The Don Learned to Love Me After I Died

When I was ten, a rival family ambushed Don Salvatore Bellandi, and my father stepped in front of the bullet meant for him.

My father died. And I became the "charity case" who'd bought her place in the Bellandi household with her father's dead body.

Aldo, the butler, led me into the great hall.

"Look, it's the driver's daughter!"

"I heard she doesn't even know how to use a knife and fork."

A few boys from the Bellandi family's side branches burst out laughing. They tossed bread crusts at my feet.

I clenched my teeth and twisted the hem of my shirt. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I wouldn't let them fall.

"Shut up, all of you."

A voice came from the bend in the staircase.

It was Luca Bellandi, 12 years old, Don Bellandi's heir.

The boys went quiet at once. Their ringleader muttered under his breath, "Luca, why are you sticking up for this broke nobody? Her dad was nothing but a driver..."

Smack!

Before he could finish, Luca charged down the stairs and punched him in the face. Then he grabbed him, dragged him to the edge of the fountain, and shoved his head under the water.

"Help..." The boy thrashed in the water.

None of the bodyguards or servants dared to step in.

Luca stared down at the boy. "If anyone says one more word against her, I'll throw him in the Hudson to feed the fish."

He let go and walked over to me.

"Her name is Mara Quinn. From today on, all of you will call her Miss Quinn."

In that moment, I thought Luca was a god who had come down to save me.

But it wasn't until I'd settled in on the estate that I realized the young heir had it harder than anyone.

The way Don Bellandi trained Luca was almost cruel. Every day meant combat training, stripping down guns, and studying the Bellandi family's accounts. The moment Luca showed any sign of being tired, Don Bellandi took a belt to him.

Luca shook with pain, but he just stared at the wall and forced himself not to cry.

Don Bellandi said the heir to the Bellandi family didn't need tears. He only needed cold blood.

In my third month on the estate, Luca was half a second too slow in a mock assassination test. Don Bellandi slapped him across the face and locked him in the wine cellar with no food for two days.

Late that night, I slipped past the guards with some bread and milk and crawled into the cellar through the air vent. The stones scraped my skin raw, but I didn't feel a thing.

Inside, Luca was curled up next to a wine rack, shivering with cold.

"Luca..."

Luca looked up. When he saw it was me, he scrambled to his feet in a panic and tried to push me back out. "If my father catches you, he'll beat you to death!"

"I'm not scared." I pushed the bread and milk into his hands, then pulled out a flashlight.

I looked at the blood at the corner of Luca's mouth. "You must be starving. Eat. As long as I'm around, I won't leave you alone in the dark."

Luca held the bread and looked at the scratches on my face and arms. His eyes went misty.

When he'd finished the bread, he took the silver saint's medal from around his neck. It had been his mother's, and she'd left it to him when she died.

Luca cut the medal in two with a pocketknife. The metal sliced open his finger. He pressed one half into my palm.

"Mara, my mom left me this." Luca held on to my hand. "From now on, we each keep half. As long as we have the medal, we're family."

He looked me in the eye and made me a promise. "I swear, as long as I'm around, I won't leave you alone in the dark."

I clutched my half of the medal and nodded hard.

That year, I was ten and he was 12.

We thought both halves of that medal would keep us safe for the rest of our lives. But we had no idea that fate had already written our ending.