Chapter 1
For three years, I tried seven times to go to City Hall and marry Damian Vitale.
Seven times, I never made it to the door.
The first time, some punk slashed me with a knife.
The second time, a truck ran me down.
……
The seventh time, a steel plate came down on me.
Every time, he swore to me he would find whoever did it and make them pay.
But on my first day out of the hospital, I went to find him, and I heard his right-hand man, Enzo, say, “Those guys have no sense of limits. Lucia almost died.”
“I told you. Just scare her.”
I froze.
Chapter 1
For three years, I tried seven times to go to City Hall and marry Damian Vitale.
Seven times, I never made it to the door.
The first time, some punk came out of nowhere on the steps and stabbed me four times in the side. The second time, a truck with no plates jumped the curb and crushed my right hand. The third time, I was waiting for him at a café on the corner when the kitchen caught fire, and I spent three hours trapped in the storeroom, breathing smoke.
The seventh time, a steel plate from a scaffold fell twelve stories and grazed my scalp on its way into the sidewalk.
I spent eleven days in the ICU. Twelve stitches in my head. Seven times, a doctor told my family I might not make it, and seven times, the man who signed the forms was Damian.
Every time, he stood by my bed, held my hand, and said, "Sweetheart, I swear I'll find out who did this."
All of Brooklyn said it was the Russos. They'd had their eyes on the docks my father left behind for years, and the last thing they wanted was the Marino and Vitale families joined together.
The day I was discharged, I made my way down the hall with one hand on the wall, heading for the visitors' lounge to wait for him. The door wasn't quite shut.
"Seven times, boss." It was Enzo, his right-hand man. "The Russos have been taking the blame for three years. Sooner or later they're gonna show up asking questions. And the kids we've got doing this are getting sloppy. Half an inch to the left with that steel plate, and Lucia would be dead."
"I told you. Just scare her."
"And every time a report landed on your desk, you signed off on it."
My hand froze on the doorknob.
"What do you want me to do?" Damian kept his voice low. "The old man's been dead two years. Half our guys came up under Antonio. He took three bullets for me, and my father swore on Marino blood in front of everyone. If I'm the one who breaks the engagement, who's ever gonna bleed for the Vitales again?"
He paused. Suddenly he sounded exhausted. "But the one I want to marry is Daisy. It always has been."
Daisy Clarke. The scholarship girl our family foundation sponsored. Last Christmas, I was the one who wrote her name on the list.
I looked down at my right hand. I still couldn't straighten the fingers. Whenever it rained, the pain kept me up all night. The four scars on my side were bad enough that the nurses couldn't look at them for long when they changed my dressings.
All this time, I'd thought these wounds were the price I paid to marry him.
They were his answer. His way of not marrying me.
When I was fifteen, after the funeral at Red Hook, he found me on the seawall. The tide was coming in. He slid my father's ring, the one engraved with the Marino crest, onto his own finger and said, eyes red, "Lucia, from now on, I'll protect you for your dad."
He was only fifteen too. His hand never stopped shaking while he said it.
I believed him for ten years.
I didn't push the door open. The phone in my pocket was still recording. Two minutes and forty-seven seconds. I hit save, turned around, and walked away.
If he wouldn't be the one to say it, then I would.
Isabella was in the greenhouse, pruning her roses.
"Mrs. Vitale, I want to end the engagement."
The shears clattered onto the stone floor.
Isabella had watched me grow up. She knew better than anyone what this marriage meant to me. After my father died, I was the last Marino left in New York. Marrying Damian was the only real reason I had to stay in this house.
She took my hand and told me she'd already picked a date at the church, that Damian would deal with the Russos. I didn't say anything. I set my phone on the table and pressed play.
By the time the recording ended, her face was frighteningly white.
I spread the seven critical-condition notices across the table. "It was never the Russos. Not once. My father paid for this engagement with his life. Now I'm giving it back. If it comes from me, no one can say the Vitales turned their backs on him."
She stared at the papers for a long time, her lips trembling. Finally, she pulled me into her arms and held me tight, the way she used to when I was fifteen and had just moved into the house, when she'd come to my room in the middle of the night after a nightmare.
"Before Antonio died, he asked me to look after you." Her voice cracked. "This is a debt the Vitales owe the Marinos."
I buried my face in her shoulder and clenched my jaw so the tears wouldn't come.
Not now. I couldn't cry yet.
When I came out, a black Cadillac was waiting at the curb.
The window rolled down. Damian sat there in his charcoal coat, his jaw tight, like a man handling a piece of business he'd put off for far too long. He checked his watch. "Get in. City Hall closes at four-thirty."
Daisy was in the passenger seat, twisting the hem of her sweater, her eyes red, the picture of someone who'd been terribly wronged. At the words "City Hall," her shoulders flinched.
Damian got out and stepped sideways to block my view of her. His throat worked. "I'm not going to lie to you about Daisy. But I made a promise to your father, and I'm going to keep it. I owe him that."
I owe him that.
So to him, marrying me was nothing more than paying off a debt.
For three years, every time I got out of the hospital, before my stitches were even out, I was the one dragging him to City Hall. Now he'd finally brought it up himself, and he said it like he was settling an account.
I lowered my eyes. "Not today. I'm tired."
Damian stood frozen.
He'd probably never imagined those words could come out of my mouth.
