Chapter 1

I lent Don Vincenzo my private club. Now his new plaything thinks it’s hers, and she’s using it to come after me.

“Vincenzo, I accuse her! Skimming from the family business, betraying the family!”

Ava’s voice cut through the dining hall. She puffed out her chest and slammed a thick ledger on the long table.

I slowly set down my wine glass and looked at the dancer who’d crawled up from the streets of Brooklyn.

Poor thing. She had no idea what she was talking about.

“Look at these numbers!” Ava flipped through the cooked books, her finger jabbing at the red marks. “Every month, Isabella moved hundreds of thousands of dollars out of ‘The Siren’s Song’!”

She turned to Vincenzo, her voice trembling just right. “This is betrayal! Vincenzo, the family is expanding. We need every dime. If we don’t get rid of leeches like her, how can we expect the men to trust you?”

I felt a flash of pity for her.

The “family business” she was talking about was the private, hundred-million-dollar club my father left me.

I lent it to Vincenzo for two years when he was just starting out, so he’d have a place to hold court. And now it’s public property?

“Isabella. You got something to say?”

Vincenzo finally spoke, his voice cold as ice. His eyes scanned the sour faces of the family’s old guard before they landed on me. There was a strange, calculating look in them.

I looked at his familiar face and thought back to a snowy night twelve years ago.

I was a junior in college, studying for finals in the library, when I got the call about my father’s accident.

It was him. He drove me six hundred miles back to New York for the funeral in his beat-up secondhand car, right through a blizzard.

The car broke down on the way. He was on his back on the frozen asphalt in the middle of the night to fix it, his lips turning purple from the cold.

“Don’t worry, Bella,” he’d told me. “I’ll get you home.”

After my father died, I chose to work for him, to be the power behind his family.

But now, the man who’d once risked his life for me was putting me on trial in front of everyone.

Then I understood. He needed to make a statement, to put the fear into the old-timers who didn't fully respect him.

And I was the perfect sacrifice.

“The numbers don’t lie,” Ava said, smugly pointing at a chart of fund transfers on a projector. “Last month alone, she pocketed three hundred and eighty grand!”

Whispers filled the room.

Even Vincenzo’s right-hand man, Marco—the same guy who used the club’s accounts last week to buy his gumar a Porsche—was looking down, pretending to polish a ring like he didn’t know me.

The same family members who’d thumped their chests and sworn they’d die for me now looked at me like I was a condemned traitor.

“Clean house!” someone shouted.

“No room for traitors in this family!”

The calls grew louder.

I just sat there, watching the little play he’d staged for them.

I saw it then. That flicker of insecurity and fear in his eyes.

He wanted to crush me to prove he hadn't risen to power on a woman’s coattails. He wanted to erase my father’s shadow and make this family his kingdom, and his alone.

Two years ago, in this very room, I handed Vincenzo the key to “The Siren’s Song.”

“Use it to build your reputation,” I’d told him. “New York’s high society needs to see your power.”

I lent him the most valuable asset my father left me, for free, just so he could hold his head high among the old-money families.

For two years, every bottle of Louis XIII, every security upgrade, every maintenance bill—I paid for it all.

The three hundred grand a month in operating costs? I never bothered him with it.

But now, everyone had amnesia.

“The evidence is clear.” Vincenzo stood up, avoiding my eyes. He looked at every person at the table. “Isabella, you’ve done a lot for this family. But the family needs iron discipline. For the sake of fairness, I have to take over the club.”

“And the money!” Ava added quickly, a greedy glint in her eyes. “One million, two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. That’s what she owes the family!”

The hall went quiet.

Everyone was waiting for my reaction.

Waiting for me to cry, to beg, or to scream and defend myself.

I smiled and took a key from my purse.

It was made of platinum, studded with diamonds. My father had it custom-made for “The Siren’s Song.”

“Fine.” I placed the key gently on the table. It made a soft click. “If it’s a family decision.”

Everyone stared.

No tears. No rage. None of the drama they expected.

“Isabella…” Old Marco, sitting next to me, started to speak but stopped. He was my father’s old friend. I’d taken good care of him these last two years.

But now, he chose silence.

“I understand everyone’s concerns.” I stood up gracefully and smoothed my Chanel suit. “After all, family interests come first.”

Ava’s smug look grew wider.

She thought she’d won.

“Vincenzo,” I said, turning to him with a slight smile. “I hope ‘The Siren’s Song’ brings your family good luck.”

His eyes flickered. For a second, it looked like he remembered something.

But the coldness returned just as fast.

“Thanks for your… contribution,” he said, forcing the words out.

I laughed. A real, genuine laugh.

“You’re welcome.”

I picked up my bag and turned to leave the room, which now stank of betrayal.

At the door, I glanced back.

Ava was snatching the diamond key, clutching it in her hand, her eyes burning with a lust for possession.

Poor little thing.

She thought she’d just hit the jackpot.

In reality, she’d just grabbed a grenade with the pin pulled out.

A grenade big enough to blow this so-called family to pieces.