AJ clearly finds the answer unacceptable and gently pulls me towards the kitchen. He pours me an espresso from the traditional silver coffee pot sitting on the stove and hands it to me with a lemon biscuit, probably made by one of the old women down the street. Like biscuits and tears are going to bring my parents back.
“Come on, Chi. Quickly have the coffee and biscuit before we get in the car,” AJ urges. “We need to stick to the timings the security teams have given us and travel in convoy together. Make no mistake, we might be at a funeral, but we still must remain vigilant. Mob business doesn’t stop to mourn, so you can bet there will be friends and foe in attendance today.”
While AJ and his brothers were always groomed to join the family business, my parents tried to shield me from the dark realities of it. Let me enjoy the light-filled sweetness of my youth. And I played the part perfectly in my virginal white dresses and pretty bows, my perceived innocence convincing them they didn’t need to hold onto the reins too forcefully. Except, it seems you can’t escape the life you’re born into or genes infected with darkness. So underneath all that sweetness was a girl who craved the forbidden like an alcoholic craves thenext drink. And now the only two people who truly loved her have paid the ultimate price.
I’m chewing the last mouthful of dusty, dry biscuit when Uncle Gino walks into the kitchen. His tall, broad frame is imposing, and there’s no doubt his gun is tucked safe somewhere beneath his bespoke black suit. He’s a man of many contradictions. Revered and feared. Ruthless but also generous and warm-hearted towards those in his inner circle. One that now sees me at the center of it, given I’ll be living under his roof. I could rebel; I’m legally an adult, so don’t need to heed the directive to stay under his care until I’m twenty-four, but the only other person I would have considered running to turned out to be the devil in disguise.I’m not sure I trust my judgement anymore.
“Cara mia.” My uncle’s deep voice pulls me back to the present, those two words a reminder of the last letter my mama penned to me, causing my eyes to sting with tears again. He envelops my small hands with his and stares down at me, his piercing green eyes the same color as my dad’s. His stoic expression softens momentarily as he takes me in, and I can see the tinge of sadness, but not enough to show any signs of weakness. He’s burying his last remaining bother today, but in no way burying the hatchet that would end this decades-long war between the Gigioliotti and Rizzo families.
“We must leave now,” he says softly. “You will travel with me and AJ. Christian and Matteo are coming straight from the airstrip. They just flew in. We have security flanking us, and the church is swarming with our men and the best security team from New York. I won’t let anything happen to you, Chiara. I promised your parents that much. Revenge will come. But first we must honor their souls.”
I let him guide me to the front door, my cousin AJ falling into step on my other side. The second I step out, four more mendressed top to toe in black come to flank us, two on each side, creating a human barrier as I’m escorted to the waiting black Bentley that’s idling behind the hearse carrying the bodies of my parents. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but I feel like I’m floating through time and being crushed by a ten-ton weight all at once. My eyes land on the lush red roses atop their matching black lacquered caskets, a stark reminder of the blood shed already and what I can only guess is more to come. When will it end? The senseless loss of life. The revenge. This family curse.
It occurs to me that I’m now the only female Gigioliotti left, flanked by my sole remaining relatives. The twins Matteo and Christian on one side and my uncle and AJ, his carbon copy, on the other. I know in this moment, the small freedoms I once had will be hard fought for now. I refuse to let the family curse take from me what my mother and father died for. I just need to get through today and use the years I have ahead of me to plot my next move. One way or another, I will get to New York and build a future in the city that never sleeps. In fact, I swear on my parents’ life, I’ll make it happen. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find a love so deep I’d even die for it.
Just like my mama.
Chapter One
New York, New York
Chiara
Present Day
Keepingmy smug smile in check as I walk from Joey’s diner to my driver’s car takes mammoth effort. I just pulled off the first part of my master plan,Freedom for Chiara.
Everything happens for a reason.
If I close my eyes, I can still hear my dad’s deep voice. He would always recite this saying to me when I was upset over something not going my way. It always made my heart swell with hope, like he knew a secret I didn’t.
When they were taken from me, it was hard to think of that saying and see hope or feel like the possibility of more or better could ever be within my reach again. In what universe could there be a good enough reason to be left in this world without my parents? Living under Uncle Gino’s roof by his old-school rules has tested me beyond measure. Yet, without his influence, and adopting his personal holy trinity—deception, lies, betrayal—there’s no way I would have arrived here in New York today,ready to start my dream job. And I’ll need to use all three to pull off my plans.
