I can feel her pulse fluttering wildly at her throat. Her breathing has become shallow and quick. She wants this as much as I do.
I pull away slightly so I can drink in her beautiful face. Her eyes are glazed with desire, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
Then I dip my head to claim another kiss.
She gasps suddenly and turns her head to the side, staring at the wall with wide eyes. She pulls her hands out from beneath my T-shirt like she’s been burned.
I watch her closely, hoping she’ll turn her face back to mine so I can kiss her again. “Not bad. I enjoyed that, doe.”
Embarrassment and uncertainty fill her eyes, and she won’t meet my gaze. “Of course you did. When was the last time a woman kissed a Vici by choice?”
Instantly, my heart hardens and my eyes narrow. “What did you just say?”
She sucks in a scared breath. “Nothing. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
All the heat drains out of my body. I can be sweet-talked, but my family name will not be insulted. I snatch up the knife once more and hold it to her throat.
“You think you can talk this way about my family? My dead fucking family?”
Her hands tighten desperately on my wrists as tears spring into her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your family. I saved your life, even if you didn’t need it. I stood up to four armed men for you. Please don’t kill me.”
Fury consumes me, and the world swims with a red haze. My blood boils, a roar building behind my ears until it drowns out her voice entirely.
The woman inhales deeply and opens her mouth to scream, but I clamp a hand over her lips. I can feel her arm moving around as though she’s feeling for something. I’m meant to be focused on vengeance, yet I let myself be lured into kissing a beautiful stranger on this bloodied tile floor.
Her hand rises in my peripheral vision, her fingers wrapped around something long and shiny. The baseball bat. The thought registers an instant before the impact. A starburst of agony explodes in my head, right on the same tender, brutalized spot.
My vision goes white. My ears ring. I barely cling to consciousness, and my body goes limp. The woman shoves me off her before scrambling to her feet, and her panicked footsteps fade away.
I get onto my knees and use a washing machine to pull myself to standing. The room tilts. After a few staggering steps, I run out of the laundromat and onto the sidewalk. Pools of yellowish streetlight dot the empty pavement. I blink hard. Once. Twice. There’s empty street in every direction.
Ten years in the business, and a woman half my size and at my mercy gets the better of me. I push my hand through my hair, trying to shake off the humiliation. I have vengeance to enact, and yet I can’t resist shouting after her, my voice bouncing between brick buildings, “You owe me another kiss for that, doe.”
3
Adora
Six weeks earlier
Iclench my shaking hands on my dress as I stare into the coldly handsome face of the man I’m supposed to meet in just a few hours. My future husband. His face fills my laptop screen, angular lines and striking features that should be attractive, but they only fill me with dread.
Vincenzo Vici.
The eldest son of the most bloodthirsty family in Malus. Our territories border theirs to the west, but though we’re neighbors, there are no warm feelings between us. My father controls the northeast of Malus, a vast swathe of the city where people are wealthy and move in exclusive circles. Large, expensive houses line leafy streets, and glittering skyscrapers graze the horizon. Many casinos and upmarket restaurants line the Acheron River that twines through the city. Dad takes me there to eat sometimes. He talks to his capos or business associates insteadof me, and I pass the evening staring into the river at the colored lights reflected in the water.
Vici streets are in the northwest of Malus, where the buildings crowd closer together and the shadows run deeper. It’s a darker, grittier place. Their money comes from blood and bullets, not stock portfolios and real estate. They’re the city’s assassins-for-hire and arms dealers, the family other dons call when they need someone eliminated quietly and efficiently, or when they need the weapons to do it themselves.
And I’m supposed to marry into that.
I’ve never met a Vici before. Even if I’d wanted to meet a Vici, it would have been impossible. My life is strictly constrained to home and the nearby college, and Dad’s bodyguards accompany me wherever I go. I feel like I’m suffocating under the weight of their watchful eyes and my father’s iron control.
I trace my finger over Vincenzo’s jaw on the screen, trying to imagine what he’ll be like in person. His blue eyes stare into the camera with cold defiance.
Will he be kind? Will he hurt me the way Dad does? The questions circle in my mind. Dad wouldn’t give me a picture of Vincenzo. I had to search for him on the internet, and all I could find was his mugshot from a year ago. His date of birth tells me he’s twenty-seven, which is seven years older than me. Vincenzo was arrested on suspicion of killing the owner of a used car business who was mixed up in money laundering for the Dervishis, but the charges were mysteriously dropped. Or not so mysteriously. In Malus, if you pay the right official enough money or some similar favor, you can get away with murder.
The door to my bedroom slams open without warning.
“Adora. Why aren’t you ready yet? We’re leaving soon.”
