MINE

CHAPTER ONE

ROSARIE'S POV

The last time Don Carmine Russo spoke my name, I peed on myself.

Just a little. A sharp, humiliating sting against my thighs that I had spent the rest of the day praying no one had noticed and probably would use it against me later.

I was sixteen then. Fresh out of my mother’s cramped apartment, wearing a uniform three sizes too big, and newly assigned as an auxiliary maid in the dark, suffocating expanse of the Russo Mansion.

Twenty four years of breathing the same air as the mob had taught me four golden rules.

Never stare at a Capo.

Never touch a weapon.

Never ask where the bloodstains came from.

And when the Don speaks, you drop to your knees and look down.

Sixteen-year-old me had made the mistake of looking up. Don Carmine had paused in the grand foyer during a routine staff line-up, his cold, slate-grey eyes locking onto mine. He had said one sentence “Keep your chin down, Rosarie.” and my bladder had instantly betrayed me.

I spent the rest of that day scrubbing toilet bowls, praying for the floor to open up and swallow me whole.

Now, eight years later, the shadow fell over me again.

“Rosarie.”

I froze, the heavy silver serving tray trembling in my hands. The polish on the brass reflected my pale, drawn face.

I turned slowly. Teresa, the head housekeeper, a woman who had watched men get dragged into the basement without batting an eye, was standing in the doorway of the pantry. Her face was as white as freshly bleached linen. Her fingers were twitching against her apron.

“The Don,” she whispered, her voice barely carrying across the room. “He wants you. Now.”

The heavy copper pots hanging above us seemed to vibrate with a sudden, suffocating silence.

Around the room, the other maids stopped mid-motion. Nobody spoke. Nobody breathed. I saw the look in their eyes, that terrible, heavy pity reserved for people who were about to be put in a box. Someone dropped a polishing rag. Someone else quietly crossed themselves.

“What did I do?” I asked, my voice thin, scraping against the dry walls of my throat. “Teresa, please. Did I miss a spot in the west wing? Was the tea—”

“Do not keep him waiting, Rosarie,” she cut in, her eyes pleading with me to move. “Just… go. God be with you.”

God had left this mansion a long time ago.

My legs felt like hollow lead as I walked down the grand corridor. My hands were slick with cold sweat. Every footstep echoed like a hammer strike against the polished marbles.

The Russo Mansion wasn’t a house; it was a fortress built on blood and silence. Men in tailored black suits stood at every turn, their hands resting casually over concealed holstered leather, eyes dead and unblinking as I passed.

I reached the double doors of Don's private study. Two heavy-set guards stood flank. One of them, a man named Luca whose knuckles were permanently scarred, looked down at me. For a second, a flicker of something almost like regret crossed his face before he pushed the heavy mahogany door open.

The air inside smelled of expensive tobacco, dark mahogany, and the bitter, metallic tang of absolute, terrifying power.

The room was vast, draped in heavy velvet curtains that blocked out the afternoon sun. Standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows was a man with broad shoulders, dark hair peppered with silver, and a posture so rigid he looked carved from iron.

Don Carmine Russo.

He didn't turn right away. He took a slow drag from his cigar, the amber ember glowing in the dim room, before exhaling a plume of blue smoke into the air.

When he finally turned, the sheer weight of his presence hit me like a physical blow. Carmine Russo wasn't just a man; he was a god of death in a tailored suit. His eyes were cold, unreadable, and devoid of any human warmth.

My knees hit the floorboards before my brain could even process the command.

I pressed my palms to the cold wood, bowing my head so low my nose nearly touched my knuckles.

“Don Carmine,” I breathed, my pulse hammering so hard in my ears I could barely hear my own voice.

Silence stretched. It was a suffocating, elastic thing that pulled my nerves until they were ready to snap. I could hear the slow, methodical tick of the grandfather clock in the corner. I could hear the rustle of his wool trousers as he took a step toward me.

The polished leather of his shoe appeared in my peripheral vision.

Slowly, he extended his right hand down toward me. On his ring finger sat the heavy gold signet ring bearing the Russo crest—the serpent and the dagger.

The ring of grace.

My lungs squeezed out a ragged breath. Grace. He wasn't ordering a bullet to the back of my head. He wasn't sending me to the basement.

I leaned forward, my lips trembling as I pressed them to the cold, heavy gold.

“Rise, Rosarie.”

His voice was a low, raspy gravel that vibrated in my chest.

I pushed myself up, my knees wobbling so violently I had to catch my balance.

Don Carmine studied me. He didn't look at me like a human being; he looked at me the way an auctioneer looks at his goods.

“Sit,” he said, gesturing to the heavy leather armchair across from his massive desk.

I sat on the very edge, keeping my spine rigid, my bleach-stained hands clasped tightly in my lap to hide their shaking.

He strolled behind his desk and sat down, leaning back into his leather throne. Then, his thin lips pulled back into a smile.

