Mia Russo thought the worst night of her life was watching her father die. She was wrong. The worst night is standing on an auction stage in a red dress, being sold like property to the highest bidder.
Her father was the most feared Don in the criminal world. Now he is dead, and she is the price someone is collecting.
Just as a greasy old man opens his mouth to claim her, a single bid silences the room. A number so large the auctioneer's hands shake. Mia never sees the man's face. Only his eyes. Dark. Calm. Familiar in a way that makes her stomach drop.
The man who buys her is Dante Reyes. The new Godfather. The most powerful criminal in the country. And the same boy her father pulled from the streets twelve years ago and raised like a son.
He is no longer that boy.
He is cold. Controlled. And he wants something from Mia that goes far beyond ownership. As the walls of his mansion close around her, Mia begins to see the truth. Dante did not buy her to save her. He bought her because she is the last piece of a plan years in the making. A plan that started the night her father was murdered.
A plan Dante may have helped write.
The girl who walked into his house as a prisoner must decide. Break under his control, or burn the whole empire down from the inside.

I have been preparing for this dinner since Wednesday.


Not with weapons. Not with a plan I do not have enough information yet for a real plan. I have been preparing the way my father taught me without ever meaning to teach me: by deciding exactly who I am going to be in that room before I walk into it.


My father used to say that the most powerful person at any table is not the one with the most money or the most men outside. It is the one who decided before they sat down what they would and would not give away. Everything else the words, the smile, the small talk is just costume. The decision underneath is what matters.


I am Marco Russo's grieving daughter. I am slightly overwhelmed by my situation. I am grateful for Dante's protection and a little dazzled by this world I was always kept away from. I am not a threat. I am not an investigator. I am a young woman in over her head who is very glad to meet a man who knew and loved her father.


Chapter 9 - Smile Like You Mean It