Our father always told us.Your mother is the woman who will love you no matter what you do in life. She will always be there. Keep her happy always. You upset my wife, you will be punished.
That was enough for me never to hurt her.
To my left, Marco nudges me with his knee. “You’re gonna burn if you keep pretending like you believe in anything.”
“Pretending?” I smirk. “I’m in church. I believe in the performance.”
He huffs under his breath, then leans forward like he’s repenting. Knowing him, he’s trying to remember which girl he took home last night. On my right, Milo’s halfway through humming the theme toThe Godfatherunder his breath.
I elbow him in the ribs, and he just grins.
That’s us. Matteo, Marco, Milo.
The Messina triplets. Born under a red moon—poetic mafia bullshit. Knives in our hands before razors. Secrets in our lungs instead of air, but in here, we’re altar boys in designer suits.
In our granddad’s kingdom.
This is my mother’s uncle’s church, where she grew up and where she insists we come every Sunday.
Our mother’s parents died when she was a little girl, and her uncle raised her. She told us we are to call him Grandad because no matter what he was a father to her.
Giovanni Messina sits up front, silver cane across his knees, sharp suit catching the candlelight. He and Grandmother came to this church long before any of us. My father was born into this world. My mother wasn’t. She married into it under these same vaulted ceilings. Grandmother died at their wedding. In this family, blood always stains the celebration.
Up ahead, our parents sit together like no one else exists. My mother leans into my father’s side, whispering something that makes him smirk, then laugh quietly. They’re not shy about public affection, never have been. Even with us behind them, even in God’s house.
They were a mafia love story long before I knew what love even looked like.
Maybe that’s why I’m fucked up. Because I can’t stop seeing her
That girl.
The one with the ugly ring and the cliff between us.
Aoife.
I can still feel the wind clawing at my hair, the wild panic in her pretty blue eyes, the sharp breath between her lips when I pulled her back from the edge and I hate how much I liked it.
She smelled of blood, salt, rebellion—and flowers that shouldn’t have hit so hard. She looked like she wanted to kill me and kiss me in the same breath, and something in me shifted.
She’s Irish.
I remind myself again.
She’s a fucking O’Brien.
A legacy of the man who ended my grandmother’s life.
A name whose lips should never ever touch mine.
She’s trouble.
She’s beautiful.
She’s not mine!
“You thinking about her again?” Marco murmurs.
I don’t flinch. “Shut up.”
