Chapter 1

Ten minutes ago, Dominic was laughing about my father’s “dark room test,” calling it an old-fashioned joke.

Now, his hands were clamped around my neck, pinning me to the carpeted floor.

I couldn’t breathe. The world started to go dark.

“Dominic! Are you crazy? What did you see in there?!” I clawed desperately at his fingers, my nails digging bloody scratches into the back of his hands.

“Shut up! I’m doing the world a favor!” he roared, his eyes bloodshot with pure disgust.

He drove his knee hard into my stomach.

White-hot pain exploded through me, stealing my breath. I curled into a ball, unable to scream.

He got to his feet and kicked me hard in the ribs. Twice.

The sharp point of his leather shoe made my vision go black.

Without another glance, he turned and stormed out of the mansion.

I lay on the floor, gasping for air, the taste of blood filling my throat.

This was the fifth time.

Ever since I turned twenty, every man who swore he loved me walked into that basement room and came out a monster who wanted to snap my neck.

I had just managed to pull myself up using the sofa when a sharp pain shot through my chest.

My father, Victor, sent me flying with a vicious kick.

I crashed into the marble coffee table, shattering the glass top.

The bodyguards in the mansion stood like statues, not daring to move.

Victor calmly took off his suit jacket, then pulled a golf club from a nearby bag.

“Nessa, this is the fifth time,” he said, his voice cold. “You’ve shamed our family again. I have to teach you a lesson.”

The first swing came down on my left arm.

A sickening crack echoed through the vast living room. My arm was broken.

“Father… why…” I bit down on my lip, glaring at him.

He didn’t answer. Just the relentless swing of the club.

For a full half-hour.

The club broke three of my ribs and my arm.

He stood over me, looking down at my half-dead body.

“Drag her back to her room,” Victor ordered, taking a hot towel from the butler and wiping his hands with slow, deliberate movements. “And keep a close eye on her.”

That was their excuse: I was mentally unstable.

Late that night, I lay in bed, biting on a bandage as I tried to set my own arm.

Every time a “test” failed, my father punished me for shaming the family.

I’d wondered if I wasn’t his real daughter, but a secret DNA test I’d done proved it: I had Cassano blood.

I used to think he hated me because he hated my mother.

But after she died, he turned down every offer of marriage from prominent families and even started a massive foundation in her name.

To the entire New York mafia, he was known as the most devoted godfather.

Only I knew he was a devil.

The pain was making it hard to breathe. In a moment of desperation, I made a video call to my grandmother.

The second the call connected, she saw my face and gasped, tears streaming down her face.

“My God! How could he do this to you!”

Less than twenty minutes after she hung up, the screech of tires echoed outside the mansion.

My uncle Marcus, a hot-tempered mob boss in his own right, kicked the front door off its hinges, a dozen heavily armed bodyguards flanking him.

“Victor! You son of a bitch! I’m putting a bullet in your head today!” Marcus yelled, pointing a gun straight at Victor’s face.

Fighting through the pain, I held onto the staircase railing, hoping my uncle would finally get me out of this hell.

Facing the barrel of the gun, Victor remained silent.

He just gave Marcus a cold look, then turned and walked toward the heavy iron door that led to the basement.

“If you’ve got the guts, come on in.”

Marcus sneered, cocked his gun, and followed him. “Let’s see what kind of game you’re playing.”

The iron door slammed shut.

The living room was dead silent. My heart was pounding, a terrible feeling washing over me.

Ten minutes.

The door opened again.

Marcus walked out. His eyes had changed.

The anger and concern were gone, replaced by a deep, chilling disgust.

He stood at the top of the stairs, looking down on me. His eyes were ice.

“Uncle…” I whispered, my own eyes wide with terror.

This time, he didn’t pull me behind him to protect me. Instead, his hand shot out and he ripped the sapphire necklace from my neck. It was my mother’s. The last thing she ever gave me, placed around my neck with her own hands before she died. The only piece of her I had left.

The clasp tore my skin and I cried out, my hands flying up to get it back. “No! Give it back to me!”

“You don’t deserve this,” Marcus snarled, his fist clenched tight around the necklace. His voice was a shard of glass. “You don’t deserve any part of her.”

“Marcus! What are you doing?!” Grandmother shrieked, rushing in.

He leaned in close to her, whispering something in her ear.

I couldn’t hear the words.

But I saw the color drain from her face. She collapsed into a chair, her normally kind face twisting into something ugly and hateful.

“Take it,” she screeched, her finger pointing at me, her whole body shaking. “Take everything of her mother’s! I have no granddaughter! Not a disgusting thing like her!”

Marcus gave me one last, cold look. He pocketed the necklace and walked out of the manor without a backward glance, his men right behind him.

The pain of losing my mother’s last gift, the agony my father had left me with—it all crashed down on me at once. I don’t know how long I lay there on the cold floor. The next thing I knew, I was being dragged away like a sack of trash before everything went black.