Chapter One
The velvet skies over Palermo bled into the sea as dusk settled like a veil over the Moretti estate. From the balcony of the ancestral villa—a mansion carved into the cliffs like a king's throne—Aria Moretti stood still, the Sicilian wind catching the hem of her gown and dragging it like a warning.
She didn't feel like a queen. She felt like a pawn wrapped in white silk and secrets.
Aria was twenty-two, with obsidian hair cascading down her back in soft waves and olive skin kissed by the southern sun. Her beauty was delicate but commanding—eyes the color of antique gold, sharp as a blade behind thick lashes. But it wasn't just her face the world watched. It was her blood.
She was the only daughter of Cesare Moretti, Don of the Moretti Syndicate—the most feared mafia empire in Sicily. Her mother had died under mysterious circumstances when Aria was sixteen. Since then, she had been groomed as leverage, an heir, a bargaining chip. Never free.
Inside the villa, chandeliers glowed over the ballroom where Palermo's deadliest families drank champagne and exchanged cold smiles. Tonight was Aria's engagement party. Her future was sealed to a man she barely knew.
Damiano Rizzo.
He had arrived an hour ago.
Six-foot-two, broad-shouldered, with a presence that devoured oxygen. Damiano was the crown prince of the Rizzo syndicate—Naples' most powerful family and Moretti's blood enemies until last week. He wore a midnight-black suit tailored like armor, his dark brown hair slicked back cruelly. Pale gray eyes—calculating, unreadable—fixed on her across the ballroom.
He hadn't smiled once.
Everyone called him Il Serpente. The Serpent.
Aria didn't need anyone to tell her why.
"Beautiful," he said now, coming to stand beside her on the balcony. His voice was silk stretched over a dagger. "Though I would have preferred you wore red."
Aria didn't flinch. "White's for peace, isn't it?"
He hummed, gaze trailing over the dark ocean below. "That depends on who's bleeding."
Behind them, the party roared louder. Her father's voice cut through—Cesare Moretti, a tall, hawk-like man with silvered hair and eyes like broken glass. He was flanked by armed men, each wearing the Moretti sigil: a black lion carved into gold. Cesare ruled with efficiency, cruelty, and legacy. He had built an empire on bones and betrayal.
And tonight, he was selling her off like a strategic merger.
"Do you believe in fate, Aria?" Damiano asked, swirling a drink in his hand.
"No."
He chuckled, the sound low and without humor. "Neither do I. But I believe in vows."
Aria's throat tightened. He hadn't touched her. Not once. And yet he made her feel caged, stripped bare.
"You will be mine," he added, "whether you accept it with grace or fire."
She turned to face him, head high. "And if I run?"
That amused him. "Then I hunt."
Before she could reply, the heavy oak doors at the far end of the ballroom creaked open. And time stopped.
Nico D'Angelo.
He hadn't been invited. He wasn't even supposed to be alive.
Six-foot-one, black leather jacket worn open over a dark shirt. His hair was messier than she remembered, his jaw sharper. He looked like a sin returning from the dead, a ghost with a heartbeat. He scanned the crowd, then zeroed in on her.
He moved with coiled grace, like a panther stalking prey, every eye turning to follow him. Whispers exploded behind crystal flutes—
"He worked for Cesare years ago…"
"Didn't he disappear after the hit on Aria?"
"I heard he was executed—"
But Nico didn't speak. He walked straight past guards, past Damiano, and stopped only when he reached her.
Aria's heart pounded. Three years. Three years since he vanished after saving her from an ambush meant to look like an accident. Three years since she cried for him behind locked doors, believing he was dead.
He raised one hand, brushing his fingers just barely against hers. A silent question.
And she almost answered—until Damiano stepped between them.
"Nico D'Angelo," he said, voice cool. "You're trespassing."
Nico's eyes didn't leave Aria's. "I needed to see her."
"And now you have." Damiano's tone sharpened. "Leave before I cut off your tongue and send it to your mother."
Aria's breath caught.
But Nico smiled. A slow, dangerous smile. "You can try."
Cesare's voice echoed again from inside, shouting for security.
Nico leaned close—too close—and whispered in Aria's ear, voice raw:
"You're not safe. The marriage is a trap. Your father ordered the hit three years ago. I have proof."
The blood drained from her face.
Behind her, guards stormed toward them.
And before she could say his name—
Nico disappeared into the night.
