Chapter 2

I tipped my head and let out a bitter laugh.

My mother's hand was still shaking from the slap.

"You've got the nerve to keep pushing me? After everything we've done for you? This is what we get?"

"You want to walk out? Where? You think the whole Family won't talk? You think they won't say we threw you out like trash?"

She was screaming by the end, voice cracking.

"I should've never had you, Aria. Not one damn day of peace since Mirella came home. Not one."

The taste of blood spread across my tongue.

I ran my tongue along the corner of my lip.

Yeah. Every other time, I would have made a scene.

Because I didn't get it.

I didn't get how Mirella smashed my father's antique pistol and somehow I was the one who broke it.

I didn't get how the security cameras caught her tripping on the staircase, and they still swore I pushed her.

I didn't get how I bought a bouquet of lilies, she turned out to be allergic, and suddenly I was a bully.

This wasn't the first time my mother had hit me.

The last time was two days ago.

Mirella wanted to wear my engagement gown and I said no.

She fainted on the spot.

My mother shoved me into the wall and took a pair of scissors to the custom gown I'd waited six months for.

Mirella was tearing us apart, and we were almost done.

So yeah. I used to scream. I used to drag every soldier and capo into the foyer and beg someone, anyone, to tell me I wasn't losing my mind.

Not this time.

The truth was, I'd always brought this Family good fortune. Every single one of them.

The day after I was born, the Marchettis pulled a port deal out of nowhere that yanked the Family back from the edge and made my father the most feared Don on the East Coast.

His stage-two liver cancer cleared the same week. Every doctor in New York said it was impossible.

Gianna was nothing but a forgettable kid from a forgettable little Family before she met me.

Once she started running around with me, she grew into the kind of beauty that turned every head in a room. Landed every audition. Won Best Actress at twenty-two. Became the most bankable face in the country.

And Dante.

He was nobody back then. A teenager running cigarettes and stolen watches out of the back of a flea market in Queens. Cops chased him. Older crews beat him bloody. He slept on a cot in his cousin's shop.

Until the night he found me wandering lost down by the docks and walked me home. I fell for him before we made it back to the gate.

After that, every move he made hit gold. Built his own crew. Never lost a deal. By thirty, he was Don of the Castellano Family, with his hands in half the ports from Boston to Miami.

For twenty years, this whole Family treated me like the sun rose and set on me. Dante looked at me like I was the only thing keeping his heart beating.

They got everything they ever wanted.

Then Mirella was brought home.

And every last one of them changed.

My father's voice went cold. He didn't even glance at me.

"Take it all back. The dress. The earrings. The watch. Pull every diamond off her wrist and her neck. Not one Marchetti thread walks out that door with her."

"You want out, Aria? Go. But don't come crying back. I'll be on the front page of every paper in the city tomorrow disowning you for good. You won't carry my name another day."

They didn't even let me grab a coat before two soldiers shoved me out the front door.

Dante exhaled and pressed a key into my hand.

"It's an apartment downtown. Go there. Sleep it off. I'm not doing this with you again, Aria. None of us are."

"I should've saved Mirella that night. Not you."

I scoffed. "Then marry her."

He let out a long, exhausted breath.

"Don't start. I told you I'd put a ring on you and I will. That doesn't change."

"Mirella is sweet. She's a good girl. I'm not going to stand here and let you treat her like she's something to throw away. Don't pull that again."

He turned and walked back up the steps.

I dropped the key on the marble and turned to leave.

Mirella came running across the foyer and grabbed my sleeve.

"Sister, don't go. I'm the one who reached for what was never mine. I don't deserve any of this."

"You stay. I'll go. I'll be packed and out before sunrise, I swear."

I knew exactly what she was doing.

So I stood there. Let her clutch my sleeve and squeeze out her little tears.

But the second she realized I wasn't shoving her off like I always had, she gasped, clutched her chest, and crumpled at my feet.

"Mirella!"

"Somebody call the doctor! Mirella, honey, stay with me!"

Every soldier and house staff member in the foyer came running and crowded around her.

Dante's hand closed around my throat. His eyes were black.

"You laid a hand on her? Don't think for a second I won't put one on you, Aria."

Turns out, when you're past furious, all you can do is laugh.

I hadn't even touched her.

Somehow I'd still done it.

"Dante. I really hope none of you live to regret this."

My father's voice cracked across the foyer.

"Get her the hell out of my sight. Lock her in the cellar. I'm not done with her tonight."