The rain in Sicily didn't wash things clean; it only turned the dust into a suffocating shroud of mud. It felt like an omen.
I sat in the back of the black sedan, my hands folded neatly in my lap. To any observer, I looked like a pristine porcelain doll in my white silk dress, a sharp contrast to the dark leather of the car. But beneath the silk, my skin was crawling. I could feel the cold, calculating gaze of my father, Vincenzo Vane, through the rearview mirror. He hadn't spoken to me in ten years—not since he'd locked me away in that French convent—and he hadn't spoken to me today either.
To him, I wasn't a daughter. I was a wire transfer. A signature. A desperate sacrifice to stop the Moretti family from burning his remaining warehouses to the ground.
"Remember your place, Aurelia," he snapped suddenly, his voice cutting through the heavy silence as the car pulled up to the iron gates of the Moretti fortress. "You are there to serve. You are the peace offering. If you fail to please Dante, the blood of our entire family will be on your hands. I won't hesitate to disown what's left of you."
"My hands are already stained with your choices, Father," I whispered, my voice raspy from disuse. "Don't pretend this is about anything other than your cowardice. You sold me to a monster to save your own skin."
He turned around, his face purple with rage, and backhanded me.
The blow was swift and sharp. My head cracked against the window, and for a second, the world went gray. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. But then, something impossible happened.
From inside the dark mansion ahead of us, a heavy, guttural roar echoed through the night. It wasn't human. It sounded like a wounded predator reacting to a sudden strike.
My father froze, his hand still trembling from the blow. He didn't see the shadow moving toward the car with terrifying speed. But I felt it. A strange, vibrating heat started at the base of my skull, pulsing in time with the throbbing in my cheek. It was a rhythmic pulling, a tether tightening between my soul and the darkness outside.
The car door was ripped open with such violence the hinges screamed in protest.
Dante Moretti.
He didn't look like a Don; he looked like a god of death. His charcoal shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, revealing the faint edge of a tattoo, and his eyes—darker than the stormy sky—were fixed on mine. He wasn't looking at my beauty or my dress. He was clutching his own jaw, his muscles corded with tension, his teeth gritted in a snarl of phantom pain.
"Who touched her?" Dante's voice was a low vibration that seemed to rattle the very glass of the sedan.
My father scrambled out of the car, his bravado vanishing like smoke. "Dante! My lord... it's just... she was being difficult. A minor correction for a disobedient child—"
Dante didn't let him finish. In a blur of motion, he had my father by the throat, pinning his aging body against the side of the car. The metal groaned under the force. "I asked you a question, Vincenzo. I felt a strike. I felt my face burn. I felt the copper taste of blood in my mouth while I was sitting in my study."
He leaned in closer to my father's terrified face, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "And since no one is brave enough to hit me in my own home... I wonder why my skin is screaming. Did you strike what belongs to me?"
"I... I didn't know..." my father wheezed, his feet dangling off the ground.
I stepped out of the car, my legs shaking. The moment my heels hit the gravel, the connection—the Crimson Echo—solidified. A flash of red blurred my vision. I felt a wave of cold fury that wasn't mine. I felt a hunger for violence that belonged to the man standing five feet away.
"Stop," I croaked, holding my bruised cheek. "It's enough."
Dante turned his head slowly. The moment our eyes locked, the world around us seemed to vanish. The rain felt warmer. The air felt electric. I saw a flicker of his thoughts—dark hallways, the scent of expensive tobacco, a bone-deep, ancient loneliness—and I knew, with terrifying certainty, that he saw mine. He saw the convent walls, the cold nights, and the way I had learned to hide my heart.
He dropped my father like a piece of unwanted trash. Vincenzo collapsed into the mud, coughing and gasping.
Dante walked toward me. He was a wall of muscle and suppressed power. He stopped just inches away, his heat radiating off him. He reached out, his long, scarred fingers hovering just a millimeter over the reddening mark on my cheek.
He didn't touch me. He didn't have to. I felt the warmth of his hand as if he were pressing it firmly against my skin. My skin tingled, the pain receding, replaced by a thrumming ache that made my breath catch.
"You're the Vane girl," he murmured, his voice dropping to a dangerous, intimate level. "The one they said was a saint. The silent one."
"There are no saints in this city, Mr. Moretti," I replied, forced to look up into the abyss of his eyes. "Only survivors and corpses. Which one are you?"
A ghost of a smile touched his lips—a cruel, beautiful curve. "I am the one who decides which one you become. Inside. Now."
