Page 3

“Don’t you mean Dipshit Uncle?” Scar reminds me. “Romano is trading hisniecefor arms, not hisdaughter.”

And that’s the real puzzle, isn’t it? The reason I tell myself I have to find out more about Luna.

Why the fuck is Romano selling off his underage niece when he’s got a grown daughter? One the Pakhan should be giving up all the arms in his vault to get in her pants.

Luna’s face looks back at me, her pouty lips parted as if ready to whisper the answer. All I see is a woman too polished. Too worldly. Too innocent. Too . . . fucking much for this filth.

“Hmm,” I mutter distractedly.

“For fuck’s sake, Pretty!” Scar snaps.

“What?”

“You keep zoning off. Something’s . . . off with you?”

It’s almost eerie how attuned Scar is to my moods. I suppose this is to be expected, considering he lives my life.

“I’ve got it, Scar, see you tonight.”

I end the call before he can probe deeper, my mind already circling back to the question consuming me.

Why the child bride?

Alfred Romano isn’t a man who’d let his daughter turn down an arranged marriage, especially when the family desperately needs protection from the Don they rebelled against.

Or maybe it’s just Antonov’s taste. Maybe the sick fuck prefers them young.

It doesn’t matter. In a week, Romano will be dead.

My thumb brushes over the photograph again.

“You really should’ve stayed with your mother’s family in Paris,petite souris. Let the alley cats tear each other apart.”

2

Luna

I stare up at the ceiling of Papa's study, my eyes tracing the ornate plasterwork that spirals into elaborate patterns.

Right now, the patterns are morphing into dragons, coiling and snapping their jaws, like the monsters that used to hide under my bed.

Only now, the monsters wear suits and smoke cigars and make decisions about my body like I don’t exist.

I wonder if I'm going insane. It's either that or admit Papa’s rambling is starting to make sense, and I'm not sure which is worse.

Papa’s fist slams into the mahogany desk, sending a tremor straight to my bones. “For Christ’s sake, Luna, can you look at me when I’m speaking to you?”

He’s mad. Again.

I drag my eyes down from the ceiling to meet his glare. His pinstripe suit clings to his muscled frame, which is ironic considering his goons—who do all the heavy lifting—are as soft-bellied as house cats.

Smoke coils from his ever-present cigar, shrouding him in a haze that’s almost regal, if you ignore the throbbing vein in his temple. It pulses like a ticking bomb, one yell away from detonation.

He really should watch his blood pressure. And shouting isn’t a great look for the head of a crime family. A sign of weakness, if you ask me.

I bite my tongue to keep from pointing it out. Wouldn't want to send him over the edge. I just lostMaman, after all.

Pain lances through me, and I reach for the rune hanging off my thin gold chain—my mother's last gift to me as her life faded away. She’d worn it since she was a child, and now it feels like a part of her is with me. The cool and rough surface grounds me like it always does when the walls start closing in.