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EMORY

W hen I walk into my father’s house on Ocean Avenue, the last thing I expect is my seventeen-year-old cousin Val to skid into the hallway as I open the door.

“Em, ohmygod is it true?” Her phone is clutched in her manicured fingers.

“Is what true?” I toss my keys into the dish while Val plies her phone like a concert pianist. Val thrives on gossip, and she probably saw a juicy tidbit about one of the heirs online.

This isn’t the welcome I expected, but I guess it’s better than the other option—my father sussing out that his youngest child has betrayed him before I get a chance to spin the facts in my favor.

I shiver and rub at my arms.

Val shoves the phone under my nose. She smells like Chanel perfume applied with a heavy hand and she’ll squirm if I hug her, but I want to. Instead, I take the phone, and that shiver turns into full-blown nausea.

“You’re married to Aiden Prince?” Her voice is loud enough to carry through the entire house. I wince and scroll, my pulse picking up speed with every flick of my thumb.

Aiden follows five profiles on social media.

His three siblings, Prince Bourbon Inc., and now mine.

In contrast, he has 1.2 million followers of his own.

His handle is, of course, @thePrince, and in every photo, he looks every inch the royal.

I click and see Aiden brooding over a glass of whiskey.

Another click shows Aiden stepping out of a vintage car in a suit and sunglasses.

Never smiling, only smirking, and looking absolutely fucking edible in every one.

No wonder my cousin is obsessed. If I didn’t know that he had the personality of a block of ice, I’d be obsessed.

I’d be jealous of the girl he married. Sadly, that girl is me.

Married to @HappyHunting.

Fucking Aiden. I have ten thousand more followers than I did yesterday. There are hundreds of comments on my posts. Some of them are horrible. Some are jealous.

“This is bad,” I whisper before I realize what I’m saying and grimace.

“So it’s true?” Val’s eyes are huge, and luckily, she doesn’t seem to see how ill I am. “You’re married to him?” She’s vibrating with the need to tell her friends, so I hand her back the phone and raise my left hand in the air so she can see the ring.

“Yep,” I say, forcing a smile.

Her eyes widen, and she starts texting at lightning speed.

“God, Em. He’s so hot. Like movie-star hot.

My friends are gonna lose their minds.” She taps at the phone.

“Can I come to Crownhaven? How old are his brothers again? Do you think they’re too old for me?

” She takes a breath, and I open my mouth, but she keeps going.

“I mean, your dad is gonna kill you.” She flicks me a glance.

“Can I have your Celine tote if he does? Oh, and those Chanel slingbacks too? I tried them on last time I was over and I can shove my foot in if I put Vaseline on the front.”

I sigh. I didn’t even notice my cousin spreading Vaseline on my shoes. It must have been during our last movie night. “Sure, Val. Whatever you want.”

“Thanks.” She gives me a cheeky smile and then skips in the direction of the dining room.

I can already smell the food. And with how loud Valentina is, there is no chance my family doesn’t already know about the marriage.

Instead of a negotiation, this will be an ambush.

I won’t even get to have Aunt Teresa’s special Sunday lumpiang or Uncle Enzo’s chicken parm.

I’ll be too busy defending myself. I press a fist to my stomach as I pause in front of the double doors to the formal dining room where we hold every important family meeting and every Sunday dinner.

Heads turn and silence descends as I enter. There are at least twenty members of the Hunter clan here, each one raised to hate the Prince family. Aiden can never come here .

My oldest brother, Benedict, is sitting with arms crossed, face unreadable.

Andreas, my other brother, who looks sympathetic, slides a huge glass of wine to my usual spot on his right.

Uncle Enzo and Aunt Teresa are also glaring at me.

Leo’s face is twisted in concern. My other cousins look like they’re watching a prisoner march to the gallows.

I finally look my father in the eye as I smooth my pants and sit across from Leo and next to Andreas.

“Hi, Dad.”

Dominick Hunter is imposing and larger than life. He’s aging but still fit, and he’s usually full of life—smiling, backslapping, telling stories, laughing at my jokes, encouraging us kids to do our best. But today, his face is creased with concern and no small amount of anger.

An ache starts low in my stomach, and I take a sip of wine. There’s a bottle of Prince-Hunter Bourbon on the mantel, one of the last bottles we have left, and I desperately want to crack it open.

“Let’s see it, then.” My dad’s voice comes out hard. “The ring,” he says.

I slide my hand onto the table, and my family erupts.

“Too small,” my cousin Lina shouts from where she’s sitting next to Aunt Teresa.

“Did he force you?” Aunt Teresa asks.

“How could you?” my uncle Enzo shouts from the opposite end of the table.

“Want me to kill him?” Andreas asks.

“I can help.” Leo’s older sister, Lina, gives me a sharp smile.

“She’s going to break it off,” my father says. “Right, Em?”

“No. I’m not.” I open my mouth to explain, but everyone starts talking again.

“What in god’s name were you thinking?” My father’s voice cuts through the noise.

“If you let me explain, I’ll tell you.” But my words are swallowed as my family gets louder and louder until I shove out of my chair. “Shut up, all of you.”

My chest heaves and my eyes heat, and the shocked faces of my cousins and siblings blur as I stare my father down.

“Dad, he’s giving us the land back.” My voice comes out shakier than I’d like. “They’re going to end the feud. We can finally expand.” This is the speech I prepared, knowing this would be a difficult conversation.

Benny sits forward in his chair, his eyes alight. “The land, really?”

I shoot my brother a grateful smile. “Yes. It’s fifty-two acres in total.

