Chapter 1: A Throne of Corpses
Valentina's POV
The warehouse smelled like diesel fuel.
I had been standing in this line for thirty-nine minutes. I knew because I'd counted every second, every breath, every beat of my racing heart. The concrete floor was cold beneath my sneakers, and the hoodie I wore did nothing to stop the chill that had settled into my bones.
It wasn't the temperature that made me cold.
Ahead of me, seven people had entered the makeshift throne room. Only four had walked back out.
The man in front of me shifted his weight from foot to foot. He was older, maybe fifty, with graying hair slicked back with too much pomade. His expensive suit was rumpled, and sweat stained the collar despite the cold. Every few seconds, he'd reach up to loosen his tie, then think better of it and drop his hand.
I understood the impulse. I wanted to run.
The metal door at the front of the line opened with a screech that made my teeth ache. A woman stumbled out, her face pale and her eyes red. She clutched a small package to her chest and hurried past us without looking up. The guard by the door, a mountain of a man with a scar bisecting his left eyebrow, jerked his head toward the pomade man.
"Next."
The man's throat bobbed as he swallowed. He straightened his tie one final time, squared his shoulders, and walked through the door like he was walking to the gallows.
Maybe he was.
I was alone in the hallway now except for the scarred guard. He didn't look at me. None of them had. I'd kept my head down, my hood up, my face hidden. Just another desperate soul seeking an audience with the new king of the underworld.
Dante Moretti.
The name alone sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with fear. Well, not entirely.
Five years. It had been five years since I'd seen him, since he'd left the city with blood on his hands and murder in his eyes. Five years since his father's funeral, since the alliance between our families had shattered like glass, since everything had fallen apart.
Five years since the boy I'd loved had looked at me like I was a stranger.
Now he was back, and from what I'd heard, the sunny prankster who used to make me laugh until my sides hurt was gone. In his place was something cold and sharp and deadly. A man who sat on a throne made of his enemies' mistakes and handed out justice with bullets instead of mercy.
My father's voice echoed in my memory. "The Morettis are poison, Valentina. They smile while they slip the knife between your ribs."
Dad.
My throat tightened. I pressed my lips together and focused on breathing. In through my nose, out through my mouth. The technique my childhood therapist had taught me after Mom died. I hadn't needed it in years.
I needed it now.
A gunshot cracked through the air.
My whole body jerked. The sound seemed to echo forever in the narrow hallway, bouncing off concrete walls and metal doors until it felt like the world was made of nothing but that single, terrible noise.
The door opened.
Two men emerged, dragging the pomade man between them. His expensive shoes scraped against the concrete, leaving dark streaks. His head lolled forward, and I could see the hole in his forehead, perfectly round, still smoking slightly in the cold air.
They dragged him past me. I couldn't look away. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stare at the neat little hole that had ended a life in less than a second.
One of the men, young with a snake tattoo coiling up his neck, caught my eye and grinned. "Boss is in a mood today. Better make it good."
Then they were past me, hauling the body toward a door at the far end of the hallway. I heard it open, heard something heavy splash into water, heard the door close again.
"Next."
The scarred guard was looking at me now. His expression was flat, unreadable. He'd probably seen this exact scene play out a hundred times. A thousand. What was one more body to him?
My legs didn't want to move. Every instinct I had screamed at me to run, to get out of this place, to go anywhere but through that door. I could leave. I could walk away. I could survive this.
But my father couldn't.
My father was dead, murdered in his own study while I'd been playing the perfect daughter at a charity gala across town. Someone had put three bullets in his chest and left him to bleed out on his antique Persian rug. And in the chaos that followed, in the power vacuum that had torn my family apart, I'd learned a terrible truth.
I had no allies. No protection. No future.
Only enemies and the ghosts of old alliances.
So I moved. One foot in front of the other, mechanical, mindless. The guard pushed the door open, and I stepped through.
The room beyond was larger than I'd expected. High ceilings crisscrossed with exposed beams and ventilation ducts. Harsh fluorescent lights that turned everything gray and washed out. The floor had been cleaned recently; I could smell bleach trying and failing to cover the scent of copper.
And at the far end, elevated on a platform that might have once held machinery, sat a throne.
It wasn't literal, not really. Just a high-backed leather chair, expensive and out of place in the industrial space. But the man who occupied it made it a throne through sheer presence alone.
Dante Moretti.
My heart stopped, then started again too fast.
He looked nothing like I remembered and exactly like I remembered all at once. Older, obviously. He'd been twenty-two when he left; he was twenty-seven now. The boyish softness had burned away, leaving behind sharp angles and hard edges. His black hair was shorter, styled back from his face. His jaw was stronger, shadowed with stubble. He wore a black suit that probably cost more than most people's cars, perfectly tailored to his broad shoulders.
But it was his eyes that stopped me cold.
They had been warm once, golden-brown and always laughing. Eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled, that had looked at me like I was the only person in the world.
Now they were flat. Cold. The eyes of a man who had killed and would kill again without hesitation.
Those eyes fixed on me as I approached, and I felt pinned, dissected, judged.
Four men flanked his throne. I recognized the type if not the individuals. Enforcers. Soldiers. The kind of men who followed orders without question and slept soundly afterward. One of them, dark-haired with a lean, predatory build, watched me with open suspicion.
I stopped at the base of the platform, exactly where the pomade man must have stood minutes ago. The bloodstain was still there, a few feet to my left. Still wet.
"Name." Dante's voice hit me like a physical blow. Deep, rough, nothing like the laughing boy who used to call me Lina and steal kisses in darkened corners.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. My voice had abandoned me.
"Name," he repeated, harder this time. Impatient. His fingers drummed on the arm of his chair, a slow, deliberate rhythm that sounded like a countdown.
I needed to say something. Needed to explain. Needed to make him understand that I was desperate, that I had nowhere else to turn, that I wouldn't be here if I had any other choice.
But the words wouldn't come.
The lean enforcer stepped forward, his hand moving to the gun at his hip. "Boss, you want me to—"
"Remove your hood." Dante cut him off without looking away from me. "Now."
My hands shook as I reached up. The hood had been my shield, my last layer of protection. Once it came down, there was no taking this back. He would know. They would all know.
The Romano princess had come begging to the Moretti king.
I pushed the hood back.
For a moment, nothing happened. Dante's expression didn't change. His eyes didn't widen. He could have been looking at a stranger for all the recognition he showed.
Then, slowly, deliberately, his lips curved into a smile.
It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile of a shark that had just scented blood in the water. The smile of a man who had been given exactly what he wanted and was already calculating how to use it.
"Well, well." He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, that terrible smile growing wider. His eyes traveled over my face like he was memorizing every detail, cataloging every change the years had made. "Valentina Romano."
My name in his mouth sounded like a curse and a prayer all at once.
"What a surprise."
The words hung in the air between us, heavy with meaning I couldn't decipher. Surprise? He didn't look surprised. He looked pleased. Satisfied. Like I'd done exactly what he'd expected me to do.
The lean enforcer muttered something under his breath. One of the others shifted his weight. The air felt thick, charged, dangerous.
Dante's smile never wavered.
And I realized, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, that I had just made either the best or worst decision of my life.
Probably the worst.
Definitely the worst.
But it was too late to turn back now.