It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. A smile on Carmine Russo was like a poster of the joker except much more terrifying.

“I have good news for you, Rosarie.”

Good news.

The words hung in the air, surreal and grotesque.

For a split second, my desperate, foolish brain tried to bargain. A raise? I thought, my chest heaving. A promotion to head maid? Maybe my stepfather’s gambling debt has finally been cleared? Maybe I’m free? I almost let myself hope. I mentally calculated the small wage increase, thinking I could finally afford a small apartment away from my mother’s suffocating apartment.

Don Carmine picked up a silver cigar cutter, the sharp snap of the blade slicing through the quiet.

“As a final settlement for your stepfather’s outstanding debt and to reward your family’s longstanding… loyalty, you will be marrying my nephew, Angelo.”

The world shrank to a pinpoint. The air left my lungs in a sharp, silent gasp.

The Don continued smoothly, tapping the ash from his cigar as if he were discussing the weather. “He requires a wife. Someone quiet. Someone raised under our roof who understands the meaning of duty. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

I stared at him.

My mouth opened, but no sound came out. The light breakfast I’d forced down earlier suddenly felt like lead turning to acid in my stomach.

Angelo Russo.

The Ghost.

He was twenty-seven years old, a legend whispered about in dark corners by terrified maids and blood-soaked soldiers alike. He was the family’s Enforcer, a man who lived in the secluded east wing, operating in shadows, executing the Don's most brutal orders.

And he was a widower, twice over. His first wife had allegedly fallen down a flight of stone stairs six years ago. His second wife had simply vanished three years later, according to rumors.

The mansion whispers were brutal. Some said he tore them apart in fits of psychotic rage. No one knew the truth, because anyone who dared to ask Angelo Russo didn't live long enough to hear the answer.

And now, I was being handed to him on a silver platter to clear a debt I hadn't even accrued.

Don Carmine tilted his head, his cold eyes narrowing slightly as he watched the color drain from my face.

“Are you pleased with this arrangement, Rosarie?”

The question was a trap, laced with razor wire.

Was I pleased? Was I pleased to be handed over as a lamb to a butcher?

I looked into Don's dead grey eyes and knew that a single wrong word, a split second of hesitation would mean my stepfather’s debt would be collected in blood today. Starting with mine.

The Don wasn't asking for my opinion. He was giving me an order wrapped in a polite illusion.

I forced my muscles to move. I forced my lips to curve upward into a sickening, desperate imitation of a smile. It felt like tearing skin.

“Yes,” I choked out, my voice sounding distant, like it belonged to a dying woman. “Yes, Don Carmine. I am… honored.”

“Good.”

He didn't even care if it was genuine. He just wanted compliance.

He gestured toward the far corner of the room, where a woman had been sitting silently in the shadows. I hadn't even noticed her. It was Gianna, his young, ice-cold second wife.

“Take her,” the Don commanded, already turning his attention to a stack of papers on his desk. “Prepare her.”

Gianna stood up, her silk dress rustling against the floor. “Come, Rosarie.”

I stood on legs that felt like kindling, following her out into the hallway. The heavy doors slammed shut behind us with a definitive, tomb-like thud.

The second we were ten feet down the corridor, out of earshot of the guards, Gianna reached out and gripped my forearm. Her nails dug into my flesh through my thin sleeve.

“You hit the lottery,” she hissed, her eyes gleaming with a strange, venomous jealousy. Maybe I read her emotions wrong.

I stared at her, my skin crawling where she touched me. “Lottery?”

“You’re a maid,” she spat, her voice a sharp whisper. “You scrub floors. Now you’re marrying into the main line. You’ll have a name now.”

“I’m marrying a man whose wives disappear into thin air,” I whispered back, my voice shaking with raw horror.

Gianna pulled me into her private sitting room and slammed the door. She poured two fingers of amber liquor into a crystal glass and shoved it into my hand.

My fingers were shaking so violently the liquid splashed over the rim, stinging the raw cuts on my knuckles from hours of using heavy bleach.

“Drink it,” she ordered, sitting across from me, her dark eyes sharp and unblinking. “And listen to me very carefully, Rosarie. There are rules to being a Russo wife. Rules that keep you alive.”

I drained the glass in one burn of alcohol. “Rules?”

“Your body belongs to the family now,” she said coldly, laying her hands flat on her lap. “Starting with your virginity.”

I almost laughed out of sheer hysteria, but the dead-serious look on her face choked the sound in my throat.

“You will remain untouched until your wedding night,” Gianna continued, her voice sounding like a preacher reciting scripture. “The morning after, the elders will inspect the bedsheets. The white linen must show blood. Proof of your purity. Proof of his honor. It is the tradition.”

“It’s barbaric,” I snapped, the liquor giving me a tiny, dangerous spark of nerve. “It’s treating a woman like livestock.”

