Chapter 1

On the flagship voyage with Vittorio Farlone, our vessel caught a storm and began to go under.

At the critical moment, without a second's hesitation, he put his first love on the only lifeboat and left me alone on the sinking ship.

I demanded to know how he could do it, grief and fury in every word, and all he gave me back was a cold sneer.

"Adriana Marchetti, you drew every blueprint for this vessel. Don't tell me you don't know where the hidden survival gear is."

"You'd better get yourself back in time, or our union gets postponed indefinitely."

He rowed away with his first love in the only lifeboat, and left me to drown in the open sea.

A week later, the Farlones and the Marchettis held their blood-alliance union, grander than anything the Families had seen in years.

Vittorio waited for his bride, frantic with worry. But what finally arrived was only my corpse, soaked through, still in my wedding gown.

——

Less than ten days before that sit-down of a wedding, I sat on the couch and watched my husband-to-be, Vittorio, who was set to be bound to me the very next day, bring his soldiers into our bridal suite to carry on however they pleased.

The whole room reeked of liquor and spilled Barolo. The bed I'd made up with such care was crumpled from everyone flopping across it, and even the silk banner I'd hung had been torn to shreds by someone in a drunken fit, a total wreck.

Vittorio held a glass of red wine, his arm around the woman who had once been his first love and was now his "friend," Carmela Ricci. His brows were drawn tight, his face dark as he stared toward the door.

He'd sent word the moment he got back that afternoon, telling me to come home early.

But it was already past midnight, and there was still no sign of me.

Nestled against him, Carmela said in a soft, coaxing voice, "Vittorio, Adriana isn't still sore about the vessel, is she? About you leaving with me?"

"Things were so dangerous out there, and I was badly hurt. You only took me because that's what a decent man does for a friend. It's not like you were abandoning her." Her smile held a half-second too long before she went on, then slid back into warmth. "Sulking this long over such a small thing, refusing to even show her face in her own bridal suite. That's spoiled, all right."

Vittorio gave a cold snort, took a sip of his wine, and said, careless as anything, "She can come or not, I don't care. I've said every soothing word there is these past days. Any more groveling and I'm just indulging her."

"The date's set. Ten days from now, both Families gave their word. If she won't come, then I don't want this alliance either."

"Throwing a fit over some little thing, no sense of the bigger picture at all. A woman like that is nothing but trouble once she's married into the bloodline."

"If she doesn't come, I'll take you instead."

With that, drunk as he was, Vittorio tipped Carmela's chin up, his eyes glassy and unfocused, heavy with something intimate.

And Carmela sank willingly into his arms, watching with a smug little smile as his blackout-drunk soldiers went on wrecking my bridal suite, slashing my portraits, smashing the wedding figures I'd set out.

I bit my lip and looked at the ruin filling the room, my soaked body shivering without stop, and the look I turned on Vittorio was pure, killing despair.

Vittorio, I really would love to answer your message.

But I'm standing right in front of you now, and you can't see me.

Because I've been dead for a long time.

Ten days ago, with our union closing in, Vittorio insisted on dragging me along on the flagship voyage.

We'd agreed it would be just the two of us, but when we reached the stateroom, there was Carmela in a skintight slip dress, her makeup done up seductive, surrounded by a pack of Vittorio's soldiers. She came bounding over with a grin and hooked her arm through his.

"Vittorio, you're really no fun, slipping off on a voyage without inviting the men. Talk about ditching your own the second a pretty girl shows up."

"Blowing off your friends like this already. Don't tell me you'll be one of those henpecked husbands once you're married?"

The others roared with laughter, and Vittorio smiled, a little helpless, and said, "Of course not."

But I'd long since grown tired of Carmela's little routine, so I said flatly, "Miss Ricci, this is a prenuptial voyage for me and my betrothed. Isn't it a bit inappropriate, all of you tagging along?"