At the Costa family's annual capo banquet, Marco Costa declared the family would extend protection to one woman only: Rosa Frost, his childhood sweetheart, newly divorced and newly returned to the family fold.

One by one, the other women slipped away into the night with their money, their dignity, and fresh protectors already lined up.

I, Viola Rossi, once his Donna, was severed from the Costa family entirely, with nowhere left to go.

Twenty-one years prior, The System ripped me into this life with a brutal mandate: make one of four made men fall irrevocably in love with me, and I'd earn my way back to my real life with a healthy body.

I failed.

Every single one of them chose Rosa.

The system's final mercy: die here, go home.

I stood in a rotting Brooklyn dock warehouse, gun in hand, and closed my eyes.

Right as darkness closed in, a raw, raging scream of my name tore through the silence, like the man shouting would burn the whole world apart to reach me.

At the Costa family's annual capo banquet, Marco Costa declared the family would extend protection to one woman only: Rosa Frost, his childhood sweetheart, newly divorced and newly returned to the family fold.

One by one, the other women slipped away into the night with their money, their dignity, and fresh protectors already lined up.

I, Viola Rossi, once his Donna, was severed from the Costa family entirely, with nowhere left to go.

Twenty-one years prior, The System ripped me into this life with a brutal mandate: make one of four made men fall irrevocably in love with me, and I'd earn my way back to my real life with a healthy body.

I failed.

Every single one of them chose Rosa.

The system's final mercy: die here, go home.

I stood in a rotting Brooklyn dock warehouse, gun in hand, and closed my eyes.

Right as darkness closed in, a raw, raging scream of my name tore through the silence, like the man shouting would burn the whole world apart to reach me.

...

The Brooklyn dock warehouse was a tomb.

This is where I check out.

My exit ticket was tucked behind a loose brick.

It was Luca's prized snub-nose .22, the one he'd given me before he chose Rosa and shredded our vows in front of the Five Families.

The System was gonna let me go home.

All I had to do was die.

I pressed the muzzle tight to my temple, finger curling steady around the trigger.

I closed my eyes.

Across the East River, Manhattan's fireworks burst in the sky, distant laughter riding the wind.

None of it meant a damn thing.

My own heartbeat was pounding so hard against my ribs that it drowned out everything else, like someone was turning the world's volume down, notch by notch.

Twenty-one years.

That was how long The System had kept me here.

Its rule was simple: make one of the Four Pillars of the East Coast underworld love me beyond saving, and I could go home.

I had tried.

I had bled for them. Lied for them. Killed for them.

But every single one of them chose Rosa Frost.

Right as I went to squeeze, a heavy, sharp object slammed into my wrist.

The gun went flying across the concrete, clattering into a stack of empty crates before I could fire a single shot.

I crashed to the ground, my elbow splitting open on the rough concrete, vision swimming for a split second.

When my vision cleared, there he was.

Draven.

Tailored all-black suit, that cold, unmasked disgust carved into his face.

The same face that once looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered.

"Draven?" I rasped, breaking into another fit of coughing.

His lip curled into a sneer.

"Watch your mouth. You don't get to use my first name. Not anymore."

Of course.

Four years prior, I'd pulled his broken, bleeding body out of the Somerset crew massacre.

Three cracked ribs, a leg shot to hell, a fever that should've killed him.

I hid him, nursed him back from the edge, told him he only gets his revenge if he stays alive.

He was a feral thing back then, only trusted me.

Now he saw me as nothing but dirt on his custom leather shoes.

It all fell apart on Christmas Eve, four years back.

I married Marco, became the Costa Donna.

Every crew in the five boroughs bowed to me.

Even The System said I was inches from home.

Then Rosa Frost vanished, leaving a blood-soaked letter framing me for luring her to a warehouse to be brutalized.

Overnight, I lost everything.

Vincent disowned me.

Marco stripped my title.

Draven dumped me in the scullery of the Costa dock compound.

He wouldn't touch a single bite of anything I cooked.

Every single day, a maid stood over me, signing off on every pot and pan I put over the fire.

Too much salt, not enough heat, the broth too thin.

She'd shake her head, and I'd have to dump it all and start over from scratch.

Once, she made me dump and re-brew the same pot of Sunday gravy thirteen times straight, from noon right through midnight.

The fire died, my hands were raw, and she still said it wasn't right.

Draven called it Atonement for Rosa's pain.

Now Rosa was back, Marco belonged to her, and The System had finally opened the last door.

