I wake up bound in the back of a black SUV and hear the city lights blur into one another as the driver speeds through the streets of the night and the man who destroyed my family wants me to help him the way I know I can help, but on his terms.
The satin of my wedding dress still sticks to my flesh as I regain consciousness. My wrists sting where the zip ties dug into my skin, and the air in the SUV tastes like oil and cigarette smoke. My chest closes around a thin finger of panic, but I make myself inhale slowly for five seconds and hold it for five seconds, over and over. My name is Isabella Rossi, and I am the daughter of a century’s old famiglia I think-run by blood, betrayal, and the iron nature of our family chain-locked by nothing else than iron, but my father had other ideas when he wanted me to marry the heir to another steel fortune, up until it all goes to hell.
Thankfully, the city’s lights outside smear into streaks while the car shrieks down an overpass, but I can still see the skyline: Lagos, my war-bred home. The reception hall, the rose petals, my sister Elena’s tear bright eyes — all of it was gone. Exchanged for the hum of an engine and two silent guards in the front.
I wrench my eyes off the window and look around me: cramped back seat, black leather, tinted glass. A twisted piece of linen lies forgotten at my feet – my veil. Half untangled, my pearls are draped over the seat beside me. Anything nice from tonight feels like proof of a life that’s been torn off.
“Just breathe,” I whisper under my breath. “Don’t panic.”
The doors don’t unlock. The locks don’t click. I test the zip ties again — too tight — and transfer my weight so I can get my ankles free. I’m Hands and Feet Bound, but Mind Is Alight: Who Could Have Pulled This Off So Neatly? The Salazar cartel? For months, they’ve been creeping into Rossi territory. Or one of the other families—say, the De Lucas, who have always been resentful of us ever since we found my parents’ mauled carcasses in that charred-out housing estate a decade ago.
The word, “Moretti” escapes me and chills my spine.
It flares up flashes of my old nightmares - my father’s parting breath, my mom’s eyes with the lights on and a boy—not any boy, Dante Moretti, standing at the edge of the bullet holed room. His face was expressionless then; I doubt it’s softened now. If so, it’ll be a victory.
The SUV slows. I get jostled forward so hard I nearly hit my head on the seat in front of me. My heart is a bloodpump in my side, rhythms of dread and rage running one through another. I mutter an Italian curse; though some small part of me wishes they can hear it, that they know the Rossi fire still burns.
The door behind the driver flings open and I’m pulled out of the car before I can get myself belted down to the floorboard. Panic flares as I make contact with the pavement, but strong hands seize my arms—iron cold leather gloves that force me into a darkened underground garage.
I am marched on two steps at a time. My gown blusters, frayed at the hem, grips thin-drawn ankles. With every step I’m reminded that the rest of my life has hinged on a twist of a lock.
A big elevator door swishes open; I’m pressed in, the lights coming on. Two men in black caps concealed their faces. I twist, trying to interpret their stance — machine-like, blank. They close the doors behind us. My skull vibrates with a low hum of ascending metal.
When I blink to the open doors, I find myself squinting against the bright opulence of a penthouse suite that looks like it was ripped right out of a luxury magazine. High gloss marble and floor-to-ceiling windows, and art—really expensive art—hanging perfectly flat on the walls. It all feels hideous, glamorous, and like my body is a bloody bird in a glass cage.
A man is at the window, his back to me, a silhouette cut by the moon. He must be 30, tall, broad-shouldered. His suit is cut with such precision, it could have been sprayed on. I know the posture — the certainty, full and final.
“Isabella Rossi,” says without turning, low as a promise or a threat. “You look… radiant.”
I flick my gaze to him. His raven hair is thick, textured, and ruffled (as if he just ran his hand through it). My pulse picks up. His name is Dante Moretti, and in one deep breath, I never forget a thing. The De Luca–Moretti war. My parents’ bodies. The massacre. The threats. The whispered reprise: Your family is dead; now we own the ruins.
“Don’t call me that,” I spit. “Dante Moretti. The last thing I want to see is you.”
