Chapter 1

My father is the Don of Marchetti family and tonight, seven of his men walked out of my mother's bedroom.

He's standing in the doorway with his new whore on his arm. They both stare at my mother lying motionless on the bed. And he smiles like she's the entertainment.

"You used to look down on Bianca, Isabella. And look at you now, the great Moretti princess, not so high and mighty anymore." His voice makes me want to throw up. "I think it's time you let me make Bianca my second wife."

My mother doesn't scream or cry. She forces herself up off the bed, every movement shaking.

This time, she pulls the diamond pendant off her neck—the one he gave her the night he proposed—and drops it into the fire.

The next morning, my father throws a wedding.

Bigger than the one he gave my mother fifteen years ago. Three hundred guests from every family on the East Coast, all here to watch my father make his mistress official.

I'm wearing a black dress. Nobody notices.

Halfway through dinner, the lights flicker. The big screen behind the head table turns on by itself.

It's my mother. Naked. On her own bed. Seven men taking turns.

The video is high-definition. Someone wanted us to see every detail.

I lunge for the screen, trying to block it with my own body.

"What the fuck is this?! Turn it off! TURN IT OFF!"

The guests are laughing. Some of them are filming. Some of them are pointing at the men in the video and naming them out loud, like it's a party game.

My father's face goes purple.

"You like showing off so much, Isabella?" He's on his feet, champagne flute shaking in his hand. "Fine. I'll give the whole family a turn."

He snaps his fingers.

"Take her to the Room."

I scream and throw myself at him. The housekeeper catches me from behind, one hand clamps over my mouth, and drags me out of the ballroom while my mother is hauled in the opposite direction.

The guests' laughter follows me into the hallway.

"Once a woman's been in the Room—passed around to every man in the family—she doesn't walk right again. Wears diapers the rest of her life. Might as well bury her."

"Generous of the Don, though. Sharing his own wife with the boys."

"A Moretti princess. Soft hands, soft skin. Bet she moans prettier than the club girls..."

The housekeeper drops me in my bedroom and locks the door from the outside. I sit on the floor in my black dress and ask her, "What's the Room?"

She whispers, through the door, "The worst thing the Marchetti family does to a woman, Cleo."

...

I don't sleep.

By noon the next day, they let me see my mom.

The smell hits me before I'm through the doorway. Blood. Sweat. Strangers.

My mom is on the bed. Eyes open. Not blinking.

Under the thin white nightgown they put on her, every inch of her skin is bruised.

"Mama—"

My voice cracks. My fingers hover over her arm; I can't bring myself to touch her. I turn to the door to scream for the family doctor—

The door swings open first.

My father walks in with Bianca on his arm, both of them in fresh silk, both of them perfumed. Bianca makes a tiny gagging sound and covers her nose.

My father looks at my mother the way you look at a stain on the carpet.

"Isabella. Drop the act."

I freeze.

"I gave the men orders. Nobody actually touched you." He's bored. "Stop performing."

I open my mouth and want to shout—she's bruised, she's bleeding!

But my mother's hand closes around my wrist to stop me, and she reaches under her pillow.

It's divorce papers. Already signed.

"Dante." Her voice is a husk of itself. "Sign them. I don't want the money. I don't want the house. I don't want the name."

"I just want Cleo."

My father's eyebrow lifts like he's heard a child threaten to run away from home.

"Don't be stupid, Bella. Your father's dead. Your brother's dead. Your mother's been dead for ten years. Where the hell are you gonna go?"

I stare at him.

So he remembers.

He remembers that Uncle Rafael took six bullets covering his retreat in the northern territory war. That Rafael's body is still buried under a warehouse floor in Buffalo because we never got it back.

He remembers that my grandfather—the old Don Moretti—put a gun to his own temple in front of the Commission to force them to back my father up.

He remembers kneeling in front of the Moretti family crest the day he married my mother, swearing on his blood and his bones:

I, Dante Marchetti, will protect Isabella Moretti until the day I die. One wife. One love. No exceptions.

But "until the day I die" is a long time.

Three years into the marriage, he came home from a job up north with Bianca Costa. Said she'd saved his life. Said my mother needed to be understanding.

When my mother grew tulips in the garden, Bianca said the pollen made her sneeze. My father had every flower torn up by the roots.

When my mother got pregnant with my baby brother, Bianca cried and said that something terrible would happen to her if my mother kept the baby.

That night, my father held my mother down himself and forced the pills down her throat.

She bled through her dress and onto the rug. She screamed for six hours.

While he was three rooms away, listening to Bianca sing. I bet he heard every second of it. But He didn't move.

That was the night I understood: my father—the man who used to lift me onto his shoulders to watch the fireworks—

was already dead.