Chapter 1 Prologue

It wasn't because of a dead man, no matter what they say. The truth is, the dead man was just an excuse-one more in a story already poisoned long before. What exists between the Vescari and the Gravano isn't a clan war or a business dispute, even if the Cosa Nostra and the Camorra helped escalate it.

This is something older, more intimate, more twisted. It's a family hatred, a grudge passed down like a last name, like silences, like the way you clench your teeth and say nothing. No one really remembers who started it-or maybe they do, but choose to stay silent. In matters like these, the origin never matters as much as the blood spilled afterward. Every generation adds its share: its dead, its attacks, its broken deals. And even when it seems like there's a truce, everyone knows it's a lie-that the calm is only the pause before the next blow.

Today, just like yesterday, carrying either of those last names means bearing a curse written long before birth. There's no escape, no peace, no forgiveness. Only two choices remain: kill or be killed. But what happens when two people who are supposed to hate each other feel a pull from the very first glance? What happens when temptation weighs more than legacy, more than name, more than history? Doménico and Chiara are living proof that some things aren't meant to happen, that rules exist for a reason. He, the future head of the Vescari; she, the Gravano princess.

Love, in their world, is overrated. Rules, on the other hand, are just obstacles for those who have something to lose.

And they know it well: everything they feel is doomed.

Welcome.