After I finished my studies earlier in the year, I interned with revered US photographer Natalia Hirsch. She was in Italy for the European summer, and my friend Arabella, who I met through my cousins Christian and Matteo, introduced me. Arabella encouraged me to enter Natalia’s photography competition she runs every few years wherein she selects one aspiring photographer to be her first assistant and join her team, based out of New York. Part of winning is the opportunity to showcase my work at one of Natalia’s exhibitions. When I got the email to let me know I’d won, beating fifty other applicants and offering me a spot to exhibit with her in New York, I pondered if the good news was a sign from my mama and papa that there was still hope.Everything happens for a reason.
Finally, I was going to New York. Freedom was just a short flight on the family's private jet away.
I didn’t breathe a word of my plans to anyone. I wished I could tell Mia, but no—she betrayed me. Even now, years later, the knowledge that she must have been involved somehow is a gut punch.
I knew Uncle Gino wouldn’t be on board with the plans, so I told a small white lie about why I needed to get to New York no later than January 2. I deceived my cousin AJ to help me convince my uncle to let me come to New York unchaperoned, and a mere hour ago, I betrayed the good nature of my incredibly handsome personal driver, Marco, to help me convince my cousin to let me stay with my friend Arabella Belmont instead of the hotel I was supposed to be booked into. I feel bad pulling the guy into my web of lies when he thought he was going for a casualwelcome to New Yorkbrunch with me and AJ.
But, telling a little white lie was a necessary evil, because in doing so, there’s no check out date, and it gives me a bit ofbreathing space to execute the next part of my plan that will allow me to stay in New York permanently. If all things go accordingly, in a few short weeks my photography will be up in lights as theOne to Watchfeature at the highly publicized Natalia Hirsch exhibition Arabella is coordinating for her family’s media empire. What’s more, soon enough, I’ll be signing on the dotted line to become her first assistant.
So yeah, I like this guy, Marco. He just saved my ass—not once but twice—first by vouching for our mutual friend Arabella so AJ would sign off on my change of accommodation plans, and then literally saving my life when I nearly went ass over tits on the sidewalk in my damn stiletto boots!
“Just a suggestion, but you might like to reconsider your footwear for the rest of the trip.” Marco smirks at me through his rearview mirror. “I may have been there to catch you today, but professional fuck-me-boots wrangler isn’t part of my services.”
“Hmm…so tell me, what is part of your services?” I ask, not able to resist the opening he just gave me.
“Not whatever is happening in this audiobook, that’s for sure.”
My laugh breaks free. I’m not sure what has kept me on the edge of my seat more—the sex scene playing out in the audiobook, or my driver trying to school his features with every throaty moan and raspy groan ricocheting around the car. I know I’m an evil bitch, making a hot-blooded man sit through the exquisite torture of a virtual group fuck fest, but there was no way I was getting to the good bit and hitting pause! Besides, spicy audiobooks have become a lifeline for me the last few years. Outside a few vanilla hookups here and there, I swore off sex the way I like it—all-consuming, forbidden, and straddling the edge of pleasure and pain. After Alessandro, I didn’t trust my judgement anymore. Thinking his name conjures memories that make my body thrum. There’s no doubt he fit the bill. The way hetaught me to experience pleasure in all its forms, derived from tender touches one day and stinging pain that shouldn’t have felt as good as it did. It became an addictive game.
My brain is quick to tamp down my body’s reaction, bringing to the forefront the shame that maybe I was being double-crossed the whole time. To this day, I don’t know why Mia and Alessandro would conspire to have my parents killed.
I still don’t have answers or understand their motive. And knowing he’s the reason I didn’t get to my parents in time makes fear bloom where I thought love once lived. I’m ashamed I didn’t tell Uncle Gino about my suspicions, but I couldn’t bear admitting to him how stupid I was. The truth is a cross I must bear; I was too blinded by loyalty to Mia to see the signs of her deception, and utterly infatuated with Alessandro that I allowed him to use my body and desires to ensnare me so deep that I didn’t see the betrayal before it was too late.
The ring of Marco’s phone interrupts my wandering thoughts. The nameRafflashes on the screen. Marco quickly rejects the call, his gaze meeting mine in the rearview mirror, but the call comes through again immediately.
