Chapter 1 1

Isabell POV

The air in the living room tasted of stale cigar smoke and desperation. It was a scent I had grown up with, woven into the peeling wallpaper and the cheap, imitation velvet of the armchair where my father, Jerrold Talley, currently sat. His face was a mask of purple rage, a vein throbbing dangerously at his temple.

In the center of the threadbare rug, my half-sister Emmalee was on her knees. Her sobbing was the only sound breaking the heavy silence, a pathetic, mewling noise that grated on my nerves.

"Get up," Father spat, ash from his cigar falling onto his trousers. "You are embarrassing yourself."

"I can't do it, Papa," Emmalee wailed, clutching at the hem of her skirt. "Please, don't make me go to him. They say he feeds traitors to his dogs. They say his hands are stained with so much blood it never washes off."

I stood in the shadows near the window, watching the performance with dry, calculating eyes.

Last week, the decree had come down from the heavens-or rather, from the Griffith estate, which amounted to the same thing in our world. Don Damian Griffith, the King of New York, needed a connection to the local docks, and he had chosen our lowly family to provide a bride. It was a golden ticket, a chance to elevate the Talley name from the gutter of *Associates* to the gilded circle of the *Made Men*.

Emmalee, the legitimate daughter, the pretty one with the golden curls and the soft heart, had been the chosen sacrifice. She saw it as a death sentence.

I saw it for what it truly was: a throne.

My gaze drifted to the window, looking out at the gray, rain-slicked streets of our neighborhood. I knew where Emmalee had been yesterday. I knew about the cheap diner on 4th Street, and I knew about Coleton Joseph. A low-level lawyer for the Griffith front companies. A man with soft hands and a softer spine.

Emmalee had come home smelling of grease and cheap cologne, her eyes shining with a foolish light. She had whispered to me about love, about a small apartment in Queens, about a life free from the "sins of the Family." She called the Don's mansion a "Cold Palace."

*Fools,* I thought bitterly.

A memory clawed its way to the surface of my mind-a ghost from my childhood. I was ten years old, walking these very streets, when I saw her. A woman who had once been a Capo's wife, tossed aside like garbage when her husband was executed. She was fighting a stray dog for a bone in the alley, her silk dress in tatters, her fingers black with grime.

That was the true Cold Palace. It wasn't marble floors and diamond necklaces; it was irrelevance. It was hunger. It was being powerless in a world that ate the weak.

I would not be that woman. I would not be Emmalee, trading a kingdom for a coward's promise of "love."

"I won't marry a monster!" Emmalee screamed, snapping me back to the present. She looked up, her mascara running down her cheeks. "I love Coleton! He wants to marry me. He's a good man, Papa!"

Father stood up so abruptly his chair scraped loudly against the floor. "Coleton Joseph? That pencil-pusher? You would throw away an alliance with the *Capo dei Capi* for a clerk?" He raised his hand, and Emmalee flinched, cowering.

"Wait!" Emmalee cried out, her voice trembling. "The Don... he didn't ask for me specifically. He asked for a Talley bride. He asked for a connection."

The room went deadly silent. Even the dust motes seemed to freeze.

Emmalee turned her head, her tear-filled eyes finding me in the shadows. There was guilt there, yes, but it was drowned out by her desperate need for self-preservation.

"Isabell," she choked out. "Isabell can do it."

Father froze, his hand suspended in mid-air. He turned slowly to look at me. His gaze was dismissive, assessing me as one would assess a piece of furniture that might fetch a few dollars at a pawn shop. "Isabell? She's a bastard. The Don expects quality."

"She's a Talley by blood," Emmalee insisted, scrambling to her feet and rushing to Father's side. "She's beautiful, Papa. Look at her. And she's... she's strong. She doesn't cry like I do. She would be better suited for a man like Damian Griffith."

It was the most intelligent thing my sister had ever said.

Father looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time in years. He was weighing the risk. If he sent the wrong daughter, he could be killed. But if he forced Emmalee, she might kill herself or run away, bringing shame and ruin upon us all.

I didn't let him see my hunger. I didn't let him see that my heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird-not from fear, but from adrenaline.

I stepped out of the shadows. I kept my chin high, my hands clasped demurely in front of me. I needed to look like a martyr, not a predator.

"Emmalee is right, Father," I said, my voice steady and cool, cutting through the humidity of the room. "She is too fragile for the Griffith world. She would break within a week, and that would insult the Don."

I walked closer, stopping just outside of his striking range. I looked down at Emmalee, who was watching me with a mixture of hope and pity. She thought she was condemning me to hell. She thought she was winning.

"I will do it," I said, turning my gaze to my father. "I will marry Damian Griffith."

"You?" Father scoffed, though the anger was draining from his face, replaced by calculation. "Why would you sacrifice yourself?"

I lowered my lashes, hiding the gleam of triumph in my eyes. "Because I am a Talley. And I know my duty."

*Because I would rather sleep with a monster in a silk bed than starve with a saint in the gutter.*

Father grunted, chewing on the end of his cigar. He looked from the weeping, useless Emmalee to me-calm, composed, and willing.

"Fine," he muttered, waving his hand dismissively. "Pack your things, Isabell. If the Don rejects you, it's your head on the block, not mine."

Emmalee let out a sob of relief, collapsing into her mother's arms. They held each other, weeping for my tragic fate, celebrating their narrow escape.

I turned away to hide the small, cold smile that tugged at the corner of my lips. Let them have their tears and their cheap romance.

I was going to be a Queen.