We’ll split it.” I turn back to my dad. “Remember the expansion plans? We can build a spa, a new hotel, new office space. The Prince family will stop trying to shut us down. We can be a destination.” My voice strengthens as I go on.

My dad is shaking his head. “Emory,” he says warningly, “we’ve talked about this before. You’re the only person in this family who wants the casino to be a destination.”

“I’m the only person in this family with vision,” I bite back.

Andreas hides a smile. Dad and I have gone nine rounds over this before. I glare at my brothers, who are infuriatingly passive and do whatever Dad tells them.

My father’s face is dark when I look back at him.

“I don’t want to be tied to the Princes.

” He shakes his head. “This is a betrayal. The Princes destroyed us. When the distillery broke up a century ago, they took the profitable pieces and left us with scraps.” His voice gains volume as he speaks, just like it does every time he tells this story.

“They think we’re lower than dirt, and each of them has made it crystal clear during my life, my parents’ lives, and your life.

That world doesn’t want us. It’s not ours.

I don’t understand why you keep trying to be a part of it. ”

I swallow down my retort and force my voice to stay even. “Dad, I ran the projections. We could make so much more. We could build something so big no one would be able to look away. We could force them to respect us.”

“I don’t want that,” he counters. “I don’t need their respect.”

Uncle Enzo is nodding his head.

My eyes heat.

Why is it that when I most want to summon anger, all I can summon are tears?

“They’ve looked down on us for our entire lives,” I say.

“The Prince family. Their friends. Take their money, isn’t that what you always say?

” I look to my brothers, whose mouths are twisted in sympathy.

They won’t intervene. They don’t agree with Dad, but they never felt the sting of not belonging like I did.

I still remember the whispers about my family when I was growing up. The fallen family. Has-beens. Fraudsters. Criminals. Rats in a warren. Harrison’s friends repeated those rumors when we ended things.

You’re not the type of woman that men in our world marry.

I vowed I would do anything to make it stop. And if turning our crappy casino into a massive resort destination is what it takes, I’ll marry Aiden a hundred times over.

“I won’t let a Prince have a say over our business.” My father crosses his arms, and panic starts to ratchet inside of me.

“He won’t have a say. It’s not like that.”

“Did he sign a prenup? How are you going to make sure he doesn’t screw you over?”

“There wasn’t time. We had to get married quickly.”

“And whose idea was that?”

“Aiden’s,” I say quietly.

Suddenly, my dad looks exhausted, and that, more than anything, makes the panic grow wings.

He’s not buying it. He’s going to deny me the opportunity to expand.

The Princes destroyed us, and now my family is happy with a life of crime and backroom deals.

They prefer being notorious. But they’re also damning us to fit into the cage the Prince family has made for us.

I’m fine with notorious, as long as I’m on top.

“You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face, Dad.” The words rush out, even though they are the exact wrong thing to say.

Dad shakes his head. “He’s taking advantage of you. Just like he did when you were younger.” At my look, he sighs. “I know you liked him.”

“It’s not like that.” I feel sick. Sweaty and panicked and hot. I’ve laid everything on the line. I’ve sacrificed everything. My reputation with my family, my plans for the future, my hand in marriage.

“It’s exactly like that. He’ll dump you when you least expect it and he’ll find a way to take the land. Just like his family did to your great-great-grandparents.”

“He will not.”

“You took a bad deal. That family can’t be trusted.” He stabs at the table. “And then I’ll have to clean up your mistakes.”

I reel back. Hurt flares inside me, hot and sharp.

In his eyes are words left unsaid.

Just like I did two years ago.

When I insisted that Harrison Parker was in love with me. When he pulled the investment in the casino and cratered our income for the next two years.

“I learned from my mistakes, Dad.”

His mouth flattens. “It doesn’t seem that way to me. He’s going to hurt you, Em. No one in their world wants anyone in ours. Not for life.”

What I hear is he won’t want you. “It’s not like that. We’re in love.” Pride and anger push the words out, not logic.

The room is silent for a brief moment, then it erupts in noise. Val screeches and pulls out her phone. Leo starts laughing. Lina is grinning. Uncle Enzo shoves back from the table, but Aunt Teresa puts her hand on his arm to stop him.

“What did you say?” My father’s voice is dangerously low.

I feel like prey, cornered and ready to lash out at the first hint of danger. I tip up my chin and stare my father down. “We’re in love. I’m not an idiot. Aiden is in love with me. And I’m not ending the marriage.”

My father cuts into his chicken with a grim smile.

“Then I will.”

Leo finds me leaning against the railing on the steps later, where I’m taking shallow, angry breaths.

“What’s up, human sacrifice?”

“Shut it, Leo.” My words have no heat, though, and when Leo leans next to me, I rest my head on his shoulder. He slouches down so I can press closer, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

“He doesn’t mean it, Em.” His words are gentle.

“He does. Dad is stuck in his ways, you know that. Just like your dad is.”

He makes a sound of agreement, and I know he’s thinking about all the fights he’s gotten into with his own father, my dad’s brother. Leo is my best friend, born just hours before me in the same hospital, and we always have each others’ backs.

“I want that land, Leo.”

“I know.”

I lift my head and we lock eyes. There’s a hint of a smile on his mouth.

“So take it,” he says. “You never pick the easy way, Em. You once told me that if you wanted respect, you had to take it. So take it.”

There’s a brief flare of hope in my chest, from the little part of me that loves to succeed when the odds are stacked against me.

“Ask for forgiveness, not permission.”

Leo nods. “You and I excel at that.” He wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Build it, Em. Build it and make everyone eat their words. For yourself.”

“For us,” I say firmly. For my family, I’ll do anything.