“The man smiling in the silver frame on my vanity was the very same man who, in exactly three months, would wrap his hands around my throat. I knew this because I had already died. I had felt the freezing, silty water of the Hudson River fill my lungs while Alexander watched the life drain from my eyes, his mistress laughing in the background. I had hovered like a ghost above my own funeral, watching the betrayal continue even after my death. My mother, the perfect Mafia widow, stood stoically next to my killer, unaware she had sold her daughter to a butcher. My fiancé checked his watch, bored, waiting to liquidate my inheritance. But then I saw him. Darrian Golden. The Don of the rival clan. The enemy. He stood in the pouring rain, his expensive suit soaked through, staring at my coffin as if the world had ended. When the earth hit the wood, he didn't just cry; he roared in primal agony. My fiancé killed me, but my enemy was the only one who mourned me. "The Commission is waiting," my mother's voice snapped the timeline back into place. She stood in my doorway, demanding I set the engagement date to secure the territory. She saw a charming Capo; I saw the rat who had cut my father's brake lines. In my first life, I was a trembling bird. In this life, I was the match that would burn the cage down. I smashed the photo frame against the marble table, the sound cracking through the room like a gunshot. "Contact the Golden Clan," I commanded. My mother went pale. "He is a savage, Azalea. He butchers men for sport." "Tell Don Golden that Azalea Kidd is offering a parley," I said, looking out the window at the city that would soon be ours. "Tell him I am offering the only thing he has ever wanted: Me."”