Chapter 1 

Emanuele 

“Eva, take those things out of my study,” my gaze shifts to the sea-blue eyes and the tresses of coal black. That used to be the color of my hair before the gray showed through, now even more visible under the ring lights and reflector she has arranged in front of my desk. 

Thanks to her, I know the names of this equipment, and while that might score me a best dad of the year title by actively participating in his daughter’s career, I would like to draw a line at how much harassment I can take. I’m having a cup of coffee, she is taking shots. I’m trying to read through the newspaper, she is taking shots. I am trying to bloody work right now, and she invading my space with equipment to take shots. 

“Dad, just this time,” she drops her camera on the desk and hurries to connect the extension to a socket, “It will be quick and painless.” 

“Eva, I’m not in the mood to have my pictures taken,” I look at the antique clock on the desk and see I might still have some time before Vittoria and her father arrive. “Go take a picture of nature or something else,” I pick up my cigar from the ashtray and puff, then tap the butt to let the ash fall. 

“Dad, they love you,” she flips the switch, “my page does not have the same buzz as when I post your pictures,” she takes hoppy steps to me and hugs me from behind, then plants a kiss on my cheek, “It turns out they love you more than they love nature.” 

“Who is they?” I know who. She fills me in on everything, whether I care or not. And I care. 

“My fans, who are sort of like your fans now because they are pining for more pictures of my hot dad,” she smiles sheepishly, saying the hot dad part through joined teeth. 

“Are these the kind of people you surround yourself with?” 

I know it’s not the point, and I’m not a saint myself, but I don’t joke with her. She is still my little Princess, no matter how grown she is. It will always be my duty to watch and protect her. 

“Dad, they are online, so it’s not a physical thing,” she says, dragging her oversized denim pants up to her stomach, then hopping back to the ring lights to set them. 

“But they’re in your circle, aren’t they?” 

“Let’s look at the good side here,” she ties her oversized neon t-shirt into a knot around her waist. I’m a fan of her style. She dresses in oversized denim pants and t-shirts, and she sometimes wears glasses. When she isn’t being a prickly daughter, she spends most of her time editing on her laptop or taking pictures. 

“What’s the good side?” I fold my hands across each other and rest them on the desk, making sure the cigar is visible between my fingers as I pose. 

She knows how to get me. My little bubbly offspring of trouble. I always knew she would be this way, from the night I held her in the hospital room when she was born. With those eyes like her mother’s, there’s not much I can refuse her. There’s not much I have denied her. And Eva has never asked for anything I couldn’t do. I built a bubble around her, and I love how she has stayed in it, never wanting anything more. 

“Be quick,” I snap my fingers at her, and she blows me a kiss. 

“You are the best, Dad,” she flips the first ring light on and then hops over to turn the second one on. She picks up her camera. 

“I like how you’re sitting, now look at the camera, please,” she angles the camera to snap. 

I do as the professional has asked. She is talented. Every year, she sells her pictures for charity, and it’s good for the family name, and people get their money’s worth. 

The shutter clicks, and she smiles brightly. 

I take it she is satisfied. 

“To put it out there, you have female and male fans,” she takes another shot. 

“You don’t have to put it out there,” I lift my eyes to look at her, and she takes another shot. I’m about to scold her when the noises from outside pique my interest. 

She hears it, too. 

“That’s quite some shouting,” she snorts, “Salvatore is finally losing it.” 

None of my domestic staff would dare to ramble so loudly that I could hear it from my study. And not even Salvatore, or the women he changes more than his underwear, would violate the estate’s solemnity in such a way. I wouldn’t put it past him, except this time he is not around. 

“Stay here,” I stand and walk to the door of my study. It’s a stringy lady’s voice and a harsh baritone belonging to a man, “Don’t come out.” 

Eva nods, “I will start editing the pictures,” she is on her laptop as soon as she sits on the navy-blue sofa. 

I open the door meticulously and step out. My study is on the second floor, and from here, I can see what is happening on the ground floor. 

I drag my cigar and puff, seeing them through the fogginess of the smoke. 

Looks like my guests are having a moment. 

Vittoria and her father, Giuseppe Mancuso. 

She has her back to me and intersects his line of sight because she is on six-inch heels. Her legs are covered in black stockings that disappear under the red coat she has on. 

But I can see the top of his bald head and the lines on his forehead deepening from aggravation. Giuseppe is leaning on his walking stick and I have no doubt he has a pipe between his lips. He wears his darkness like a second skin. 