Death.

Draven snapped his fingers.

Two button men hauled me up by my arms, my toes barely touching the concrete.

His eyes flicked to the gun lying across the concrete, a mocking smirk tugging at his mouth.

"That desperate for attention? Practicing your grand finale? Shame no one was here to watch your little show in this shithole."

A ragged, bitter laugh tore from my throat.

He actually thought this was a stunt for Rosa.

"How kind of you, Consigliere, to drive all this way for the performance."

His face darkened.

"Rosa's back. Don't ruin the mood. You wanna kill yourself? Do it off Costa property. I ain't wasting my guys' time cleaning up your corpse."

The men tossed me out into the dirt like trash.

I stared up at him, and smiled bright.

Perfect.

I didn't hesitate.

I turned and ran straight for the choppy black water of the East River, and threw myself in.

This time, no one would stop me.

Behind me, Draven Valentino screamed my name like he'd burn the world to get me back.

The East River hit like a block of solid ice, searing straight through my clothes to the bone.

I didn't fight it.

I let the current drag me down, my mind fixed on one thing: home.

Would Mom bake her chocolate cake now?

Then a hand locked around my wrist, yanking me back up to the surface.

I hacked up river water, as a voice roared in my ear.

"Viola Rossi! Are you out of your fucking mind?!"

I blinked the water from my eyes.

Draven was on the shore beside me, face white as a sheet, coughing hard.

But his eyes never left mine, sharp and furious.

"Rosa's suffered enough because of you," he snarled.

"You think dying lets you weasel out of what you did?"

I stared at him, quiet.

"You've spent four years breaking me down. Isn't my death exactly what you wanted?"

He froze.

For a second.

His eyes went red, his jaw tight.

"Rosa just got back," he rasped, voice breaking.

"You owe her an apology. At the very least."

Looking at the wet, red-rimmed anger in his eyes, a dull ache twisted in my chest.

I remembered the Draven from four years ago, broken after the Valentino family hit, sitting alone in the dark, eyes burning with rage and grief until I'd knelt down and said, "C'mon. You have to sleep."

But what right did he have to hurt?

Four years of his maid's torments, none happened without his say-so.

Fine.

They wouldn't let me die here.

I turned and walked toward the highway, and he followed, step for step.

He said, voice cold.

"I'm not letting you out of my sight until you're off Costa property. I'm taking you to Vincent. After that, you live or die? I don't give a fuck."

I stopped.

Vincent Rossi, my own blood brother, the Rossi family underboss.

The man who'd disowned me.

I hadn't set foot in the Rossi house since he'd thrown me out.

But maybe going back was the fastest way to get what I wanted.

The Rossi estate was a flurry of chaos.

Maids rushed to clean Rosa's suite, the yard overflowing with her favorite datura flowers.

Only my brother would plant poison in his own backyard.

Vincent stood in the drive, a bright smile I hadn't seen in years on his face, holding a gift box.

The smile died the second he saw me.

"You've got some nerve showing up here," he said, flat.

I stood frozen.

This was the brother I'd grown up with.

Mom and Dad dead before we hit our teens, it had just been the two of us.

I'd spent years schmoozing other crews, cutting deals, risking my life to get him a seat at the Costa table.

I remembered the night I'd driven off a cliff to outrun the cops, and he'd burst into the hospital half-naked, sobbing, holding me tight.

I don't care about the power, he'd said.

If I lose you, I lose everything.

Then Rosa showed up.

The girl with the sad eyes and the fake sob story, and suddenly I wasn't his sister anymore.

He'd quit the family's drug business to cook up fancy meds for her "condition", snapped at me for calling her out on spitting them out.

When she vanished, he'd wiped my name from the family books.

"You don't come back until she does," he'd said.

Now he stood still, stared at me.

Draven shifted, voice tight.

"Rosa's back. Marco cut loose every other woman. She snapped. Tried to kill herself twice tonight, right in front of me."

Vincent scoffed, shaking his head.

"You're the sharpest consigliere in the Five Families, and you fell for it?"

He smirked at me.

"I know Viola. She'd never actually go through with it."

Draven's shoulders relaxed, a bitter, self-deprecating laugh huffing out of him, like he was mocking his own panic.

Vincent lifted the box, his eyes cold with contempt when he looked at me.

"I'm taking this to Rosa. I don't have time for your games. Be gone before I get back, or—"

He never finished the sentence.

I plucked a datura petal from the bush beside me, and put it in my mouth.