Then he turns, and I have to catch my breath. His eyes are steel gray — glacial, unblinking. One side of his face is scarred, a faint line running from brow to cheek, as if to say, This is what happy ending looks like: past blood letting. He’s one-handed, the other resting nonchalantly in his pocket as he raises a glass of dark amber liquid.
“Straight to the point,” he mutters. “I like that.”
His eyes rake up and down me—my ripped-up dress, the bruise already darkening my wrist, the anger still flashing in my eyes. I swallow the ball of emotion in my throat and straighten my shoulders.
“What do you want?”
Dante edges closer, and my world reduces to the distance in feet between us. I raise my chin; a slight quiver in my jaw betrays my bravado. “Just kill me and get it over with.”
He smiles—slow, almost tender. “I didn’t bring you here to murder you, Isabella.”
I grit my teeth. “Then what—for sport?”
He shakes his head. “Business.” He places the glass on a black, sleek console. “Your fiancé, Luca Costello, worked for me.”
My stomach knots up so tight I almost throw up. “He—”
“Sold out your family secrets,” Dante inserts. “Terrain maps, bribe ledgers, every Rossi secret vault. And you thought your wedding present was a bunch of roses? That was my payment.”
I stare at him, mouthing words that won’t come. This can’t be real. This man had kidnapped me, removed me from the only home I ever had, burned my world to the ground, and now he was telling me Luca—my husband, the boy to whom I had been faking a marriage to keep my family safe—had been lying to me all along.
“You lie,” I growl, but my voice breaks.
He's pushing a slim tablet across the console and its screen is full of pictures: Luca swapping envelopes with the guards standing in front of Moretti, CCTV shots of him slipping into back alleys, documents bearing the stamps of Rossi and De Luca. I shake as I try to reach forward and touch it.
“Why?” I rasp. “Why would he—?”
“Because he was never your savior,” Dante explains. “He was your weakness.”
A hand on my shoulder whirls me around. The guard’s grip is iron. I stare into his empty gaze that holds nothing but the duty, no humanity. My heartbeat pounds through my ears. I know I have to buy time. I swallow the anger, looking for traction.
You think youve got me, I say, looking back into Dantes eyes. “But you don’t know me.”
He tilts his head, curious. “Try me.”
I swallow, muster every inch of Rossi pride into a ball in my throat. “You want something from me. My brains, my connections, my … fear. But you’ll never break me.”
His lips curve. “Good. Because I need you alive. “Your expertise in the old Rossi routes could stop the Salazar cartel at the knees.”
For a moment, a flicker of hope — revenge — jolts through me. The cartel has been closing in for months, elbowing its way here into our territory, obliterating everyone standing in its path. It is then that Dante’s offer falls into place: he wants an alliance. There was a way I could assist him — and myself.
I steady my voice. “What’s your offer?”
He backs up and holds out his hand for a good old-fashioned shake. The guard lets go of me, and I rub my wrist, where the zip tie had left its angry line on my skin.
“Help me take down Salazar,” Dante explains, “and I’ll help you get what you want: answers about your parents — and a chance to prove you deserve an empire.”
I look at his hand, then his face. I recall my father’s last words: Take care of this family. At any cost. And my mother’s belief in my strength. I’d always known my life wouldn’t be an ordinary one, but I never imagined anything like this.
My heart races as I take his hand. He takes my hand — and it’s a handshake that means something in the Gents.
“I’ll do it,” I whisper.
Dante’s eyes go soft — only a heartbeat — before the steel comes back. “Good. We move at dawn. Be ready.”
He turns, signaling the guard. They lead me away. The question flies through my head: Can I trust him? Is this a trap? But underneath it all is one scorching truth: I’ve sold my soul to the devil. Now I have to live up to it.
As the elevator doors slide shut, and my reflection in the glass reveals a bride reforged as a warrior — bloodied but unbroken.
And someone out there is a traitor, waiting to be revealed. I will not stop until I have my vengeance.”