“Give me a break,” Vittoria grits and balls her fists, as if she could punch him if he wasn’t her father. And I bet she can. I have heard enough about her to know she is as ferocious as they come. 

“You will do as told and not cause me any more trouble than you already have,” he grunts, “This time, I won’t go easy on you if you make a mess and bring me shame,” he points at her with shaky fingers, “Once is a mistake, but twice,” he spits his last words out, not completing the sentence. 

“Whose fault was it that Massimo said no to your proposal for a slave?” She throws one hand in the air in a poised way. 

Her audacity. That thing about the offspring of a beast not seeing what everyone else sees when they look at their parents. 

She is standing her ground, making her look like a strong, firm woman, but all I see is a brat that needs to be tamed. She has been given too much freedom, and it’s hard for her to know where the lines are drawn. 

Giuseppe makes a guttural sound, “I’m happy I’m getting you out of my home.” 

“That makes the both of us…” 

Her words have no landing as the back of his callous hand swings into action and smacks her hard on the cheeks. 

No, not that. 

Not under my roof. I get that she is a spoiled brat but hitting her is going too far. There are many ways to clip her wings, and I will take pleasure in… Salvatore would take pleasure in taming her. I correct myself and clear my throat loud enough to get their attention. 

I start climbing down the stairs to welcome them when she turns in my direction, and I almost stumble on myself. 

Bloody Saints. 

I grind my teeth. 

To say she is easy on the eye is an understatement. 

I am dazzled. 

She exudes a pure magnetic charge and bloody hell, I feel like I’m being pulled in with each step I take down the stairs to them. To her. 

I hold her gaze, her eyes like coal, only they smolder, and she has the defiance to hold my gaze as I walk down; standing straighter and lifting her chin like I didn’t just see her being hit and humiliated. Like ink on her pale skin, her hair is wrapped up in a polished bun. 

The closer I get, the straighter she stands. As if daring me. And that glare in her eyes, like she has already dragged me beneath her and placed herself above as the one with the power. 

Oh, she is a fiery one. A wild cat that I want to curb. So many ways to tame her. So many ways to train her. So many bloody ways to put her and her smart mouth to good use. 

I clear my throat again to sweep the contaminating thought out before it infects my mind any further. She is Salvatore’s soon-to-be wife, and whatever needs to be done to her, for her or with her, is his sole responsibility. Not mine. 

I close the distance, and if not for the fact that Giuseppe is in the room with his hovering sourness, which I need to remind myself about, I wouldn’t have been able to tear my eyes away from her to look at his face, as unpleasant as that might be. 

But his face is where my eyes should stay. They have no business sampling her any more than I have already. The legacy of my clan is hanging on her and Salvatore’s marriage. I should never forget that this deal is one way to strengthen my clan and give me a partnership with La eMe. 

Her engagement with Salvatore must go as planned. She holds the key to too much, despite Giuseppe showing he has no regard for her. 

By the way she carries herself, she knows her place and what she can make me lose. 

For some bloody reason, I find myself longing for hell. 

And that fire in her eyes tells me she is not afraid to play.  

Chapter 2 

Vittoria 

The fall of Vittoria Mancuso. 

A play proudly sponsored by Giuseppe Mancuso, my father. Even though he keeps showing how undeserving of that title he is with every single passing day. There’s nothing that can be done to alter the script, not when the show has been set, and especially not when he is the one directing it. 

Oh, to be a normal girl born in New York, allowed to choose her own career, have normal friends, go out on dates, fall in love, live her life with the people she loves and who love her. To be able to have a favorite TV show to watch, extended family holidays and to argue about which snacks are the best, the salty or sweet ones. To talk about fashion trends with your girlfriends or gossip about the neighbors with your mom. 

Oh, what I would give to not have to exist in this world as a daughter to the man beside me. 

But the show must go on. 

The shit I will have to act through… I know as fucking hell I will have to give a grand performance to the very end. Till the curtains close, the hall is emptied, and I’m finally hollow. 

For a moment there, I felt untouchable. Now, I wouldn’t dare to think I’m valued any more than exchangeable stock. 

I know a handful of people who are having a field day at the outcome of my life. The ones who think I probably deserve this much and the ones who wish I would get more than I’m getting now. 

Then there’s the club of men like the one whose sad semen brought me to life, who are clinking their glasses in celebration of the benefits they will reap from the miserable outcome of my life. 

My father doesn’t care for anything other than expanding his wealth and affluence. Sometimes, it’s like he doesn’t even care about his own life. 

That makes the both of us. 