He grabbed my upper arm to lead me into the mansion, and the contact was like a bolt of lightning. I gasped, my knees buckling, and he immediately winced, his grip loosening as if he'd been scorched by a hot iron.
"What is this?" he hissed, looking at his own palm, then back at me with a look of pure, unadulterated shock. "What have you done to me, witch? What kind of trap is this?"
"I haven't done anything," I snapped, trying to hide the fact that my heart was hammering against my ribs—and I could feel his heart doing the same, a frantic, heavy drumming in my own chest. "You bought me. This is what you paid for. Maybe you should have checked the merchandise more carefully."
As we crossed the threshold of the Moretti mansion, the heavy oak doors slammed shut behind us. The sound echoed like a gunshot. But as I looked into the cavernous, opulent foyer, I realized we weren't alone.
Leaning against a marble pillar was a man who looked like he'd stepped out of a beautiful nightmare. He wasn't wearing a suit like Dante. He wore a worn leather jacket, dark jeans, and a smirk that promised a very specific kind of trouble. He was tossing a gold coin into the air, catching it with effortless grace.
"So, this is the little bird everyone's whispering about?" the stranger said, his Irish accent thick and melodic, cutting through the tension like a blade. "She's a bit small for a war trigger, don't you think, Dante? I expected something... fiercer."
Dante's entire body stiffened. The jealousy that rolled off him was so potent, so visceral, that I felt a wave of nausea wash over me. The Crimson Echo translated his possessiveness into a physical weight on my shoulders.
Dante stepped in front of me, his massive frame shielding me from the stranger's roving eyes. "Killian," Dante growled, his hand moving instinctively toward the holster at his hip. "You're five minutes away from a bullet in the brain. What are you doing in my foyer?"
Killian Blackwood didn't look intimidated. He caught the coin and stepped into the light. His green eyes were bright with mischief as they raked over me, lingering on the bruise on my face and the curve of my neck.
"I heard the Vane girl was being delivered tonight," Killian said, his voice lowering as he ignored Dante and looked directly at me. "I didn't realize she was 'make-the-Reaper-lose-his-goddamn-mind' special. I think I'll stay for a drink. I'd like to see what happens when the bird starts to realize her cage isn't as locked as it looks."
Dante's hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist. Because of the link, my own hand cramped in a sympathetic reflex, the muscles locking painfully.
"She is mine, Killian," Dante said, the words vibrating through my own throat. "Every drop of blood, every breath, every thought. If you look at her again, I'll gouge your eyes out myself."
Killian chuckled, a dark, rich sound. "Possessive, isn't he? Careful, darling. Men like Dante don't know how to love. They only know how to consume."
"And what do men like you know, Mr. Blackwood?" I asked, stepping out from behind Dante's shadow.
Killian's grin widened, showing a hint of a dimple that felt out of place in such a den of monsters. "I know how to set fires, Aurelia. And I think you're the perfect match."
Dante let out a low, warning snarl, but before he could lunge at the Irishman, a third presence made itself known.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. At the top of the grand staircase stood a man shrouded in a long, black overcoat. His hair was as pale as mine, his face a mask of aristocratic coldness. Nikolai Volkov. He held a tablet in one hand and a silenced pistol in the other.
"The girl is causing a disturbance before she has even reached her room," Nikolai said, his Russian accent clipped and precise. "Dante, the Bratva expects the shipments to continue. If this... connection... weakens your leadership, I will be forced to intervene."
Nikolai descended the stairs, his eyes fixing on mine. They were gray, like a winter sea. "She is a liability," he stated, stopping at the bottom step. "But she is also a fascinating anomaly. I wonder... if I hurt her, will you both fall?"
He raised the pistol, pointing it not at Dante, but at my leg.
Dante moved faster than I could blink, throwing himself in front of me, his eyes burning with a murderous light I had never seen in a human being. "Try it, Nikolai. And see if you survive the next ten seconds."
I stood there, surrounded by three of the most dangerous men in the world. My heart was racing, my skin was buzzing with the energy of the Crimson Echo, and for the first time in my life, I didn't feel like a victim.
I felt like the match that was about to blow the entire underworld to hell.
"Gentlemen," I said, my voice steady despite the chaos in my veins. "If you're going to fight over me, at least have the decency to wait until I've had a glass of wine. It's been a very long day."
The three men fell silent, their eyes all converging on me—Dante's with burning possession, Killian's with amused intrigue, and Nikolai's with cold calculation.
The war hadn't even started, and I was already the only prize that mattered.