Chapter 5

The freezing river swallowed me whole. Between the bullet wound in my chest and my broken ribs, the pain nearly knocked me out. But only one thought filled my head. I had to live.

Luca said he'd marry me. I had to make it back to him alive.

Driven by a will to live that bordered on madness, I let the undercurrent carry me downstream until it washed me up in the shallows. Three days later, a Bellandi family search team found me tangled in dead branches along the shore, barely alive.

When I opened my eyes again in the private hospital on the Bellandi estate, the first thing I saw was Luca, hollow-eyed and unshaven.

Out in the hall, Don Bellandi and the elders were shouting furiously, accusing him of neglecting two weeks of Bellandi business over a woman. But Luca tuned them out. He just held on to my hand for dear life and buried his face in my palm.

"Mara..." He looked up, a fierce light burning in his eyes, and spoke slowly, as if every word mattered. "I love you. I'm never letting you go."

It was the first time I'd ever heard him say those three words so seriously. In that moment, every drop of blood I'd spilled on that snowy mountain felt worth it.

From that day on, we were caught up in a romance as reckless as it was secret.

By day, I was still his personal bodyguard, the one in the black suit trailing behind him with a blank face. But late at night, Luca would dodge every camera in the estate's maze of security and slip into my room like an eager teenage boy.

We kissed on my narrow single bed and traced each other's faces in the moonlight. He'd rest his head against my neck and excitedly paint a picture of the life we were going to have.

"Once I've rooted out those old men in my family and I've got the docks under my control, I'm taking you away from here. We'll buy a white house by the sea in Sicily. Every morning you can trim the flowers in the garden, and I'll make breakfast..."

He sounded so sincere, and his eyes were shining in a way I'd never seen before.

Deep down, I knew perfectly well that a simple life like that could never belong to a future Don. In the mafia, power changed hands through blood and betrayal. Once he took that seat, there would be no turning back.

But I wanted so badly to be loved. I greedily soaked up every little bit of sweetness he gave me, and I held on to every empty promise he made as if it were a future I had to guard with my life.

Dreams, though, always end sooner than you think.

A month later, Don Bellandi wrapped up his trip to Europe and made a grand return to New York. He didn't just bring back a mountain of weapons orders. He brought back a woman.

At dinner that night, Don Bellandi tapped his glass, and the hall went quiet at once.

He stood under the huge crystal chandelier and gestured to the woman at his side. She wore a long white couture gown and carried herself with effortless elegance. He raised his voice so every member of the Bellandi family and every business partner in the room could hear.

"Everyone, allow me to introduce the daughter of the Laurent family of France, Celeste Laurent. She is the woman the Bellandi family has chosen as its next Donna!"

Standing in the shadows in the corner, I felt as if I'd fallen through the ice. Without thinking, I looked over at Luca at the head table. He was frowning hard, but his eyes had landed on that dazzling woman all the same, as if he couldn't help it.