Chapter One
ARIA
I woke up on my eighteenth birthday knowing two things with absolute certainty: I was supposed to marry Don Salvatore Accardi in three months, and I'd rather die first.
The thought wasn't new. I'd been living with it for years, ever since Papa sat me down at thirteen and explained my future like he was discussing the weather. "You'll marry into the Accardi family when you turn eighteen. It's already arranged. This alliance keeps both families strong."
Strong. Right. Because selling your daughter to a man old enough to be her grandfather was the hallmark of strength.
I stared at the ceiling of my bedroom, watching early morning light creep across the ornate molding Mama had insisted on when we renovated five years ago. Mama who'd died a week ago. Seven days since cancer had finally won the war it had been waging against her body for two years.
Seven days since I'd watched them lower her into the ground while Papa stood beside me, stone-faced and silent, like grief was something shameful that needed to be hidden.
Maybe that's what they'd trained me for my whole life. Not just tobe the perfect mafia wife, but to feel nothing. To be nothing. A pretty doll in expensive dresses who smiled on command and never, ever caused problems.
I'd been so good at it too. Perfect grades, perfect manners, perfect daughter. I'd learned Italian and French by the time I was ten. Could plan a five-course dinner for fifty people without breaking a sweat. Knew exactly how to tilt my head when men said inappropriate things so I looked demure instead of disgusted.
But watching Mama die had cracked something open inside me. Something raw and desperate and furious.
Life was fragile. I'd watched it slip away from someone I loved, watched her fade a little more each day until there was nothing left but a body in a hospital bed that didn't even look like her anymore.
And I was supposed to waste mine married to Salvatore Accardi? A man with cold eyes and two dead wives and a smile that made my skin crawl?
No. Absolutely not. Not anymore.
I threw off the covers and got dressed, my hands shaking with a combination of grief and rage that had been building for days. Weeks. Years, maybe.
Papa would be in his study. He'd been hiding there since the funeral, drowning his grief in work because god forbid a Romano actually feel something.
I found him exactly where I expected—behind his massive mahogany desk, reading glasses perched on his nose, looking over papers that probably detailed which territories we controlled and which families owed us favors.
He looked up when I walked in. "Aria. You should be resting. It's early."
"I need to talk to you."
Something in my voice made him set down his pen. "Alright. What is it?"
"I'm not marrying him." The words came out steadier than I felt. "I'm not marrying Don Salvatore. I won't do it."
Papa's expression didn't change. "Aria, we've discussed this—"
"No. You've told me. There's a difference." I moved closer to his desk, my heart hammering but my voice getting stronger. "You've told me since I was thirteen years old that I was going to marry a man I've never even spoken to. You've told me it's for the family, for the alliance, for peace. But you've never once asked me what I want."
"What you want isn't—"
"Please." I held up my hand. "Just listen to me. For once in my life, let me say what I'm thinking without interrupting."
He sat back, jaw tight, but he didn't speak.
I took a shaky breath. "I love you, Papa. I know you love me. And I know you think you're protecting me, securing my future, doing what's best for the family. But I don't understand—I have never understood—why keeping peace with the Accardis is worth more than my life."
"It's not worth more than your life—"
"Then why are you willing to sacrifice it?" My voice cracked. "Because that's what you're asking me to do. Sacrifice everything I am, everything I could be, to become some old man's third wife. His third wife, Papa. Do you know what happened to the first two?"
His face went hard. "Those are rumors—"
"Everyone knows his first wife didn't die in a car accident. Everyone knows his second wife drank herself to death trying to survive being married to him. And you want me to be number three?"
