Present Day…
“Are you nervous?”
Felix slows the limo down at the corner of Baker St, just like he always does.
“Of course,” I giggle, my gaze drifting off to the future. “I’ve never been outside of New York before, let alone the country, and now I get to go halfway around the world!? It’s amazing, but also nerve-racking.”
“It’s also suspicious.”
I playfully swat at my bodyguard’s arm before opening the passenger door. “Everything is suspicious to you,” I tease.
“That’s my job,” he shrugs, putting the limo in park. Before I can open the backdoor for myself, he’s there, making everything oh-so-easy. And oh-so controlled.
“Thank you,” I remark, before ducking in. Even after all these years, I know my appreciation still means the world to him.
He gently closes the back door and I sigh, sinking into my seat and staring up through the tinted sunroof. The bright blue sky above looks darker from behind the black windows of my gilded cage. Usually, now’s about the time I’d start to get sad again. I’m on my way back home. Back to my tower in the sky where no one can get in or out. It’s why we’ve stopped some four blocks away from my family’s heavily guarded compound, so that I can switch seats and arrive at my walled off castle like the true mafia princess that I am. If my father saw that Felix let me drive in the front with him, he’d be livid. No one is to see me. All my life, I’ve been purposely kept in the shadows. As head of my security team, Felix is paid to protect me, but my father’s possessiveness runs much deeper than money. He controls every aspect of my life with an iron fist, keeping me close and under his watchful gaze through all the means of his ill-gotten empire.
I’ve lived this way for twenty years, and it feels like only now am I about to take my first full breath. Father is finally allowing me to follow my dreams. In three days, I’ll be in the Ukraine. Me, Elisa D’Ignoti. Free. Well, sort of.
“What are you most excited for?” Felix asks through the partition. He knows me well enough to know that I could sink if he’s not there to hold my head above the water. What he doesn’t know is just how much lighter I feel now that there seems to be an exit at the end of my tunnel. The Ukraine. Not exactly tropical or even particularly exotic, but it’s somewhere different and that’s an entirely new sensation to me. All of the shit I’ve had to go through to get there will have been well worth it in the end. Even that awful contraceptive injection Father made me take. If it’s the price of my twisted kind of freedom, then so be it.
“Honestly, the airport in Kiev,” I say.
That draws a hearty laugh from my middle-aged body guard. “How thrilling. Why the airport?”
“Because the second I step out of that plane and onto the tarmac, I’ll know it’s real.” A sigh escapes my lips and a flurry of daydreams flicker behind my eyelids. “An adventure. Freedom.”
“Freedom for you,” Felix teases. “But not for old Felix here. I’ll be working around the clock to make sure you’re safe.”
“We’re not going into any warzones,” I shake my head with a smile. “We’ll just be helping people who’ve made it to safety.”
“Nowhere is safe for a princess.” He knows I hate it when he points out that I’m mafia royalty, but I can take a ribbing—with a father like mine, it was a necessary skill for survival.
“Everywhere is safe when I have my Uncle Felix there to protect me,” I lilt back.
“Damn right.”
Ahead, the gates to my familial home open and a gaggle of guards wave us through. My gut churns, even more so than it usually does when I’m returned to my prison. I’m nervous. This sheltered life is all I’ve ever known, and now, I’m finally being allowed to shed it all for something daring and exciting. But I keep waiting for something bad to happen. Something that will change my good fortune and lock me back where my father believes I belong.
A deep breath calms my nerves. This is what I’ve been asking for since I was a teenager. A chance to escape into the big wide world I’ve always read about in my books. Never did I Imagine that my father would ever actually agree to let me leave. But now, without much in the way of explanation, he has.
Felix is right to be suspicious.
If I wasn’t so nervous and excited, I might have room to be suspicious too. Instead, I’m just thankful. My father likes it when I grovel. He’ll get what he wants, and then, for a little while at least, I’ll be free.