I sneer, the vexation burning and running through my veins, rushing straight to my brain. It’s scorching every cell and licking up any functional nerves. 

Forlorn. I should slap it on my forehead and ride through a cloud of thunder with that miserable word. 

If I could sum up my shit life using one word, it would be pitiful. I deluded myself into believing that at the end of a rough life like the one I’ve had, I could find reprieve. I tricked myself into believing that somehow, something that feels like a miracle of some fucking sort could happen to me and get me as far away as possible from the only life I’ve known. 

But delusion time is over. 

Reality slaps harder than papà can ever hit me. 

There’s nothing I can do to change that or reverse the course of my life. It has set sail, and I am nowhere close to the helm of that ship. And it is pathetic to wish for a storm to steer it in another direction. 

This is what my life has been reduced to. 

Hate it as I may; I have no fucking choice but to live it. 

Giuseppe takes his pipe from his mouth, daring me to say another word. I know he is capable of burning me with the thing. He has done it before. I have a body that feels like a display of his artwork from the ridges left by healed wounds. It’s why I always cover myself up. 

Someone harrumphs behind me, and I take my time as I circle from shooting fireballs at Giuseppe for his assault, although I’m used to it and I probably saw that one coming, to looking at who I’m expecting to be Salvatore. Another degenerate I’m here to see. 

I don’t mean to judge, but I never knew Giuseppe to do business with men of unlike minds. The closest he was to doing things differently was with Massimo, but my father’s reputation preceded him, playing a huge part in ruining that for everyone. 

The grimace on my face loses its hold and begs to deflate as my eyes drop on him. The cold from his stapling sooty eyes, almost like the dark strands mixed in the gray of his hair, sends shivers from where our eyes meet down my spine. Any funny move, and I will disintegrate. 

He is entrancing, to say the fucking least. Old, no doubt. But age has only given him his attributes an acuteness that should be considered illegal, the same as his choice of business. 

I swallow what feels like pricking pins, my throat tight. It both hurts and tingles. 

I have a new theory for how the devil looks. Up until now, I could use papà’s face as a pictorial reference, but seeing the darkness in the eyes of this man, sensing the air that surrounds him as he takes valiant steps down the white-marbled stairs with gold rails, I agree with everyone who has ever suggested that the devil looks nothing like we know. 

My heart beats faster, in rhythm with my breathing, with each step closer he gets to us. To me. 

Giuseppe had to choose his kind. He didn’t even think of picking someone at least age-appropriate for me. I must have lost my market value to be given to this man. Or he offered something way above what Giuseppe would have expected in exchange for me. 

Not that he is anything like Giuseppe in appearance. The irony is that his choice of color is black, and Giuseppe’s is white. Black dress shirt for a buff body and muscles that radiate authority. Black dress pants for firm legs with powerful strides as they close the distance. A hole in one of his coal-black bristled eyebrows to show he had a wild youth. 

Most of his long, firm, thick fingers are covered in black ink and rings. 

I lift my eyes back to hold his slithering gaze. It’s like he can tear through my fort and see that I am cowering inside. Like he can see deep inside how much I’m shrinking and hurting from this arrangement. 

My jaw ticks now, and my teeth grate against each other. The fire in my brain is shooting across like fireworks, and my sinuses are prickling with tears that will never make it to my eyes. It’s been twenty years since I last cried. And no matter how vexed I am at this moment, it’s not fucking enough to break the dam. 

He is staring intently as he stands before me. Like I summoned him. Like he is some dark lord ready to fulfill some prophecy with me at its core. 

His hooded eyes are dispatching encrypted messages to me, and my vexation-swaddled brain is trying to decrypt them. Whatever they are conveying seems important, and I want to know. But, as piercing as his eyes are, there’s a shadow that does not allow looking past what he wants a person to see. 

The hair at the nape of my neck spikes up. 

It’s a staring contest, I guess. 

He is trying to gauge me. To weigh up his new toy. He can get in line. Giuseppe has tried even to break me my whole life and he yet has to get the desired gratification from his hard work. Whatever he thinks he can bend me with, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the hell my father put me through for years. 

I take him up on his silent dare. Staring contest it is, then. A little annoying, but thrilling nonetheless. It’s the most thrilling thing that has happened to me in a while, and I can make due with a little excitement in my progressively tedious life. 

Papà is observing us, but he just insignificant right now. The man in front of me knows how to guzzle attention when he walks into a place. 

We are both determined to see this one to the end. 

