escape tunnel left over from when the estate was built. Apart from the Dons who came before Luca, only I knew about it, because I had overseen the renovation myself.

I pressed a loose stone in the wall. The door slid open without a sound, just wide enough for me to slip through.

Nine minutes and 30 seconds.

A deafening crash shook the building overhead, followed by the roar of an engine and the shriek of twisting metal.

It was the Rolls-Royce Phantom Luca always drove, and it had smashed straight through the iron gates of the main house.

Hurried footsteps echoed through the air vents. Then came the crash of the cellar door being forced open.

"Elena!"

Panic rang in Luca's voice. In five years, I had never heard him lose control like that.

Smoke choked the cellar. Flames climbed to the ceiling.

I stood in the hidden security room on the second floor of the main house, behind one-way bulletproof glass, coldly watching the monitors.

The man on the screen had a gash on his forehead from the crash, but he didn't even stop to wipe away the blood.

He charged into the flames like a madman and tore at the burning oak barrels with his bare hands.

His custom suit was full of burn holes, and his palms were scorched black, but he didn't seem to notice.

In the end, he dragged a charred body out of the burning wreckage.

It was only a dead wild boar I had hidden in the tunnel earlier and dressed in my black trench coat.

A bodyguard stumbled into the courtyard from the garage and nervously reported to Luca, who was standing beside the remains.

"Don... one of the armored bikes is gone. Ms. Conti... she might've escaped."

Luca stood there stiffly, looking down at his bloody, ruined fingers.

Without warning, he drew his pistol and put a bullet between the bodyguard's eyes.

A single gunshot cracked through the air. The bodyguard dropped backward, dead.

"Lock down the entire city! Send half our men to the clinic! She's going after Sera!"

Luca bellowed his orders and stormed out of the estate, his men rushing after him.

Once the estate was completely empty, I headed into Luca's private study on the third floor.

I rounded the mahogany desk, took down the painting that hid the fingerprint safe, and pressed the mold I had made of his print to the lock.

The safe popped open. There was no Commission ceasefire agreement inside. No joint development contract, either.

Instead, it held a thick stack of Polaroids and a handwritten diary.

In the photos, Luca wore a casual white shirt on a sunny Sicilian beach, his arm around Sera, smiling more tenderly than I had ever seen him smile.

Outside an ancient cathedral in Palermo, Luca was down on one knee, tenderly kissing Sera's hand. Her belly was already beginning to show.

The photos were taken six months ago.

Six months ago. While Luca was supposedly in Europe expanding his shipping business, I'd spent three straight months fighting rival gangs in New York, taking over their territory single-handedly.

Just then, my phone buzzed. A new message from Sera popped up on the screen.

It was a selfie of Sera in her hospital bed, drinking chicken broth, wearing the ruby necklace that had belonged to Luca's mother.

"Luca says you're nothing but a filthy glove. Once it's soaked in blood, there's no cleaning it. You just throw it away. You'll never beat me."

Expressionless, I deleted the message, picked up the combat knife from the desk, and left the study.

Twenty minutes later, the motorcycle roared to a stop outside an underground tattoo parlor in a dark Brooklyn alley.

I stepped inside, shrugged off my leather jacket, and bared the black eagle tattoo over my heart—the mark of the Marchetti family.

"Get that branding iron red-hot. Then press it right here."

My voice was flat as I gave the order to the tattoo artist reclining in his chair.

He was a muscular Italian wearing a religious medal around his neck. Tony Russo. Sera's personal bodyguard.

He reeked of booze. His eyes lingered on the tattoo on my chest, full of drunken lust and malice.

"Why put yourself through this, Ms. Conti? Sera's got pure blood running through her veins. You're just expendable."

Tony picked up the glowing iron, still running his mouth.

"Sera's a stupid woman. All she sees is Luca. She even tells everyone Nico is Luca's son. He's the kid she had with me while we were sneaking around in Sicily."

He held the iron just above my skin, sneering as he drunkenly played with a lock of hair hanging over my chest.

"That two-year-old bastard's in an attic on the back street right now. I'm the one raising him. That idiot Luca actually believes it's his own flesh and blood."

The scorching iron suddenly pressed into my chest, and the stench of burning flesh filled the air.

The pain made my vision go black for a moment, but I didn't make a sound.

As soon as Tony set down the iron and reached for the gauze, I hooked my right arm around the back of his neck.

"The kid's really in that attic down the back street?"

I whispered into his ear.

"Yeah. Sera sends money every week..."

Tony's smug voice cut off.

I snatched the buzzing tattoo machine off the workbench with my left hand and drove its long tungsten-steel needle straight into his carotid artery.

Blood sprayed across the white tile wall.

Tony's eyes bulged as he grabbed his throat with both hands. He dropped to his knees, his body convulsing.

I grabbed a towel, wiped the blood from my face, and stepped over his body to open the hidden door at the back of the shop.

A two-year-old boy with curly black hair sat on the rug in his overalls, chewing on a plastic toy.

I scooped Nico up, wrapped him tightly in my windbreaker, and stuffed him into the reinforced top box on the back of my motorcycle.