To Tarnish a Sacred Bloodline
When I was ten, my mother, a stripper, married the Don of the Moretti family, one of the five major crime families in Chicago.
My stepbrother, Isaac, never let me forget how my background tainted their sacred Sicilian bloodline.
Under his silent command, the whole family became instruments of his torture.
At a family barbecue by the lake, he gave a look. That was all. His men "accidentally" pushed me off the pier, and I slammed against the cold hull of a boat. I felt a sharp pain, as if my ribs had broken.
He stood on the pier, gazing down at me, his ice-blue eyes filled with contempt. "Just because your mother crawled into my father's bed doesn't make you one of us. Outsiders get purged. And I'll be the one to drive you from my territory."
On his orders, they destroyed the financial reports I prepared for the family business. They slashed the gown I was to wear to my coming-of-age party with a dagger.
Through it all, my mother would only look at me with shame in her eyes. My stepfather, the Don, saw me only as a nuisance that tarnished the family's reputation.
I learned to make myself invisible, desperate for any scrap of kindness.
But it only made me the family pariah. Despised and utterly alone.
Until Isaac's ally, Khalid, the heir to the Falcone family, singled me out at a family dinner.
For the first time, Isaac stopped his public torment.
I thought Khalid was my salvation. On my eighteenth birthday, I gave myself to him completely.
The next day, I accidentally overheard his conversation with Isaac.
Isaac's voice was low, laced with venom. "Did you get the video? The one of the little stripper crying and begging in bed?"
Khalid chuckled. "Of course. I have to admit, she's clean. Like an untouched piece of art. It's a shame, considering her mother's background… if it weren't to help you sabotage her marriage prospects, I would never touch a woman like that."
I clamped a hand over my mouth as silent tears streamed down my face.
My only hope had been a lie.
But they didn't know. I had already received my acceptance letter from Columbia Law School.
And I wasn't coming back.