Chapter 1

I served seven years in a black-site prison for a crime my sister committed. Today, my betrothed-the man who chose her over me-finally came to collect his property.

But he didn't come to save me. He came to collect me like a debt, watching with cold eyes as I was shoved into a filthy shed, a disgrace to be kept out of sight.

Minutes later, his phone rang. It was my sister. Without a word, he left me standing in the dirt to rush to her side.

Abandoned. Again.

Through the thin walls of my new prison, I heard my own mother's voice. She was arranging to have me sent to a remote convent, to be buried for good this time.

They hadn't just locked me away to protect their perfect, adopted daughter. They planned to erase me completely.

But as I sat in the dark, a cheap burner phone buzzed in my pocket. A single message glowed on the screen.

"Northern Syndicate. We can get you out. You have ten days."

Chapter 1

Aria POV:

I served seven years in a black-site prison for a crime my sister committed. Today, my betrothed-the man who chose her over me-finally came to collect his property.

The heavy iron door groaned open, slashing a rectangle of blinding light onto the damp stone floor. I flinched, shielding my eyes. The silhouette standing there was bigger than I remembered. Broader. Harder.

Dante Volkov. The Don of the Volkov Family. My promised husband.

He didn't come to save me. He came to collect me, like a debt.

I pushed myself up from the thin mattress, my leg screaming in protest. The bones had fused together wrong, a permanent, throbbing reminder of a beating I'd received in my third year here. Pain was an old friend. A cold, familiar companion.

"Get up, Elara," Dante's voice was a low rumble, stripped of all warmth. He still used my old name, the name of the girl they threw away.

He didn't offer a hand. He just watched, his dark eyes sweeping over my tattered prison clothes and gaunt frame with the detached assessment of a butcher inspecting a piece of meat.

I was the lost daughter, you see. The original. Snatched from a park at age five, I was a ghost story, a cautionary tale whispered to other mafia children. My parents grieved, then they did what the powerful do: they replaced me. They adopted Serafina, a girl with the same dark hair, and poured all their love into the substitute.

When I was found thirteen years later, a teenager with no memory of them, I didn't come home to a celebration. I came home to a disruption. My parents looked at me, their true-born daughter, and saw a stranger threatening the perfect family they had built with my replacement. Serafina, the perfect daughter, saw a threat.

She spent years poisoning them against me with whispered lies and crocodile tears, framing me as unstable, ungrateful, wild. I was a ghost in my own home long before they buried me in this cell.

The final betrayal came on a rainy Tuesday. Serafina, drunk and reckless in her sports car, hit the youngest son of a rival family. A fatal accident. An act of war.

I remember the meeting in my father's study. The smell of leather and fear. My father, the Consigliere, laid it out like a business deal. Serafina was fragile, beloved, the perfect future wife for the next Don. I was... expendable.

My mother didn't even look at me when she agreed. "It's for the good of the Family."

I looked at Dante, the boy who had sworn to protect me, my last hope. I begged him with my eyes. He just stared back, his face a mask of stone. His silence was my death sentence.

They chose her. They threw me away to appease our enemies and protect their perfect, adopted daughter.

"Our betrothed pact stands," Dante said now, pulling me from the memory. His words were flat, transactional. "It's a contract between our fathers. It will be honored."

Law. Family business. Not love. Never love.

He led me out of the cell. Through the opulent halls of the Volkov estate, whispers trailed in my wake like a shroud. The soldiers lining the walls, the staff scurrying out of our way-their eyes were filled with the same look: disdain. I was the family's disgrace returned from the dead.

The new Consigliere-a man who had replaced my father after his "retirement"-met us in the foyer. He didn't look at me. He looked at Dante.

"For the good of the Family, Don Volkov, she will be housed in the old outbuilding. To keep her... out of sight."

The words were a slap. A public branding. I was filth to be hidden away.

Dante's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, and the cold mask of the Don cracked, replaced by a flicker of genuine panic.

"Serafina," he breathed. He brought the phone to his ear. "I'm on my way."

Without another word, without even a glance in my direction, he turned and strode out of the house, leaving me standing there. Abandoned. Again.

A guard escorted me to my new prison, a squalid shed at the edge of the estate. Alone in the dust and shadows, I heard voices through the thin walls. My mother. My father.

"...a convent," my mother was saying, her voice laced with a concern so false it was sharp. "A remote one. It's the only way to protect Serafina's peace of mind."

My breath caught in my throat. They weren't just hiding me. They were planning to bury me for good.

A faint vibration buzzed against my hip, coming from the pocket of the worn coat a guard had thrown at me. I pulled out a small, cheap burner phone. A single message glowed on the screen.

Northern Syndicate. We can get you out. You have ten days.

The decision wasn't a decision at all. It was a breath of air after seven years of drowning.