Chapter 1

The second I walked in, the noise in the council room died.

"What's Cecilia Bellini doing here? Didn't the Don say he'd ordered her kept out?"

That stung a little, but I didn't stop. I walked straight to Lucas.

Bianca was standing beside him with Matteo, and when she saw the gun at my hip, the color drained out of her face.

"Donna! I know you hate me, and you can blame me for all of it, but please, please don't hurt my baby!"

With that, she dropped to her knees, clutched the hem of Lucas's jacket, and choked out:

"Don, give the South Port back to the Donna. I don't want it!"

Lucas drew her behind him to shield her.

"What are you afraid of? Everyone in this room is mine. She won't touch you."

Then he turned to me with a frown.

"Cecilia, I know you're bitter about this, but..."

"But you never thought I'd wake up. You loved me so much and missed me so much that you found a woman who looked like me to comfort yourself. Then she had your baby, and now you have to do right by her. Is that it?"

I cut him off.

"Lucas, I got sick of that speech a long time ago."

Lucas's face darkened. "If you understand all that, then why walk in here armed? You're the Donna. Can't you show a little grace?"

I didn't answer. Instead, I pulled the gun off my hip.

A gasp went around the room.

Bianca clutched Matteo and curled up against Lucas.

"Cecilia!"

Lucas slammed his hand on the table. All I did was set the silver revolver down within his reach.

"Relax. I just think the Don has a point."

"A Donna should show some good faith. The Don gave this child the South Port, and I didn't have time to find anything else, so this will have to be my gift."

Lucas went still.

That silver revolver was the gun Lucas had given me when we fell in love. It was also the first gun his father had ever given him.

Lucas stared at me, his voice sharp with impatience. "Is this how you're trying to get under my skin?"

He held the gun back out to me. "Take it. Don't make me say it twice."

I didn't take it. I just glanced around at the capos and the looks on their faces.

"Well, the gift's delivered. I should go. I wasn't invited to this meeting, after all."

"Carry on, everyone. Don't let me spoil the party."

I'd barely stepped out of the council room when my father came after me. He grabbed my arm, and all I saw in his eyes was disappointment.

"Cecilia! I thought you came here today to finally fight for our family."

"And what did you do? You didn't say one word, and then you gave that child a present!"

I said nothing.

My father was so angry his voice shook.

"Do you have any idea what we've lost since you nearly died saving him and spent three years in a coma? Two ports and four casinos. Our seat on the Moretti council went from the front row to the very back! Can you not see any of it?!"

"Or do you think if you swallow all this, Lucas will fall in love with you again?"

"I'm telling you, he won't! He stopped loving you a long time ago!"

"Today he gives that child the South Port, and tomorrow he'll hand our whole family to his son as a birthday present!"

"Cecilia, there's no going back for the two of you."

"I know."

I looked up at the moon and sighed.

Nobody knew that better than I did.

Because for those three years, I was awake inside my own head the whole time.

That first year, Lucas practically moved his office into my hospital room. He sat by my bed day and night.

Late one night, I even heard his voice break. "Cecilia, you love fighting with me more than anything, don't you? Then wake up and keep fighting with me!"

I'd known Lucas for more than ten years. He had always been cold and formidable.

Even when he was carried in riddled with bullets and soaked in his own blood, he only set his jaw and told the doctor to dig them out.

But that night, a tear landed on the back of my hand.

In that moment, I wanted to wake up so badly I thought I'd go mad! I wanted to open my eyes! I wanted to move a single finger!

But no matter how hard I fought, my body did nothing at all.

After that, Lucas visited less and less often. I assumed something had happened to the Moretti family.

I kept believing that until my father slammed his fist down on the bed rail and shouted, "If you don't wake up soon, that woman is going to take your place!"

I didn't believe it.

How could Lucas fall in love with someone else?

But not long after that, my room started to smell like the perfume I used to wear.

I heard her imitate the way I used to tease him. I heard Lucas say the same sweet things he'd once said to me, word for word, to her.

I went from furious to hopeless, and in the end I couldn't even feel sad anymore.

And then one day, I heard a baby crying right next to me.

The woman asked him quietly, "If she ever wakes up, what happens to the baby?"

Lucas was quiet for a moment.

"Then within three months I'll give you a real wedding, and I'll call the families together and acknowledge him myself."

"Whether she wakes up or not, he's my son."

In that moment, after three full years in a coma, I opened my eyes.

I still can't forget the look on Lucas's face that day.

He froze in the doorway. There was no joy in his eyes, only confusion and fear.

He held me later, but the embrace felt cold and unfamiliar.

After he left that day, I called our rival family.

"Let's make a deal."

"You've been in a coma for three years. What could you possibly have to bargain with?"

"I was in a coma for three years. That's exactly why nobody bothered to guard their words around a vegetable."

I laughed a little.

"All the secrets your people couldn't dig up, no matter how hard they tried? I heard every one of them while I lay in that bed."

"Half of the Moretti family's fortune. Is that enough to put on the table?"