Chapter 1

Giada POV

The lingering scent of clinical antiseptic and my father's heavy Cuban cigars warred in the dim air of the Moreno Mansion's drawing room. Between my thighs, a phantom ache remained-a degrading reminder of Dr. Julian Weaver's cold speculum. He had just certified my "purity," ensuring I was an untainted Collateral fit to be offered to the devil.

I blinked, my fingers digging into the plush Persian rug beneath my chair. A second ago, I wasn't sitting in this stuffy room. A second ago, I was in the damp, blood-soaked depths of the Blackwell Estate Dungeon. I could still feel the agonizing tear of flesh as Kelsey, my half-sister, drove a rusted, sharpened spoon into my chest. She had screamed about the unfairness of fate, her eyes wild with the madness of a rotting prisoner, while I stood before her as the untouchable Mafia Queen.

I died from those complications. Yet here I am, seventeen again, the breath hitching in my unscarred chest.

"Dante Blackwell is a monster," Aurelio Moreno, the pathetic man I called father, said, his voice pulling me back to the present. He pushed two black velvet boxes across the mahogany table. "To survive as his Collateral and pay off my debts, you need leverage. I have secured two advantages."

I stared at the boxes. I knew exactly what was inside.

In my past life, Kelsey had chosen the first box: a detailed psychological profile of Dante's dead fiancée, Ellen. She had tried to mimic the ghost, a clumsy performance that earned her broken legs and a permanent cell in the dungeon. I had taken the second box: a black-market fertility drug. I birthed his heir, survived countless assassination attempts by Rival Family Members, and clawed my way to the throne through sheer ruthlessness.

Before Aurelio could explain the contents, Kelsey lunged forward.

Her manicured fingers snatched the box containing the fertility drug with a desperate, greedy speed. "I'll take this one, Papa," she said, her chest heaving. She looked at me, and in her eyes, I saw the unmistakable, feverish gleam of a woman who had also died in that dungeon. *She remembers.*

"I'm weaker," Kelsey continued, her voice dripping with practiced fragility. "I need the guarantee of an heir to secure my place in the Blackwell family."

Blanca, my stepmother, immediately placed a protective hand on Kelsey's shoulder, her eyes darting toward me with thinly veiled hostility. "She's right, Aurelio. Giada is strong enough to manage with the profile. Kelsey needs the protection of a child."

I sat perfectly still, letting the silence stretch. Kelsey stared at me, a triumphant smirk playing on her lips. She thought she had just stolen my destiny. She thought the drug was a golden ticket to the crown she had envied so bitterly.

I lowered my gaze, letting my eyelashes cast long shadows over my cheeks, masking the cold, lethal amusement pooling in my eyes.

"Of course," I murmured, my voice soft and submissive. I reached out and pulled the remaining box toward me. "Kelsey should have it."

Let her have it.

Kelsey's fatal miscalculation was believing my rise to Mafia Queen was due to a child. She didn't know the bloody reality of the mafia world. A pregnant woman wasn't a queen; she was a walking target. In my past life, the moment my pregnancy was announced, I survived three bombings and a poisoning.

More importantly, she didn't understand the Dark Don she was trying to bind. Dante Blackwell was a paranoid, ruthless predator who despised being manipulated. If he caught even a whisper of a woman using drugs to force a pregnancy and trap him, he wouldn't just kill her-he would peel the skin from her bones.

I traced the velvet lid of my box, feeling the weight of Ellen's dossier inside. This time, I wouldn't be a breeding mare fighting off assassins. I wouldn't rely on a child to secure my power. I would use this profile not to imitate a dead girl, but to dissect the psychology of the devil himself.