“I need to hire protection.”
Not what I was expecting to hear, but then again, I never thought I would be talking to a Rossi. “I figured you’d have your own protection.” All mob bosses do.
“Not for myself,” he clarifies. “I recently got married, and I want to ensure my sisters-in-law are well protected from misguidedbusiness associates. I’m sure you understand.” A long silence stretches between us before he carries on. “My research told me that your security firm is one of the best in the country, the best in New York City. And I want the best for my family.”
I should say no.
Getting tangled up with the Mafia is never a good idea. I’ve worked in the security industry long enough to understand the dangers that come with working with people who have no sense of integrity or respect for human life. Still, something holds me back from outright turning down the man and ending the call.
“Why would you want to hire an outside company when you have plenty of men who work for you and could provide security?”
“My wife was against the idea,” he says with a sigh. “It was her request not to have any of my men as the girls’ bodyguards. She doesn’t want her sisters involved in my world any more than necessary.”
Even more reasons for me to turn down this job. Politicians and A-list celebrities are more our client base and not people involved with organized crime, however distantly.
“I will, of course, pay premium rates for your services,” he continues when I don’t immediately respond. “And I will consider it a personal favor to me if you take this contract.”
That should be incentive enough to take the job. The Rossi name carries a lot of weight in New York City, not just underground but in a lot of spaces where our company operates. Still, I hesitate. Mob bosses are not known as the best people to work with. They will not hesitate to trample over the weak to get what they want.
“Send me their dossiers, then I’ll get back to you,” I find myself saying. I try to reason that I’m doing this out of curiosity and that I’ll only take a look at who needs protection. Then I’ll call him back and reject the offer. There are hundreds of other security firms in the city—none like ours, of course—but it wouldn’t be difficult for a man like him to find bodyguards elsewhere.
I turn to my computer when an email pops up. When I click on the file attached, the first thing I see is…her.
It takes me by surprise—the picture that loads and occupies my entire screen. A picture of a girl with the most beautiful seafoam eyes I have ever seen and the face of an angel. Long silky brown hair curtaining a heart-shaped pale face and cherry red lips curved in a slight smile.
Her eyes, Jesus Christ, they’re a startling mix of blue and green, something akin to the summer sky reflecting in a lagoon. I trace the lines of her face on the screen and find myself staring at the picture for what feels like an eternity. I know I should scroll down and read about her or check out the other sisters, but…I can’t look away.
The answer is obvious.
I’m taking the job.
Chapter One
Elena
My sisters have always been hopeless romantics.
As teens, they doodled hearts on their notebooks and daydreamed of handsome men sweeping them off their feet. They would read and write poems, listen to love songs on repeat, and talk about meeting their soulmates. I figured that with age, those rose-colored glasses would fall and they too would come to realize that love was the oldest scam in the books—a way for men to exert control over women and for women to climb the social ladder.
My youngest sisters never outgrew it. While Gia still believes in love and happily-ever-after, she’s convinced her ballet career comes first—marriage can wait until she’s done dancing professionally.
Not me.
I was the most realistic of my sisters. Having been raised in a cold household where love was absent, I learned pretty young that marriage was simply a contract between two people. And sex? One didn’t need to be in love to have sex, or else my parents’ loveless marriage would not have produced four daughters. So, instead of sobbing to love songs like my sisters did, I spent my entire childhood buried in books, readingobsessively about classical art and the Italian Renaissance, focusing on the historical context without romanticizing any of it.
I believed love to be a chemical reaction with a temporary high and an unnecessary distraction—an opinion my older sister didn’t seem to share or else she wouldn’t be getting married again, to the same man, three months after her first wedding.
Sofia’s marriage was arranged—a business deal between two wealthy and powerful families. She fought it at first. My sister was a romantic who wanted to find her own husband and fall in love naturally, not be sold off like cattle. The first wedding was more of a formality, a contract signing disguised as a ceremony.
But she fell in love.
I don’t know how or when it happened but Sofia was in love with Matteo Rossi.
A Mafia don who appears to have fallen in love with my sister in turn as he planned this whole surprise second wedding ceremony for her. A small, intimate beach wedding with a guest list of only ten people. The four Rossi siblings and their stepbrother Nico, and the five Marinos—myself, my younger sisters Gia and Bella, and our twin cousins Arianna and Matilde.
Still, even a skeptic like me can admit that this comes close to the fairytale wedding my big sister always talked about when we were younger.
“It’s your turn next, Elena,” a voice says from behind me, and I turn to face my younger sister, Gia. “With Sofia settled down, and you being the second oldest, I bet the pressure will be on you to find a guy and get married!”
