Chapter 1

The ammonia stung my nose, a sharp chemical smell that had replaced the scent of roses in my life. I scrubbed the marble floor on my hands and knees. This floor, the one I used to slide across in silk slippers, was now my personal hell.

This was the Moretti mansion.

It used to be the Costello mansion. My home.

Now, I was a ghost here, a prisoner in my own house, forced to clean it for the man who had taken everything.

Dante Moretti. The new Don of the Chicago Outfit.

The man who killed my father and brother.

The heavy oak door to the grand hall creaked open. I didn't need to look up to know it was him. His presence filled the room, cold and absolute. His polished leather shoes stopped inches from my hand.

"Still alive, princess?"

His voice was a low growl, laced with the contempt he showed me in the daylight for all his men to see.

I kept my eyes on the floor, scrubbing harder. "Yes, Don Moretti."

He nudged my shoulder with the toe of his shoe, not hard, just a reminder of his power. "Look at me when I speak to you."

Slowly, I lifted my head. His face was all sharp angles and shadows, his dark eyes holding a fire that never seemed to cool. He hated me. He made sure the world knew he hated me.

But I knew the truth.

Later that night, the lock on my small servant's room door clicked open. I didn't move from my thin mattress. The room was bare, a cot, a small wooden table, a single barred window.

He stepped inside, the scent of expensive whiskey and cold night air clinging to him. He was no longer the Don in a tailored suit. He was just Dante, and the fire in his eyes was different now. It was darker, more complex.

He crossed the small room in two strides and sat on the edge of my cot. The mattress dipped under his weight. He didn't speak, just watched me.

His silence was worse than his daytime insults.

"My father," he said, his voice rough, "trusted your father. He called him a brother."

I closed my eyes. I had heard this story a hundred times.

"Your father set up a fake deal. He led my family into an ambush. I watched them die, Elara. My father, my mother."

He reached out, his fingers tracing the line of my jaw. His touch was a strange mix of violence and something else, something possessive.

"And your brother, Leo," he whispered, his thumb pressing against my lips. "He was the one who held the gun to my sister's head. She was fifteen. She begged him. He laughed."

Tears I refused to shed burned behind my eyes.

He leaned closer, his breath hot against my cheek. "Every time I look at you, I see them. I see what your family did. You are a Costello. You carry their sins."

He hated me for the blood in my veins.

But every night, he came to my room.

He held me like a man starved, his hands rough, his kisses brutal. It wasn't love. It was a violent, twisted obsession. He was punishing me, and he was punishing himself.

And in the darkness, I was his captive, his ghost, and his secret.