Gianna’s eyes flashed with anger. She leaned across the table, her breath smelling of mint and wine. “It is the law! And after that, you submit to him. In everything. You do not speak unless spoken to. You do not question where he goes. You yield to his temper, his desires, and his absolute will.”

I stared at her, feeling a sick twist in my gut. “Submission isn't really my style.”

“Then you had better change your style quickly,” she sneered. “Because Angelo Russo will break a difficult wife. Or he will put her in the ground like the others.”

She stood up, brushing down her pristine skirt. “Lose that pathetic attitude before you stand at the altar. You are a nothing but a sacrifice, Rosarie. Play your part, or be consumed by it.”

By the time I walked out of the mansion gates at five o’clock, the sky was the color of a fresh bruise.

I walked the six blocks to my family’s crumbling brownstone, my feet throbbing in my worn work shoes. Every breath I took felt like breathing in broken glass.

I pushed open the door to our apartment, the smell of cheap cabbage soup and stale tobacco hitting me instantly.

Before I could even take off my coat, my mother rushed out of the small kitchen, her face flushed red, her eyes manic with excitement.

“Rosarie!” she cried, grabbing my hands and squeezing them until my bones groaned. “Oh, my sweet girl! Don Carmine’s men called the landline! Is it true? Tell me it’s true!”

I looked into my mother’s face. I looked for fear. I looked for concern. I looked for a single flicker of a mother’s instinct worrying that her twenty-four-year-old daughter was being handed over to a reputed murderer.

I found none. Only greed and pure, disgusting relief.

“Yes,” I said, my voice dead. “It’s true.”

“Thank God!” She clasped her hands together, tears of joy springing to her eyes. “Oh, merciful Jesus! The debt is gone! Your stepfather won't be killed!”

From the living room sofa, my stepfather, Aldo, didn't even stand up. He just raised his glass of cheap whiskey toward me with a yellow-toothed grin, satisfied that his gambling habits had been paid for with his stepdaughter's life.

Next to him sat my two older brothers, Leo and Frankie. Twenty-six and twenty-eight, unemployed, lazy, and completely obsessed with mob glamour. They weren't looking at me with pity. They were grinning at each other like they’d just won the lottery.

“Do you know what this means for us?” my mother babbled, pacing the small room, her hands flying around. “You’ll be a Russo! A real Russo! You have to be perfect, Rosarie. You must protect your virtue! The sheets—they told me about the sheets! You must give them the blood on the wedding night! You must make us proud!”

Then she leaned in, grabbing my shoulders, her eyes glittering with dark ambition.

“If you submit to him—if you’re a good, quiet little wife, Angelo will give your brothers soldier positions in his crew. Leo and Frankie can finally have real status!”

My stomach churned violently.

My brothers.

I stared at Leo and Frankie, who were already talking about what kind of cars they were going to buy with their future mob paychecks.

I looked at my red, calloused hands, hands that had been scrubbed raw with lye and bleach for eight years. Eight years of slaving away in that mansion, swallowing every insult, enduring every terrifying glance from Capos, taking the blame for broken chinaware, all to pay off Aldo’s debts while my brothers sat on their asses playing cards.

I was the maid. I was the servant. I was the martyr and now, I was the sacrifice so my brothers could play gangster and my mother could hold her head up at church.

Nobody asked if I was terrified.

Nobody asked if I wanted to live.

Nobody asked what I wanted.

A single tear escaped my eye, hot and scalding. I wiped it away so fast with the back of my hand that my skin burned. I refused to let them see me bleed. Not here. Not for them.

They wanted blood?

The Russo family wanted their grand tradition.

My mother wanted her family honor.

My brothers wanted their golden ticket into the mafia.

Don Carmine wanted his neat little transaction finished.

And Angelo Russo wanted a quiet, pliable, bloody virgin to break in his bed.

A dark, boiling rage—hotter and sharper than any fear I had felt in the Don's office ignited deep in my chest.

They had taken my youth. They had taken my freedom. They had taken my future.

They were not taking this.

I looked at my mother, who was still rambling about bridal gowns and lace, and a cold, ruthless smile crept onto my face.

If the Russo family demanded a virgin bride... if my family's entire fake honor rested on a white sheet stained with my bloody submission then I was going to ruin them all.

I would lose my virginity before I ever stepped foot near that altar.

I didn't know how.

I didn't know with whom.

I would find a stranger. A bartender. A traveler passing through town. Anyone. I would give away the one thing they all claimed ownership over, purely on my own terms.

And on the morning after the wedding, when the Russo elders came to inspect the immaculate, pristine, bloodless white sheets...

Angelo Russo would realize he hadn't bought a meek little maid. He had bought a war.

My parents would carry the crushing shame.

My brothers would watch their mob dreams vanish into ash.

And my dangerous, terrifying future husband?

He could burn with the rest of them.