Still, the knot in my stomach tightens all the more when we arrive at the front door. The entrance is packed with unfamiliar cars and men. Strangers, mired with heavy artillery pace back and forth on the marble steps.
“What’s going on?” I whisper to Felix through the partition.
“I don’t know.” There’s a tension in his voice that puts me on edge. “Who are these men outside?” he asks into his radio, keeping the limo running, just in case we have to make a daring escape.
That first full breath of mine is put on hold as I watch the strange scene ahead. Usually, my father’s men stand guard mostly on the outskirts of the compound. The inner sanctum is only ever populated by his most trusted servants and guards.
“Well?” I ask, when Felix clicks off his radio and takes out his earpiece.
“Your father wants to see you,” he mumbles.
The knot in my stomach tightens even more. Despite all of his restrictions, my father is often distant. Still, I’ve been avoiding him like the plague ever since he agreed to let me go volunteer as a nurse-in-training over in the Ukraine.
The past three months have been the most exciting of my life, and I haven’t even left the city yet. To prepare for my program overseas, I’ve been taking first-aid classes at a nearby hospital. I’ve met doctors and nurses and all sorts of people I would have never come in contact with behind these walls of mine. They all share the same dreams I have. We want to help people in any way we can, and for one reason or another we all chose to do this through medicine.
For me, that started when I first read about Florence Nightingale. The Lady with the Lamp gave hope to a young girl who saw no light at the end of her dark tunnel. I may not be able to help myself, but maybe, with a little persistence and pestering, I’d be able to help others. So, when I came across an article talking about how badly volunteer nurses are needed to help the poor and starving in the Ukraine, I felt like I had found my calling.
But there was no way my father would agree. He didn’t even let me go to university when I turned eighteen.
So, like a coward, I had Felix ask him.
Felix has been in my life for as long as I can remember. He’s like a protective uncle, and as one of my father’s most trusted men, he has a little more say than most.
Still, I didn’t have much hope. But then Felix returned with good news. My father had agreed.
It was the shock of a lifetime.
For the first time in my life, I was being allowed to go do something of my own. This morning was my final class at the hospital. Six other students will be meeting me in Kyiv on Friday. They’ll all be flying in on the same commercial flight. Father obviously won’t let me do that. His terms for my trip include a veritable army that has to tag along with me. Only a private jet could carry all of his men and their weapons. We’re supposed to take off tomorrow night. Something tells me plans have changed.
“Wait out here.” The guard at the door orders Felix to stay in the hallway outside of my father’s office. I’m to enter alone. That’s not unusual. What is unusual, however, is the sight that greets me when the door clicks shut behind me.
My father sits at the head of his grand oakwood desk, pale as a ghost. His dark eyes are blacker than ever. He’s not alone either. Three other men join him. One I recognize. Dario Ganci. My father’s lawyer. The other two are entirely unfamiliar, but they’re both huge and they loom over my father like monsters, draping him in their dark shadows and making him seem small in comparison.
A chill skates down my spine. These men are mafia. It’s obvious at first sight. But they aren’t Italian.
Irishmen.
My father hates the Irish, especially the criminals. He believes them to be savages, not organized and sophisticated like the Italian mob. What have they done to make my all-powerful father cower before them?
“Step forward, Elisa,” my father’s command makes me realize I’ve stopped in my tracks. Despite my trepidation, I do as I’m told.
Still, the closer I get, the more weighed down by fear I become. My father is a mess. Sweat drips down his forehead, making a mess of a his usually well-kept hair. His gaze is fixed on me, but his eyes don’t meet mine. “Dad, what’s going on?” By the time I reach the edge of his desk, it feels like I’m at the bottom of the ocean.
Something bad is about to happen.
My father hesitates to respond, but the man standing directly beside him puts a giant hand on his shoulder, urging him to speak. My gaze follows the powerful arm up to its owner’s face.
My breath is stolen from me.
The Irish stranger is the most handsome creature I’ve ever seen. His emerald eyes rage like a stormy sea, cutting a hole through my soul. He stares at me with dangerous intent. I’m frozen still.
