Chapter 1 - The Blood Debt
The silence in Leo Casaro’s study was so absolute that I could hear the ice shifting in his untouched glass of whiskey. My bare feet felt frozen against the Persian rug, but the chill creeping up my spine had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. I stared at the most feared man in Brooklyn, trying to process the impossible weight of his words. Your father knew exactly who that bullet was meant for.
"What do you mean?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, yet it echoed in the cavernous, mahogany-paneled room. "My father is a high school history teacher. He was just picking up a cake for my mother’s birthday from the bakery next to that restaurant. The police said it was a drive-by. Wrong place, wrong time."
Leo let out a heavy, tired sigh. He stood up from his leather chair, a towering figure of impeccably tailored authority, and walked over to a crystal decanter. He poured a second glass of amber liquid and handed it to me. I took it, my hands shaking so violently the glass clinked against my wedding-band-free fingers.
"The police report says what I paid them to say, Myra," Leo explained quietly, his dark eyes—the same eyes his son had used to manipulate me—fixed on my face. "Your father and I grew up in the same neighborhood. We played stickball in the same alleys. I chose a life of violence; he chose a life of peace. But we always respected each other. That night outside the restaurant, a rival syndicate sent a shooter for me. I didn't see him in the shadows. But your father did."
I took a burning sip of the whiskey, forcing myself to swallow as the truth shattered the narrative of my entire year.
"Your father yelled my name and shoved me to the pavement just as the trigger was pulled," Leo continued, his voice dropping to a gravelly register filled with a profound, inescapable guilt. "He took a .45 caliber hollow-point to the chest to save the life of a crime boss. He is not a victim, Myra. He is the bravest man I have ever known. I owe him my life. Paying his medical bills, keeping the bank away from your family home... it was the absolute least I could do. I would have given him half my empire if he asked. But all he asked was that I never tell you, so you wouldn't feel tied to my world."
Tears finally spilled over my eyelashes, hot and furious. My father, the gentle man who spent his weekends grading essays and fixing birdhouses, had thrown himself in front of a bullet. And Nico—the entitled, arrogant, sociopathic heir to this empire—had used my father's unimaginable sacrifice as a cheap prop to manipulate a grieving daughter into his bed.
"Nico knew," I said, the realization hardening the tears into something sharp and dangerous. "He knew you owed my father your life. He took credit for your money, and he used my gratitude to win a ten-thousand-dollar bet with his friends."
Leo’s face darkened, transforming instantly from a remorseful friend into the ruthless Don of the Casaro family. The temperature in the room plummeted. "Nico is a spoiled, arrogant child who mistakes inherited fear for earned respect. He dishonored a blood debt. He dishonored a man who saved my life. And he attempted to degrade you for sport."
Leo walked around the desk, stopping just inches from where I stood. He did not look at me with pity; he looked at me with the cold, calculating appraisal of a general assessing an ally on the battlefield.
"You said you didn't want another man deciding what happens to you," Leo murmured, his voice lethal. "So tell me, Myra. What do you want to do?"
May you like
I looked down at the red silk dress Chloe had helped me pick out. I thought of the eight months of fake smiles, the fabricated comfort, and the disgusting laughter echoing from behind my boyfriend's bedroom door. I placed the whiskey glass on the desk, slipped my feet back into my high heels, and lifted my chin.
"I want to ruin him," I said. "And I want to do it in front of everyone."