The air on the balcony thickened with unspoken truths as Nico melted into the darkness. Guards fanned out like a pack of wolves, but no one could track a ghost who didn't want to be found.
Aria stood frozen, her fingers still tingling from the brush of his touch.
Damiano's jaw flexed. "You knew he would come."
She turned slowly. "I didn't."
He stepped closer, his breath warm but his tone ice. "Lie to anyone else, cara mia. Not to me."
His grip locked around her wrist—firm but controlled, calculated. Not possessive. Strategic. He wasn't a man driven by impulse; he was a man built on purpose.
"I will find him," Damiano said, voice low enough to send a chill down her spine. "And I will end him. Just like your father should have done years ago."
"My father," she echoed, yanking her arm free, "lies more easily than he breathes."
That earned her a look. Cold amusement flickered in his eyes, but only for a moment. "You think you know the rules of this game, Aria. But you're only seeing the board. Not the players."
Her heart pounded.
Because Nico's words hadn't faded from her ears.
The marriage is a trap. Your father ordered the hit three years ago. I have proof.
She had never wanted to believe it—not truly. But now… the walls around her childhood felt like they were shifting. Cracking.
"I need air," she said sharply, turning on her heel.
Damiano didn't follow.
Inside, the ballroom was beginning to empty. The guests—mostly men in power-drenched suits and their jeweled wives—were either drunk or politely ignoring the disruption Nico had caused. But Cesare stood tall at the base of the stairs, his face a thundercloud behind civility.
He motioned to her with a flick of two fingers.
"Come."
She descended with slow, deliberate steps. Four Moretti guards flanked her father, all armed, all unreadable.
"You knew he was alive," Cesare said under his breath the moment she reached him.
"No," Aria lied. "I thought he was dead. Like you told me."
A muscle in his cheek twitched. "Then let me remind you what happens when people cross me."
He turned and gave a single nod to his right-hand man—Luca Bellini, a lean, ruthless enforcer with a scar slicing through his brow. Luca vanished down the hall.
Aria's voice dropped. "What are you going to do?"
Cesare smiled. Not at her, but through her. "Clean up my mistake."
Meanwhile, in a warehouse outside the city—
Nico paced through shadows and dust, his phone pressed to his ear. "I found her. But we've got a problem."
A voice crackled on the other end. Female. Fierce. "You think she believes you?"
"She didn't slap me," Nico muttered. "So that's something."
"What now?"
He stopped beside a table covered in old files, half-burned photographs, and red-marked maps of Moretti compounds.
"I pull the thread," he said grimly. "And hope the whole kingdom unravels."
Back at the villa, in Aria's chambers—
Aria locked the door behind her and yanked open the drawer of her vanity. Tucked beneath layers of lace and jewelry was a small, dust-covered tin. Inside: a flash drive. One Nico had given her before he disappeared.
She had never looked at it.
She was terrified too.
Hands shaking, she plugged it into her laptop. The screen flickered.
A single folder.
Labeled: "Blood Vows."
She clicked it open.
Dozens of images. Scans. Surveillance footage. Documents.
One stood out.
A signed kill order.
From Cesare Moretti.
Dated three years ago.
Target: Aria Moretti.
Executor: Unlisted.
Marked: "Stage accident. No trace. No survivors."
Her breath hitched.
And that's when her screen went black.
A warning message appeared in red:
"They're watching. RUN."
Before she could react, a sharp thud landed against her door.
Then another.
And another.
Men's voices. Footsteps. Someone is jiggling the handle.
She bolted to the window.
Below her balcony, standing in the garden, was a man in black.
Nico.
He looked up, eyes locked with hers, then held up one hand.
In it—her mother's pendant.
The one that vanished the night her mother died.
How did he have it?
"Aria!" one of the guards shouted from the hallway, pounding now. "Open the door!"
"No," she whispered, backing toward the window.
"I said—"
The door cracked.
Aria grabbed her laptop and the flash drive yanked open the glass doors, and leaped from the balcony—
—straight into Nico's arms.
Gunfire cracked behind them.
He didn't wait.
They vanished into the shadows just as the villa erupted in chaos.
In the night, they fled like traitors. But what Aria didn't know—what Nico hadn't yet told her—was that Damiano had let her escape.
Because this was always part of the plan.
And the vow he made?
It didn't end with marriage.
It began with war.