All Chapters of BLOOD AND ROSES: Chapter 1 - Chapter 4

Isabella’s POV Crimson paint slid from the end of my brush like fresh-spilled blood, placing towards the stark white of the canvas. I stepped back, wiping my arms at the apron that changed into already a battlefield of vintage stains, my armor towards the chaos that came with growing something raw. This painting felt different. Darker. Truer. Shapes bent and twisted across the space, figures caught mid-motion, their faces locked in agony and something disturbingly close to pleasure. It was the closest I’d ever come to putting my own insides on display. The ViewArt Gallery’s end-of-year exhibition. Just thinking about it sent a spark racing through me. Damian Moretti’s company hosted the most important art event in New York. That was where real artists showed their work, not sheltered mafia princesses playing with brushes. If this piece made it in, maybe people would finally see me as more than Antonio Russo’s daughter. Papa would never let me go alone. He barely let me breathe w

Damain's POV The rays of the morning sun had sharp shadows crossing the mahogany polished table and I looked at the faces of my board directors. Not only were they business partners, they were the creators of my legitimate empire, the men who assisted in making blood money into legitimate means of revenue. "The European markets are ripe for expansion," Harrison, my head of international operations, was saying. His PowerPoint slides showed projected profits that would make most Fortune 500 companies weep with envy. "Our hotel chains in London and Paris are performing beyond expectations, and the art acquisition business is opening doors we never imagined." Art acquisition. The irony wasn't lost on me. Some of the world's most valuable paintings now hung in my private collection, acquired through methods that would make auction houses very uncomfortable. But money had a way of washing away inconvenient questions about provenance. "What about the shipping routes through the Medi