Prologue - The Devil's Heir

The first time I saw a man die, I was eight years old.

My father had taken me to a corner store. It was the kind of store that smelled like old coffee grounds and bleach, with buzzing fluorescent lights that always seemed one flicker away from going out.

A robbery went bad and by the time the cops arrived, a man was bleeding out on the floor near the candy aisle. I remember the blood seeping between the cracked tiles, slow and dark, as if the ground itself was drinking it in. People looked away instead of helping. My father told me not to stare, but I couldn’t stop.

That was the first time I learned how fragile life was. How quick it could be stolen.

By the time I turned twenty two, that memory had become little more than a shadow.

I worked nights at a small bar on the edge of the city, pouring drinks for men who reeked of smoke and bad decisions. Every night I went home smelling like spilled beer and cheap whiskey. My shoes stuck to the floor with every step, and the neon signs outside buzzed so loud I swore they followed me into my dreams. It wasn’t glamorous, but it paid the rent.

I wasn’t the girl with dreams bigger than the sky. I wasn’t chasing Broadway lights, or writing novels, or planning to escape the city for someplace where the streets didn’t know my name. My life was small, steady, and predictable. I honestly thought that was enough.

Then Luca Romano walked into my world and proved me dead fucking wrong.

Before Luca, before the blood and the fear and the fire, I was just Sienna Hayes. Ordinary and forgettable. The kind of girl who blended into the background of her own life.

I grew up in a neighborhood where gunshots sometimes replaced fireworks on summer nights. A place where everyone knew the Romano name, but no one dared to say it too loud. The Romanos weren’t just a family. They were a shadow stretching over the city. Every cop, judge, and politician owed them something. Every bar, club, and street corner paid them in silence.

My mother worked double shifts at the hospital. My father left when I was six. That’s the polite way of saying he chose someone else’s family over ours. I used to wait for him, imagining he’d knock on our door with gifts and apologies. He never came back.

So, I learned to take care of myself.

By the time I was sixteen, I was working after school to keep the lights on. By eighteen, I had a scholarship, one that would’ve pulled me out of the neighborhood and into a better life. Then Mom got sick. The bills piled up faster than the paychecks, and suddenly college became another dream I couldn’t afford.

I didn’t regret staying. Not really. But there were nights I wondered what would’ve happened if I’d chosen differently. If I had run from this city instead of letting it trap me.

The bar where I worked wasn’t special. A few neon signs, sticky floors, regulars who drank too much and tipped too little. It wasn’t the kind of place where a girl like me met her soulmate. But it was the kind of place where the wrong man might notice you.

That night started like any other. I clocked in, tied my hair back, and slipped into the rhythm of serving cheap beer and watered-down whiskey. The jukebox hummed low in the background, some old rock ballad no one bothered listening to. The regulars were already half drunk, slouched over their tables, muttering about debts and bad hands of poker. Cigarette smoke clung to the air, thick enough to sting my throat.

And then he walked in.

I didn’t know his name yet. I didn’t know he was the son of the city’s most feared man. All I knew was the silence that followed him. Conversations died mid-sentence, the shuffle of cards stopped, and men twice his size lowered their eyes to the floor.

He was beautiful in the kind of way that was dangerous. His jawline sharp enough to cut glass, dark hair falling carelessly across his forehead, and eyes so black they looked endless. He didn’t look at people so much as through them. And he moved like he owned the air itself, like the world bent to make room for him.

When his gaze flicked to me, something in my chest tightened.

It wasn’t attraction. It was instinct. That quiet voice that whispers… red flag, bitch. Danger.

I ignored it.

I asked for his order, my voice steadier than my hands. He said,

“Whiskey. Neat.” His tone was low, certain, like there was never another answer. When I set the glass in front of him, my fingers brushed the counter just a little too close, and he noticed the way my hand shook. Of course he did.

His lips curved, not quite a smile, not quite a smirk. More like a man recognizing prey that thought it could hide.

He leaned forward, resting one elbow on the bar. “First night?” His voice carried the kind of smooth danger you only heard in rumors.

No, I lied.

He didn’t call me on it. Just studied me for a beat longer than was comfortable. Long enough for me to realize he wasn’t the kind of man you made small talk with. He was the kind of man who remembered every detail, every twitch of fear, every secret you thought you buried.

I didn’t realize then how quickly my life would unravel. How his name would eventually burn itself into my skin like a brand.

If I could go back, I’d tell myself to walk away that night. That fucking second even. To hand over the whiskey, collect the cash, and pretend I never saw him.

But fate has a cruel sense of humor. Because the second time I saw a man die, Luca Romano was the one holding the gun.

And this time, I didn’t just watch.

I was standing close enough to hear the final breath, to feel the weight of silence afterward. Close enough to understand there was no walking away not from him, not from what I had just stepped into.