The first bullet shattered the crystal decanter on Papa's desk.
I stayed glued up in the hallway outside his study, my champagne glass slipping from nerveless fingers. The glass shattered against marble as gunfire erupted, not the sharp crack of the single shot, but a savage burst that felt like doomsday.
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
Fifteen shots. I counted them all, my feet firmly planted to the floor like the coward I was. Fifteen shots in maybe 12 seconds, and then … silence. The kind of silence that follows after something irreversible happens.
"Papa!"
I lunged for the door, but Marco, Papa's security chief grabbed me by the waist stopping me from going in. "No, Miss Iris! Don't."
Too late. I'd already seen inside.
My father, the king of New York's second-largest crime syndicate, Domenico Russo, who'd raised me by himself after Mama died and who had taught me how to stand strong in a world of monsters, was spread out behind his desk in a spreading pool of blood.
So much blood.
"No, no, no…" I tore out of Marco's grip and fell to Papa's side, my knees snapping on the marble. The blood was hot and foul;soaking through my dress instantly warm and obscene. "Papa, please breathe. Please stay."
His eyes found mine. Glazing over, but still conscious. Still my father for a moment more.
"Iris..." Blood foamed at his mouth. "Listen... to me. Orlov... betrayed the truce. They'll come.. for you next."
"We'll just fight them," I said, gasping as I put my hands ineffectively over the worst of the wounds. "We'll."
"Organization... is in chaos. They smell blood." His hand, wet with his own death, held mine surprisingly strong. "You need... protection. An ally."
"Who? Papa, who can I trust?"
"Aresco." The name came out choked. "Tristan Aresco his the only one with enough power... to keep you alive."
My heart stopped. "No. Not him. Anyone but."
"Beg him... if you must. Survive, Iris. Promise me... you'll survive."
"I promise. I swear, Papa, but you must."
But his hand went slack in mine. His eyes went blank. And my father, the only person in the world who had ever really loved me was gone.
I lingered there for three minutes. Marco timed it later. Three minutes kneeling in my father's blood before reality crashed over me square in the gut: I was on my own now. The Russo family was leaderless. And by dawn, our enemies would be circling.
Twelve hours, before someone showed up to pick up where they'd left off.
Only twelve hours left to do the one thing I'd sworn I'd never do.
Go crawling to Tristan Aresco.
******
The Aresco estate was a fortress masquerading as a mansion. Twenty-foot walls. Armed guards every fifty feet. Security in sufficient numbers to protect the president.
I was now seated in the backseat of Marco's car outside the iron gates at 2AM, still unable to slow down my pounding heart.
"You don't have to do it," said Marco quietly. "There are other options. Other families who might."
"Who might what? Adopt the daughter of a murdered boss? Shield me from the generosity of their hearts?" I laughed, and it was a screw-loose laugh. "They're either going to kill me or they're going to put me through something. At least with Aresco, I know what the heck I'm getting myself into."
Liar. I did not know what I was working with.
It had been five years since I'd seen the boy I'd loved at sixteen sweet, reckless Tristan who'd kissed me under the stars and said forever, had left for Europe five years ago. The man who'd come home six months earlier was someone else altogether. Colder. Dangerous in ways that spooked grown men.
I'd only seen him once, in a meeting on neutral territory. He'd looked straight through me like I was glass. Like I meant nothing to him.
And now I had to beg him to save me.
Marco stormed through the gates after a heated discussion with security. They'd been expecting me. Of course they had. In our world, news moved faster than death.
A grim man greeted me at the door. "Miss Russo. Mr. Aresco is downstairs waiting in his study. Follow me."
I trailed behind him through halls that oozed money and power. Modern art on the walls. Marble floors. Nothing cold and clean and ideal. Nowhere near the cozy, warm Italian décor found in my family's house.
My former family home. It wasn't mine anymore. Nothing was.
The man rapped once on a heavy oak door and then opened it without an answer. "Miss Russo, sir."
"Send her in."
That voice. God, that voice. Five years hadn't altered it still smooth and black, and capable of making me feel things I had no business feeling right now.
I stepped inside and there he was.
Tristan Aresco had grown into something life-shattering. Six foot in a lethal muscle in a black suit that probably cost more than most people's cars. Fashion model's hair perfectly done, despite the hour. A face that could have been sculpted by a master, all sharp angles, and brutal beauty, made even more eye-catching by the thin scar that ran from his jawline to his ear. A memento of whatever hell he had gone through overseas.
But it was his eyes that destroyed me.
They used to be warm with mischief and full of love. They were now black and they were ice-cold, and there was nothing clinical about them as the implacable waters crushed me with cold indifference.
"Iris Russo," he said, and my name felt in his mouth sounded like an insult. "You got motherfuckin' nerve coming in here, tiny Russo. Especially at this hour."
Little Russo. Like I was a child.
I raised my chin to show that didn't-dare-hurt, but it did. "My father is dead. Murdered three hours ago. The Russo family is in chaos. Every other gang in the city will be on our turf by the morning."
"How unfortunate." His voice didn't sound it, though. "And this concerns me, how?"
I forced myself take a step in his direction. To meet those cruel eyes. "I need your help. An alliance. Shielding me as I fix the organisation."