“This is Aiden Kilpatrick,” my father croaks.
The younger man’s hand falls from my father’s shoulder. A strong dark energy emanates from him. Shadowy tendrils seem to creep from his powerful frame and wrap around my limbs.
“And that is his father, Rian Kilpatrick,” Dario adds.
With great effort, I’m able to rip my eyes from the younger man to the older one next to him. It’s no surprise that they’re father and son. Besides the hair and the eyes and the age, they look much the same.
My mouth is too dry to say anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dario push a document forward on my father’s desk.
“You are to marry Aiden Kilpatrick in one month.”
The words are like a slap to the face. “What?” My eyes snap back onto my father. He holds back a sneer, trying to remain calm and docile. It’s so unlike him that it makes my sudden burst of dread feel all the more terrifying.
I stumble backwards, but am confronted by a hard wall. Turning around, I see Cassius li Sacchi, my father’s mute war general. Felix has told me that his tongue was cut out as a boy. I’ve never heard the man talk. He just silently stands behind me, a threat, blocking me off from the door, trapping me into this new fate.
“Do not make me repeat myself,” my father growls.
Bile rises in my throat and the knot in my stomach nearly saws me in half. “I… what are you talking about?” I don’t dare look at the strangers. The sides of my vision are becoming blurry with hot tears. It seems as though my body already knows what my mind is still trying to process.
I’m being given away.
“Daddy,” I croak. “No…”
“Enough whining!” Father roars. He plants his fists into the desk and stands up. His hands shake as Dario leans around him and pushes the document towards me.
“Please, Elisa, if you would just sign here.” He taps the bottom of the page with a ballpoint pen. I always hated Dario. The slimy sycophant. But now I’m too scared to even shoot him a dirty look.
My hands shake like fragile leaves. So do my knees. I always knew this kind of thing would eventually happen. Father made no bones about it. I’m a mafia princess. To consolidate his power, men like him arrange marriages for their daughters with those of a similar creed.
Still, it’s a complete shock. I guess I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. Without warning. Suddenly, I’m being told my life is over. And just as I was about to be given my first real taste of freedom.
“Sign the contract,” Father demands. His voice is quiet and sharp, just like it is before he slashes people to pieces. But his air of authority runs shallow in these waters. Somehow, it’s obvious that he’s not in control. The strangers are.
This isn’t some exchange of power for the benefit of both parties. I’m being forced into the hands of someone who has scared my father.
Scared. The great don. Ciro D’Ignoti. As far as I know, he’s invincible. But his usually tanned olive-skin is as white as the paper on his desk.
Who are these men? What have they done to my mighty father?
With a blunt nod, my father orders Cassius to enforce his orders. A monstrous hand clamps around my shaking wrist and tugs me forward. A yelp in shock and pain as the pen is forced into my hand and I’m pushed over the desk.
“Let her go.” For the first time, I hear the young Irishman speak. His voice is deep and booming, yet contained and focused. Domination laces his words and when I look up through my tears, I see that he has a gun out and pointed directly at Cassius.
The room goes so silent I can hear him click off his safety. The storm raging in his striking eyes goes still, frozen over by a cold focus. Cassius’s grip on me weakens, and the moment his fingers leave my trembling arms, I collapse onto the desk.
My choppy breaths smack off the hard wood and rage back onto my burning cheeks as I’m lifted by a new pair of hands. They’re even stronger than Cassius’s, but less brutish. I’m whisked onto my feet and when I look up again, Aiden Kilpatrick is gone.
“Sign the contract.” His order comes from behind me now. The thick wall of his muscular chest presses up against my shivering back and I’m engulfed by his green flames. He’s holding me up, but he doesn’t push.
“Daddy… I don’t want to,” I can barely see my father through the tears, but his blurry image doesn’t budge.
“Do as he says,” my father whispers.
“But what about the Ukraine? What about my dreams? What about my…” I choke on my own words before I can spit out the next one. Freedom. What about my freedom? I was a fool to think I’d ever have any.