Then, he drops his eyes to the side of my face. The same side that was hit by Giuseppe minutes ago. Meaning, he saw me get hit. He saw my humiliation, how I wouldn’t want the man I have been handed to as a trophy wife to see me in. And he is letting me know he saw it, to remind me of how little I mean even to my father and to let me know that he also knows how to keep me in place when I falter. 

But I will not falter. 

It’s a promise. 

A fucking oath, if I need to draw my blood and swear on it. 

I won’t let anyone make me feel so little. I am Vittoria Mancuso, and I don’t care what anyone thinks about my predicament; I will keep my head high, my eyes ocean-still, my spine vertical, and my will to fight for myself and retain whatever self-worth is left in my life unshaken. 

So, I boss up my chest. In my mind, I seize him up with a leash and strip him till he shrinks. I keep him where I keep them all—underneath me. I don’t care about the power this one emanates. I don’t care if he threatens to turn the wheel and use my leash against me. 

I don’t fucking care if Giuseppe dived into hell and brought the devil out with him to give his daughter to. 

He is beneath me. 

And beneath me is where he will be for the rest of this shitshow. 

A glint of amusement flickers in his icy eyes, and I sup up. It’s the first opening he is giving me. The first anything I get from him other than the dark threat in his eyes.  

“Giuseppe,” his voice bellows with the thick, dry texture of a tree bark. “Welcome. How was the flight?” He turns his head in the direction of Giuseppe. No smile. Not even a subtle welcoming hint. It appears Giuseppe has found his twin. 

“I beat death again,” Giuseppe grunts, moving closer with the aid of his walking stick. He once again makes it clear that I mean nothing by standing in front of me, giving me nothing but the back of his glossy bald head. 

I know he can manage on his own, but he chooses to use the walking stick as a guise, so people think he is vulnerable, and they let their guard down around him. 

“This must be her,” that stormy voice again, making me want to zero out every other voice in my head and narrow it down to only his. 

“This is my daughter,” Giuseppe offers, stepping aside slightly. On the bright side, if there’s any to this arrangement, at least I won’t have to listen to his screeching voice any longer. 

“I would say I that see, but…” he snorts quietly. 

“She took after her mother,” Giuseppe chortles abrasively, “She is lucky. What good would she be if she had this face?” 

I would carve the face out myself if that were the case. If life had dared to not only give me him as a father but also make me even a sliver of an image of him. It would feel like a punch in the gut every time I looked in the mirror. 

“She has your tenaciousness.” 

He doesn’t know me. I’m nothing like my father. 

If anything, I’m worse. 

“It has cost me,” Giuseppe replies, looking around, “I don’t see Salvatore.” 

“He is around somewhere.” 

“You are not Salvatore?” I don’t want to show the nip of disappointment in my maniacally twisting stomach. 

“Would you want me to be?” He turns to me now, then shoves his firm hands into the pocket of his dress pants. His stare has the same effect as a thunderbolt. It strikes. 

It’s my turn to harrumph, “I thought you were my fiancé.” 

“Is that so?” He lifts both brows, eyes almost shimmering from the effect of the bright white light overhead. 

Cheeky laughter breaks through the intensity in the air before the person laughing pokes her head from behind him. Everything in this estate appears to be on a different plane of beauty. 

She practically bounces over to us with coal-black curls, vibrant blue eyes, pink flushed smiling cheeks, wearing an oversized neon shirt tied to the back, baggy denim pants, and holding a camera. 

“That would be awkward now, wouldn’t it?” She sneaks her free hand under his arm and plasters herself to his side. 

She looks too bright to be around someone with such a sullen aura. I flick my eyes between them, observing the stark contrast. Tight-pressed lips and lips curved in a smile. Darkness and light. Maybe a storm and rainbow. 

“Salvatore is my brother,” she wraps her hand around his waist now. “Wouldn’t it be awkward if my father was your fiancé?” She cranes her neck to stare at him. “I know he is easy on the eyes,” she smiles, the kind of smile that says how much she cherishes him, “But nah…” She shakes her head, scrunching her nose. 

Her father. That’s the piece to complete the puzzle. As a pair they are like a work of art I can’t figure out, no matter how much I stare at it or try to delve into the artist’s mind. 

And as if it’s not enough, he smiles at her and wraps his strong, protective arms around her. 

His daughter has so much life pulsing through her that it is impossible not to have some of it spill on you. A daughter who looks like she has been allowed a freedom I can never dare dream of. I observe how bold she is to not only approach her father but to fling herself on him, even with a guest like Giuseppe groaning disapprovingly alongside me. 

This starts a spiral of longing inside of me. 

Shame on you, papà.

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