Chapter 1

Don Antonio "Tony" Marino lay still in the enormous bed, the crisp white sheets a stark contrast to his sallow, aged skin.

The air in the master suite was thick with the lingering scent of incense from the priest' s recent visit, a smell Tony always hated, it reminded him of funerals, now his own.

Sal, his loyal Consigliere, stood like a sentinel by the heavy drapes, a silhouette against the dying afternoon light.

Beyond the closed mahogany doors, the hushed, anxious murmurs of the Marino family and key capos drifted, a somber chorus awaiting the inevitable.

Tony coughed, a shallow, rasping sound that barely disturbed the heavy silence.

His eyes, once piercing and shrewd, were now clouded with a weary film.

He thought he was ready, as ready as a man who' d lived his life could be.

Then, the grand doors to his suite didn' t just open, they were thrown wide with a bang that echoed like a gunshot.

It wasn' t a doctor, nor a grieving family member.

It was Santino, "Sonny," his eldest son, his heir.

And with him, a woman.

A woman with too much makeup and a dress too tight, clinging to Sonny' s arm like a parasite.

Tony had never seen her before in his life.

Sonny, his face flushed, eyes wild, dragged the woman further into the room.

"Pop! Pop, you gotta hear this!"

His voice was too loud, too frantic for a death room.

The woman, Luna Starr she'd later be called, simpered beside him, a predatory glint in her eyes.

Tony stared, his fading consciousness snagged by the sheer audacity.

Sal moved from the window, his expression grim. "Sonny, your father is resting."

"This can't wait, Sal!" Sonny dismissed him, turning back to Tony. "Pop, I' m in love! This is Luna. And I want an annulment. From Izzy."

He blurted it out, the words tumbling over each other.

"I' m gonna marry Luna. She' s the one, Pop. She understands me."

Tony' s breath hitched. Annulment? Izzy? Isabella Bellucci, daughter of Don Marcus Bellucci, the man whose alliance, whose "thirty-thousand strong army," kept the Marino family a powerhouse.

The shock was a jolt, colder and more potent than any drug the doctors had given him.

He felt a flicker, a spark in the dimming embers of his mind.

This monumental stupidity, this betrayal... it was almost enough to make a dying man want to live, just to beat some sense into his idiot son.

Sal' s voice was low, a gravelly warning. "Don Antonio, you remember the terms of the alliance. Don Bellucci..."

Tony' s eyes, for a moment, regained a sliver of their old sharpness.

He remembered. Oh, he remembered everything.