Aiden’s fingers burn into my skin. More gently than I expected, he sets me down against the desk.
“You do as your told,” my father says.
Aiden picks up the ballpoint pen and signs the bottom of the contract. “See, not so hard,” he says. I wipe away my tears and follow his hand.
… Sole property of Aiden Kilpatrick….
… In return for $30 million…
“You can’t just sell me like I’m property,” I say, my voice weak and hoarse. “I’m a person.”
“Elisa, this doesn’t need to be any harder than it already is…” a touch of humanity suddenly laces my father’s tone. It only serves to wreck me all the more.
“How could you do this to me?” He’s always been so protective. So overbearing. Sure, he prepared me for the eventuality of an arranged marriage. It’s part of our world. But there’s no sense of conquest in this room right now. At least, not on our side. This isn’t some equal trade-off that’s benefiting each side. My father is in trouble. And so am I.
“You knew this would happen,” my father says.
It’s true. “I… I thought I had more time.” Why did he agree to let me go to the Ukraine if he knew I never would be able to? Maybe just to give me a few months of hope before I was sentenced to life with a savage stranger? Would my father actually be so kind as to do something like that for me? To even think it? To go out of his way to let me believe, if even just for a little while, that I wasn’t always destined to be someone else’s prisoner?
“Can it wait until I get back from my program, please?” Begging to my father has always fallen on deaf ears. I turn around to the man who’s supposed to be my new captor. “Can I get to know you first? I thought at least I’d have a chance to date before…”
“Date?” The growl is wild and unbecoming of the designer suit that surrounds the savage’s muscular body. “Have you dated before?” his eyes dart from me to my father. “You said she was a virgin, D’Ignoti!”
“She is! She is!” my father insists.
A sticky sickness crawls over my skin at the exchange. How perverted, my father and the man who’s buying me, arguing over the sanctity of something so private. It’s gross and disgusting and horrifying.
“I’ve kept her locked away in here for all her life,” my father adds.
“Where was she before this meeting?”
“Studying at the hospital.”
Aiden’s fire green eyes turn back on me. “Do you have a boyfriend, little flower?” He must be over six foot four of pure muscle. I’m barely five foot three. The thought of going home with a man that big who has this kind of temper only serves to make me all the more terrified.
“No,” I whisper. It’s the truth.
Aiden cups my chin and focuses my eyes on his. My heart races. My knees shake. The fire in his fingers brands me right in front of my father.
“Have you ever been with a man before?” a cruel smile creases the subtle lines around his mouth.
“No.”
He looks back at my father. “You’re lucky I believe her.”
When I look to my dad, I see a broken man. Geysers of fury burst through the shards of whatever’s left of him, but he stops them before they can reach too far.
As far as I know, my father is supposed to be king of the underworld in New York. Most feared of The Family, an Italian crime syndicate that stretches its dark hand across the continent. What could these men be threatening him with?
The implications make me light headed with fear.
For all of his faults, my father has always provided for me. He’s protected me in his own way, and kept me safe from the darkness of his world. In his more sincere moments, he’s told me that I’m his most precious jewel, the brightest light in his dark life, the secret that no one can take.
These men must be truly dangerous. Whatever they have on him, it must be devastating. World-destroying.
… Life ending.
Father is the only family I have left in the world. If anything happened to him, I’d truly be alone, forever and always.
I can’t let anything happen. At least If he’s alive, then there’s still hope. Then there’s still someone out there on my team. Someone who cared enough about my happiness to lie to me. To let me think my dreams were possible.
“Are you sure?” I ask Father one last time, hoping that he might find a way to save me.
He just nods.
“Be a good girl,” Aiden says, handing me the pen.
I take it. My heart is heavy and full of a dreadful responsibility. My father can’t protect me anymore, but maybe, if I do as I’m told, I can protect him. At least then, there would still be hope.
My tears stain the paper as I sign the contract. Sign my life away to Aiden Kilpatrick. The devil.
My new captor.
