Chapter 1
When the Moretti crime family was supposedly gutted and rival cartels seized our territory, my older brother, Dominic, was diagnosed with ALS.
I gave up my scholarship at Columbia Pre-Med.
I took on the syndicate's underground debts.
I took on the burden of his dying body.
For five years, rival enforcers beat me in back alleys until I coughed up blood. I never spent a dime on painkillers.
I passed out from exhaustion working five shady jobs back-to-back. I never dared to call in sick.
Every single cent of blood money I made went toward Dominic’s treatment.
Until tonight.
I was delivering bottles at The Stardust—an ultra-exclusive private club.
That was when I saw him.
The brother who was supposed to be paralyzed in a wheelchair in our run-down apartment was standing right there.
Dominic stood tall in a custom three-piece suit that hid his shoulder holster. He was swirling a glass of top-shelf bourbon, holding court with his capos and made men.
"Boss, you've been faking this ALS crap for five straight years," his lead enforcer, Silas, said with a low chuckle. "Scarlett’s worked herself to the bone. Hasn’t she learned her lesson yet?"
Dominic took a slow sip, his lips curling in ruthless contempt.
"Almost. If Scarlett hadn’t been so selfish and snapped at Lena back then, I wouldn’t have had to fake our empire's fall and play the cripple."
He tapped his glass against the mahogany table.
"Lena spent five years traveling Europe to clear her head. She finally agreed to forgive Scarlett."
"In a few weeks, I’ll pay off a private doctor to stage a ‘miracle recovery.’ Then Scarlett gets to be the Moretti mafia princess again. Her penance is paid."
Silas hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck, clearly nervous to question the Don. "ALS is a death sentence, Dom. How the hell are you going to explain a miracle? Is Scarlett really going to buy that?"
Dominic let out a dark, arrogant laugh.
"That naive little girl? She believes every breath that comes out of my mouth."
He leaned back into the shadows of the leather booth. "This taught her a lesson. Lena was adopted. She carries trauma Scarlett will never understand."
"As the real daughter, Scarlett should have bowed her head and yielded. I did this for her own good. Once this is over, I'll buy her whatever she wants. We'll call it even."
I lowered my head in the shadows outside the private booth. Tears hit the cold floor.
There is no later, Dominic.
Your fatal illness was a lie.
Mine is real.
The draft from the hallway cut through my uniform like a blade.
I stood frozen, a puppet with its strings cut, as five years of sacrifice shattered inside me, slow and sharp, like being carved open one piece at a time.
Silas sighed from inside the VIP booth.
"Come on, Dom. This is brutal. Scarlett is your own sister."
"Top of her class at Columbia, dropped out just like that for you. She's barely in her twenties and she looks like she's aged twenty years."
"A few days ago, she came to my territory begging for three hundred bucks for your meds."
Dominic's expression instantly turned lethal. "You gave it to her?"
Silas shook his head, raising his hands defensively. "You gave me a direct order, Boss. Would I dare cross you?"
"She knelt on my porch all afternoon in the freezing rain. Passed out from low blood sugar and I didn't even dare call a mob doctor. Woke up and dragged herself away on her own."
What Silas didn't say was that I'd begged harder than that.
I'd already unbuttoned my uniform top, told him he could do whatever he wanted with me, as long as he lent me the cash.
Dominic's imported ALS meds had run out a week prior.
Without them, his condition would only get worse.
I had nowhere else to turn.
But Silas—a man who killed for a living—had looked at me like I was a ghost, and practically thrown me out the door.
Turned out, it wasn't that he wouldn't help me.
He couldn't.
Dominic scoffed, his voice dropping into a deadly register.
"Listen up, all of you. Until I bring Lena home, nobody helps Scarlett. She can kneel, beg, even bleed out in front of you—you don't lift a finger."
"Lena's sensitive, she's got depression. It took me five years of hiding her in Europe to get her stable. Not one day less of this punishment for Scarlett, or Lena might have another episode."
"If anyone breathes a word of this and ruins my baby sister's mood? I will bury them and their entire bloodline."
Everyone in the booth went dead silent.
Even his most hardened killers thought this was insane.
One of the younger guys spoke up, swallowing hard. "Boss… you're not scared Scarlett finds out the truth and runs?"
Dominic laughed, sharp and full of absolute control.
"Leave me? Blood is everything in this life."
"No matter how bad this gets, it's just family business. She worships me. You could put a loaded Glock to her head, and she’d still take a bullet for me. This is just a little discipline."
"Lena's different. She's already gotten the short end of the stick just because she doesn't share our blood. It's only right that I spoil her."
"But remember this. If a single word of what we said here gets back to Scarlett, don't expect me to play nice."
I slid down the wall, my hands and feet numb.
So that was it. Five years of fighting, of bleeding, of dodging bullets to keep us alive—all of it was a joke.
My life, my freedom, my health.
All disposable, just because Lena Bennett had thrown a fit.
I wanted to laugh. Instead, tears spilled down my face, fast and hot, and I couldn't stop them.
A phone rang inside the booth.
Heavy boots headed for the door.
I had no time to run.
I turned fast and crashed straight into the club manager.
The bottles I was carrying—vintage scotch—smashed all over the carpet.
The manager's face went white with terror at the noise. Terrified of angering the Don, he slapped me so hard I tasted blood on the floor.
The booth door swung open.
Dominic stepped out, and Lena flew into his arms like a fragile butterfly.
"What are you doing here, principessa? I was coming to pick you up. Tired? I've got a whole medical team waiting for you at the compound, full spa day tomorrow."
Lena giggled, clinging to his arm. "I missed you, Dom. Wanted to surprise you!"
I knelt on the floor less than three feet away, mask pulled up over my bloody lip, too terrified to move or speak.
My red, stinging eyes burned from the light catching the diamonds on Lena's heels.
One single stone would pay for a whole year of Dominic's meds.
The manager leaned in, bowing low, his voice tight with fear.
"M-Mr. Moretti. I'm so sorry for the noise. This clumsy rat broke your bottles. I'll have my men deal with her right away."
