1
ROSALINA
1971
“You are gorgeous,”I deadpan, watching my best friend pace back and forth in Vogue’s wedding dress of the year—an impossibly pristine Dior fantasy.
“It makes me look like a nun, Rosie,” Erin snaps, tugging at the high collar of the dress.
I roll my eyes.The gown is a simple ivory satin with a floor-length cape exploding with white plumes along the edges that drift behind her as she paces. The cut, I’ll admit is aggressively modest, nun-adjacent if I’m being honest but the color makes her red hair flare brighter, her freckles stark against her pale skin, her blue-green eyes almost luminous beneath the feathery hood framing her face.
The ivory makes her red hair flare even brighter, her freckles sharper, her blue-green eyes almost luminous beneath the feathery hood framing her face.
“That ‘nun’ outfit is fresh off the Dior runway,” I remind her, folding another one of her shirts and tossing it into the open suitcase on the floor.
She keeps pacing, the feathered cape dragging behind her, the sheer under-layer looping around her arm for the third time since she put it on, as if even the dress is trying to calm her down.
I snort, picking up a hot pink tube top I know her father doesn’t know she owns. “Will you be taking this?”
“Are you mad?” Erin hisses as she stomps towards me with an angry face that looks cute enough to be on Disney Junior. “My father would have my head.”
“Your father will not matter anymore, because you will be married in a week,” I smirk, poking her nose with the tip of my finger, before she snatches the top out of my hand.
In one week, Erin O'Connor—my sharp-tongued, late-night-snacking best friend—will marry Dante Salvatore, the prince of the Italian mafia. It's an alliance marriage between the Irish and the Italians, arranged long before either of us even understood what that word meant. And I'll be by her side through all of it, protecting the Irish mafia's princess. That's what I was adopted for. That's the role I've trained my whole life to fulfill. My contract runs a year past the wedding—long enough for her to seal the alliance and give both empires the heir meant to rule them with an iron fist. Despite me being adopted for the role, Erin has naturally become my entire world. I would die for her safety, her happiness, her peace. And she would start wars for mine. What we have runs deeper than friendship. Deeper than sisterhood.
“Stop reminding me of my impending doom,” Erin lets out a sharp breath that ends in a whine, and throws herself down onto her bed with a soft thud. The dress pools around her like poured cream. “It is not kind.”
“You cannot be this concerned about your dress,” I huff out, my voice a dramatic tone. “You looked amazing in the last twenty dresses, and your father said you need to choose one of those. No more dress shopping.”
“Rosie, it isn’t about the dress! It doesn’t matter how good I look,” she grumbles. “I could be marrying a hobbit.”
I glance up, fighting a smile as I grab a father approved sundress off her bed. “He is not a hobbit.”
She throws her head up and narrows her eyes at me. “You have no way of knowing that.”
I throw down the dress against my thighs and give her my signature, you'rebeing dramaticface. “Your father would not let you marry a hobbit.”
Erin rolls over on her back, and props herself up on her elbows.
“In order to secure Harlem from Frank Lucas, he would sell me off to a troll!” Her voice rises with every word, and she throws herself back onto her bed.
Now, don't get me wrong—this is a valid drama moment. Seamus would absolutely marry Erin off to the ugly son of the Italian mafia if it got him Harlem. But there's little real information on Dante Salvatore beyond the usual whispered nonsense: he studied in England for the past ten years, he's supposedly slept with half of Manhattan, and he has a meanstreak that makes Satan look friendly. None of which confirms or denies whether he's actually ugly.
And I know I’m not doing him any favors by entertaining any of the rumors, but I doubt he’s actually that bad of a guy. Seamus O’Connor—better known as the Gentleman Gangsta and the boss of the New York Irish mob, or as Erin and I call him, Dad—would never hand her over to a man who’d hurt her. He loves her too much for that. And besides, I have my own orders from him as I observe the next year of marriage between them.
If Dante Salvatore ever steps out of line, it’s my job to put him back in it.
Which means I may get the privilege of kicking the future don of the New York Italian mob square in the teeth.
Lucky me.
I sit on the edge of the bed next to her, placing the folded dress on top of an open suitcase. “You know Dad would never do that.”
“Do I?” She snaps, narrowing her gorgeous eyes on me. “You’re lucky. You’re adopted and Dad told you after a year of me being married you could be relieved of your duties.”
“And I told you both, I will protect you until you are comfortable,” I assure her, moving a single red curl behind her ear. “So if that means until my last dying breath then I will.”
Erin leans over and squeezes my cheek, her bottom lip jutting out in a pout that would melt a mob boss twice her father’s size. “And that is as terrifying as it is sweet.”