Vincent's face went white as a sheet.

Datura was deadly poison, but Rosa loved it, so Vincent let it bloom into a whole damn sea across the Rossi estate grounds.

Once, I'd begged him to tear it out, scared some maid or kid would take a bite by accident.

Rosa had cried until she passed out over it.

"Viola hates me this much, Vincent? She won't even let you grow me flowers?"

He'd sneered at me.

"Everyone knows it's poison. Who the hell's gonna eat it? Stop being this dramatic!"

I never thought it'd be the key to my way out.

The second the petal hit my tongue, my body screamed to gag it up.

I forced it down.

This time, I was finally going home.

Vincent dropped the gift box and lunged, slamming his palm against my back, rough fingers prying my mouth open to dig it out.

"Spit it out!" he roared, face purple with rage and panic.

"Are you really that fucking suicidal?!"

He and Draven both grabbed at my throat, screaming at me to cough it up.

"So Marco dumped you, and this is how you react?!"

Vincent's eyes were red, voice cracking.

"Rosa and Marco were made for each other! You still had some sad little fantasy?!"

He screamed for the maids to bring ipecac, shoving the plant down my throat until I threw up until there was nothing left.

A ragged, bitter laugh tore out of me, breath thin as paper.

"You never even checked. You just decided I hurt Rosa, and threw your own sister out like trash."

Vincent's face went white, mouth hanging open with nothing to say.

Then Draven's phone buzzed.

His face drained of color in an instant.

"Vincent! Don Marco's orders: bring Viola back to the estate right now. Rosa… she's gone again."

They locked eyes, then both turned to glare at me, rage burning hot.

"That's why you put on this little suicide show, huh?"

Vincent snarled, yanking me up by my arms.

"To cover your tracks. Where'd you hide her? What the hell are you planning next?!"

I had no clue where she was.

But this was perfect.

They'd kill me for her.

They dragged me back to the Costa estate, threw me to my knees in the main hall.

Marco sat on the Don's throne, staring down at me like I was a bug.

Beside him stood Luca Marcelli, my childhood betrothed, the man who'd torn up our engagement papers in front of every crew in the city for Rosa.

I'd been the laughingstock of the Five Families ever since.

Marco didn't waste words.

He leaned forward, fingers locking around my jaw, forcing my head up.

"Where is Rosa?"

I stared at the man who'd once been my husband, acid regret burning in my gut.

Marco Costa had not been born untouchable.

Four years ago, the Costa elders wanted him cut out of succession.

Too reckless, too young, too easy to provoke. His own father had been ready to name another heir.

I was the one who saved his crown.

I sat through three nights of negotiations with men who smiled at me like I was a pretty little fool, traded favors sharp enough to draw blood, and dug up enough secrets to make every elder in that room lower his eyes.

By dawn, Marco had the votes.

By noon, the family called him heir apparent.

And me?

They called me ambitious.

Vicious.

Dirty.

Marco asked me to marry him that same night. He promised me the title of Donna, the respect of the family, and a place beside him no one could touch.

Then Rosa showed up.

After her first disappearance, he'd put me through family punishment.

The whip had torn into my stomach, blood soaking the Persian rug.

That's when I'd found out I was pregnant.

The baby had come and gone before I even knew it was there.

I said nothing.

A flicker of cold murder crossed Marco's eyes.

"Looks like you need to be taught a lesson before you talk."

He nodded for his men to bring in the whips, told Draven and Vincent to do it themselves.

I didn't want to die tortured.

I fought, but the first whip crack hit my back, white-hot agony exploding through every nerve.

My lips trembled.

"Just kill me," I rasped.

Marco watched, a cold smirk on his face.

"Still got that mouth on you. Where is she?"

I lifted my head, face pale, and bared my teeth in a hideous grin.

"Rosa? I killed her. You all love her so bad, don't you? Go on. Kill me. Avenge her."

Marco's eyes went bloodshot.

Marco snatched the silver letter opener from the table and pressed its point beneath my chin.

He only wanted to break me, to scream Rosa's location out of my throat.

But I didn't flinch.

I locked my hand around his wrist, Then I drove myself forward.

The point slid deep beneath my collarbone, and warm blood gushed from the wound.

My vision bled black at the edges.

Right as the blade sank deep, Rosa's voice drifted in from the hall doors, sweet and innocent.

"Everyone's here? Perfect, I baked a cake… oh my goodness, why is there so much blood?"