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I bite my lip with irritation. There was a time when I would have loved for my father to bring me closer, to let me be a part of all of this. To show me that he loved me and my potential more than old traditions and ways of doing things. But I don’t want it now, when we’re only having this conversation because Luis is gone.

“There’s very little that you need to actually do,” he says, leaning back in his chair a bit. “All I need is for you to understand what needs to happen now, Estella, and to accept that it’s your duty to comply with what needs to be done.”

A chill winds down my spine, and I frown. I don’t like the sound of that. “What are you talking about?” I ask, and my father sits forward, his hands steepled as he looks at me.

“You are the heiress now, Estella,” he says simply. “And you need to be married.”

The words hit me like a slap, my blood running cold. I was afraid from the moment he started talking that that was what he was about to say, but I hoped I was wrong.

“Preferably to someone with enough money, power, and connections to maintain the strength of our family’s empire once it comes time for him—and you—to inherit,” my father continues, as if all of the blood hasn’t drained out of my face. “It’s important that I choose your husband carefully, Estella. It always mattered who you married, but before—” He pauses, clearing his throat—the most emotion I’ve seen from him so far, I think, regarding Luis’ death. “Before, it was more a matter of secondary alliances, of increasing territory or business holdings, or strengthening connections. Now, it is imperative that the right choice be made. Your husband will not only gain you as a wife, but he will inherit the entire empire that the Gallo family has built when I die. Do you understand what that means, Estella?”

I can’t speak. My throat feels closed over, my hands gripping the arms of the chair until I can feel my knuckles turning as white as my face. My father continues speaking anyway.

“It has to be someone who the other families will accept, and who won’t be challenged by anyone from another mafia for territory?—”

“I can’t do this,” I interrupt suddenly, the words coming out before I can stop them. “We buried Luisyesterday,” I continue, everything spilling out of me in a rush. “I can’t talk about marriage right now! And the things you’re talking about—” I swallow hard, continuing on before I can be interrupted. “These are old-world traditions! We don’t need to follow these anymore. We don’t need?—”

My father looks at me as if I’ve grown a second head. “What would you suggest I do?” he asks mildly, and I draw in a breath, trying to find the courage to continue now that I’ve begun.

“I could inherit,” I manage. “I could inherit alone. You could teach me everything you taught Luis,papa.” I look at him pleadingly, begging him to understand how I feel right now, how all of this makes me feel—terrified, alone, sent adrift with only the promise of a stranger for a lifeboat. “I’m smart. All you have to do is look at my grades in college to see that. Even the classes that had nothing to do with my art degree—the math and science, and literature classes that everyone has to take—I aced all of them. I could learn all of this. And then?—”

He holds up a hand, and I know I’m not being heard any longer. I keep talking anyway, unable to stop.

“The idea that a man has to inherit is from the old world.” I shake my head, feeling my eyes start to burn, and I fight back tears. If I start to cry, he won’t take anything I say seriously. “I can do this?—”

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re smart, daughter,” my father says calmly, dropping his hand back to the desk. “It’s not how things are done. If you had been born first, and Luis second, he would still have inherited.”

“But others?—”

“How others run their families is not my concern,” my father says stiffly. “If the Yashkovs and Gallaghers wish to have new ideas and do things differently, so long as they maintain our alliances and our agreements, I have nothing to say about it. But I do have a say in howmyfamily is run. And tradition matters, Estella.”

“Enough to marry me to a stranger?” I stare at him, wondering how long I can keep from bursting into tears. “Enough to make me marry someone on the heels of my brother dying? Enough to make me marry someone I hate?—”

That’s a step too far. I see the irritation in my father’s face as soon as I slip the slightest bit into potential hyperbole. “It doesn’t have to be someone you hate, Estella,” he says, his tone approaching patronizing. “You’ll be given several options. There are plenty of men in powerful positions, sons of those men, who could be worthy candidates. You’ll be afforded the chance to meet them, to decide how you feel about them. Although my choice is final, I’m not doing this without any input from you, daughter.”

The look he gives me suggests that he thinks I should be more grateful than I am for that. “I can’t fall in love that quickly,” I whisper. “However long you think I should have, I’d need more time—especially for a stranger?—”

“Love isn’t a part of this,” my father says… not entirely unkindly, but the words feel harsh all the same. “This is business, Estella. His wealth, his connections, his portfolio, how ambitious he is—enough to carry our family forward but not so much that he might try to usurp all that I’ve done—how willing he is to carry on the alliances I’ve already established, all of those things matter. Your ideas about love or attraction or anything else like that are not factors in this decision.”

I swallow hard, blinking back tears. “I don’t think I can do this,” I whisper. “I can’t—I can’t marry someone I don’t like, or love, or want. I don’t want a life like that?—”

“It’s your duty.” All of the emotion, any kindness, has faded from my father’s voice. This is an order, hard and cold, and I feel it reverberate in my bones. “It was Luis’ duty, Estella. He would have married a woman I chose for him for all of those same reasons—for what she and her family name could offer ours. But now it falls to you to do so instead. And youwilldo it, with grace and dignity, so help me God, Estella.”

Each word comes out harsher than the last, a gavel pronouncement coming down again and again, condemning meto what I feared most. My chest feels tight, my entire world closing in, and all I want to do is run. As far away as I can, from all of this. From him, from this house, from this life.

I don’t want any of it, and I don’t see a way out.

“When?” I ask in a small voice. “When am I going to start meeting these…”

“Suitors?” My father glances at the calendar on the wall. “Within two weeks, I hope. I’ll reach out to the potential matches that I have in mind, and see when dinners or a party, perhaps, can be arranged. I’ll let you know beforehand, of course. You’ll need to be at your best.” His gaze flicks over me in a cool appraisal. “Which means not wearing black, Estella.”

“We’re—” I suck in a breath. “We’re supposed to be grieving.”

“And we are. But your brother is gone, Estella.” My father’s hard gaze fixes on my face once again. “Wearing black won’t change that.” He pauses, looking at me for a long moment, and I know he sees the tears brimming on my eyelashes.

“You can go.”

I’m out of the seat in a flash, flying out of the office and slamming the door as I bolt for the stairs. I forget that Sebastian was just outside the room—I forget everything except how desperately hopeless I feel right now, and how desperately I want to roll time back, back to the night of my birthday, back before everything fell apart.