"An alliance." He pronounced the word like it gave him pleasure. Rose silently from behind his desk with a predatory ease, circling me in a slow circle.
"And do I get in return from the daughter of Domenico Russo? Your family's empire is crumbling. Your soldiers are deserting. As we speak, your territories is being carved up as we speak." He stopped directly in front of me, so near I had to tilt my chin back to meet his eyes. "If you think I won't just lire the lot? Then why waste my time haggling with a desperate girl?"
The words hit like a slap. Because he was right. He could simply sit and wait for the Russo empire to fall so he could pick up the pieces.
I've got information, I said quickly. "My father kept files. Information on every family in New York, including your own. Names, crimes, offshore accounts. Everything. I'll show you everything."
"Everything?" One dark eyebrow arched. "The legendary Russo insurance files? You'd really hand those over?"
"If you protect me. Yes."
And he pondered me for a full minute, something calculating in those black eyes. He smiled and it was the cruelest thing I'd seen.
"No."
It was like a physical blow, the word. "What?"
I don't need your files, Iris. I don't need them." He moved closer into my personal space, leaning over me and looming large. "I want something else."
"What?" That did I say with a whisper, and yet some part of me already knew. Already feared his answer.
"You."
I almost choked on my own saliva. "I don't understand."
"Don't you?" His hand shot out, cupping my face with his palm and stroking his thumb across my cheekbone in what should have been a tender gesture but felt like ownership. "I'll protect you, Iris. I'll be your hiding place from your enemies. I will stabilize your father's organization and merge it into mine. I'll make you untouchable."
Hope flared in my chest. "Thank you."
"'But you'll be mine," he repeated, his voice lowering to something dangerous and dark. "My mistress. My property. You'll reside in my home, adorn yourself with my jewels, heat my bed whenever I please. You will belong to me and I'll show you off how I want. That's the cost of my protection."
The words landed like blows. With each a more devastating blow than the last.
"You want me to be your whore," I said evenly.
"I want you to be my mistress yes," he said. "There's a difference. You won't be paid. You will not be able to escape. You will not have any rights, choices, freedoms or dignity beyond what I choose to give you." His hand moved from my face to my neck, like a threat. "You'll belong to me completely. Until I decide to dismiss you."
"No."
"I'd rather die."
"Then die." He let go of me, frowning down at me, looking bored. "The door's behind you. Will be seeing you escorted out by men. I'll give you till morning before somebody puts a bullet in your head. Perhaps an hour."
He turned his back on me. Dismissing me. Like I was nothing.
I looked at his back, at the door, at this impossible choice in front of me.
"I don't need your files, Iris. I don't need them." He moved closer into my personal space, leaning over me and looming large. "I want something else."
"What?" The words came out as a whisper, and yet some part of me already knew. Already feared his answer.
"You."
The air left my lungs. "I don't understand."
My father's dying words came crawling back in my head: "Survive, Iris. Promise me you'll survive."
I had promised him on his last breath that I would do whatever it took for me to survive.
My hand was on the doorknob when I stopped. All this could be behind me. Preserve my dignity and with my pride intact.
But I'd be dead in less than an hour if I walked out of here. And Papa's empire would die with me.
"Wait."
I whispered the word but Tristan heard me. I saw his shoulders square, I saw him turn toward me.
"What was that?" His tone was silk wrapped around barbed wire.
I made myself look him in the eyes. To speak just those words that would turn everything around. "I agree. I'll be your mistress."
"Say it properly." He stepped back to me, taking my chin in his hand and raising my face to his. "I want to hear you say the whole thing."
A bitter humiliation scorched my throat, but I pushed the words out. "I agree to be your mistress. Your property. Yours to show and use in any way you choose. In exchange for your protection."
His bloody smile was triumphant and terrifying. "Good girl."
I wanted to claw his eyes out, so condescending was that two damn words.
"We go tonight," he added, letting go of my chin. "Right now, in fact. Marco will get your bare necessities tomorrow. Anything else you want, I will supply."
"Tonight? But I need to."
"You do what I say, You. This is how it works now, little mouse." The pet name made my skin crawl. "Your former life was over when your father died. Your new life begins with me now."
Little mouse. Like I was prey he'd caught.
" Don't call me that, I ground out through my teeth.
"I'll call you whatever I want. You're mine now, remember?" He returned to his desk and pushed a button on his phone. "Bring the car around. Miss Russo and myself; we are going away.
This was happening. This was really happening.
"Just one question," I said, desperate to know. "Why? Why do you want me? You could have anyone. Why me?"
He gazed at me, gazed into me and for one tiny moment I saw something shiver in those black depths. Something that might've been pain. Or regret. Or hatred.
"It's just because I can," he said. "Five years ago, you were untouchable. Domenico Russo's precious daughter. The girl I," He stopped himself, teeth gritted. "It doesn't matter. What counts is that now you're all mine. And I protect what's mine."
The non-answer answer. Typical.
His phone buzzed. "The car's ready. Let's go."
He walked toward the door and presumably expected me to join him. I did, what other options were there?
But as we filed through those cold, stately halls with the car I would be leaving everything I'd ever known behind in waiting just out of eyeshot, Tristan said one more word.
"Oh, and Iris?" He didn't look back at me. "Don't try to run