Chapter 1

MAGDALENA

I stared at the woman in the picture on the wall for a long time, as I did many other times when I was much younger.

Maria Magdalena Aurora Trovato. My mother.

She didn't smile in the picture. She never smiled much in life too, as my Nonna liked to tell me about the past. No one spoke about my mother or her death. It was a forbidden subject in our home. Only Nonna would speak about things that no one else dared to.

And I was a dead ringer for my mother. Dark chocolate brown hair, blue eyes, and porcelain skin with a small elegant nose. Except in my mother's portrait, she wore a string of pearls around her slender neck, a white fur coat around her shoulders, and a black Versace dinner ball gown that hugged her model figure-no doubt that it all cost a fortune. She was regal looking. Nonna preferred the word "snobby" and that kind of attitude was often frowned upon in Sicilian culture.

She was also eighteen in the picture. The day the photo was taken was the day before her wedding.

In Sicilian culture, especially in the Trovato family, following tradition was everything. Right down to the union of two powerful families merging for an alliance. A name that would be feared for years to come.

Today I would be Magdalena Aurora Trovato Cartia after my marriage to Damien Cartia. I barely met him a few times since our engagement, so my nerves were a wreck. I'd be going to a different home tonight. A different bed. His bed. I'd been saving myself for all these years and the man I was marrying was a complete mystery to me. Would he love me? He asked for my hand in marriage, but that didn't necessarily mean that he loved me.

When I was younger, I'd listen to the tales the maids told and they often said I would marry a prince charming one day too. One who would love and cherish me. When Nonna listened to me fantasizing about my perfect wedding one day, she pulled me aside and said, "Men only want one thing after marriage and that is for you to bear their children, for you to please them and for you to be the lady of the house. Once you learn the hardships of marriage, there won't be any time or space left for love. But you'll live with it because you're a woman."

I didn't want a loveless marriage. One where I was just an ornament with a husband who ran the show. Nonna was attempting to set my fantasies apart from reality.

So, I continued to stare at my mother's image, trying to understand what went through her mind when she was marrying my father. She looked confident. If there was one thing that I lacked and needed the most today, it was my confidence.

We'd be married by noon, just in time for Nonna's grand lunch and then I'm gone.

A lump formed in my throat at the thought as I glanced around the foyer of the great hall. The marble floors, the burnt sienna walls, and the rustic smell of good food being cooked in the kitchen.

My father, Carlo Trovato, built an empire for my family. He was one of the most feared Mafiosi in the Cosa Nostra and still was in many parts of Sicily to this day.

He was the kind of man that would sing 'O Sanctissima' for the Sunday Hymn in church with you before the Cross, drink wine with you, and still hold a gun to your head that same evening if he found that you had betrayed him in any way. There was no doubt that you'd be leaving that meeting in a casket that night if you were found guilty.

But deep down my father was a good man. He taught my brother Erik and I the values of fighting for our family and who to trust. He taught us to love and when to show resilience.

Was I prepared to leave the safety of my father's home and become a wife? Mentally, I wasn't sure of myself. It was a big decision to make.

I was eighteen and he was twenty-two. He's probably been with a lot of women already. In Sicily, it was a sign of his masculinity that he had bedded a lot of women in his bachelor days. Experienced women knew how to please a man in various ways. I'd never even had the chance to kiss a guy. Would he be repulsed by my lack of knowledge? So many thoughts racked my mind.

The other possibility was that he would just sleep around like a whore if he got bored of me which wasn't allowed in the Mafia. Our men didn't cheat and sleep around. But who said they didn't do it in the shadows? My brother did it all the time and thought no one noticed. I know my Father did too. Nonna told me a lot of things. Erik wasn't married yet so my father turned a blind eye to all the woman going with Erik upstairs.

"Magdalena!" Nonna called out and I looked up towards the top of the staircase where she stood.

"Si, Nonna!" I yelled back.

She placed her hands on her hips as if she was looking for me everywhere. "It's time for your milk bath. You know the tradition. I've drilled it into your head so many times. Non ascolti mai!"

"Scusa, Nonna," I apologized. "I'll go right away."

I made my way upstairs, grinning at my grandmother who was scowling. She was still beautiful for an old woman. Her hair was black, streaked with silver hairs. I knew she secretly dyed it. She loved to stay young. She constantly told me about how she was a catch back in her day, and I wouldn't doubt it. She had the softest brown eyes and even though her Sicilian-tanned skin was a little wrinkly now with old age, she was still so beautiful and elegant.

"You should chill, Nonna," I told her.

"I'll chill when I'm in grave, but I'd rather keep my watch on you," she grunted.

I cringed, completely not expecting that burn from her as I made my way to my bedroom. She was a spicy woman and no one could deny that.

That's probably the reason she and my mother never saw eye to eye. Nonna never spoke much about their strained relationship and I supposed it was because my mother was dead and she didn't want me growing up learning about the bad parts of their relationship. But Erik was here way before me and he'd tell me all about their fights and how my parents never got along, especially towards my mother's end days. He said my father hated her. Or at least that's the impression he got. Something had caused a rift between them. Erik never knew what it was, but it was enough to make my mother leave our family home for good. All I knew was that she turned up dead days later.

I never knew how she died. That was something that was kept in the shadows of this house's foundations.

Her death had been kept a secret from me until I was old enough to understand what had happened. Up until that moment, I always believed that my mother had abandoned us and I loathed her for it until I learned the truth. And once I knew that she was never coming back, I asked my father daily to tell me how she died and if she was in pain. I was constantly searching for answers. I remember one day in particular when I wouldn't stop asking. That was the day my father struck me across the face twice. He told me that day that some things are better left unsaid and that I shouldn't worry about such matters. So I visited her tomb instead at St. Augustine's Church not too far from our home. Nonna took me every Sunday to leave a bunch of Daffodils. They were her favorite flowers. I knew that much and the few memories I had of her singing old Sicilian melodies for me.

Closing my bedroom door behind me, I undressed, leaving my clothes in a puddle on the floor, and then I headed into the adjoining bathroom where the steaming milky bath had already been prepared.

I pulled my hair free from the ribbon and climbed into the tub, sighing as the hot milk and water soaked into my skin.

I leaned my head back against the edge of the marble tub, running my fingers along my body. My nipples hardened into rosy buds as my fingers grazed them and I let out a gasp as my hand traveled further and further until I was touching myself.

Perhaps tonight I would know what it felt like to be touched. Kissed. Ravaged. However, underneath all my excitement, I was a ball of nerves just waiting to explode into a million pieces. I think I was scared of the unknown. I shouldn't have been scared though. Girls in Sicily wait till they're my age and if they're lucky, they were going to snag a handsome suitor too. I grew up with dreams of having my own big family one day, just as my father had successfully created his own.

I remembered something my father would tell Erik and me when we were teenagers. Dream, he said, and then when you wake up to reality, build those dreams.

That's exactly what I was going to do. Build those dreams starting today.

Glancing at the large clock on the wall, above the bathroom door, I saw that it was still 10:35 a.m. My wedding took place at 2:00 p.m. and then we'd host a late lunch in the backyard where Nonna was busy preparing for days.

All that was left for me to do now was to get into my wedding dress. I hadn't had a chance to look at it yet, but he had chosen it, after asking for all my specific measurements. Sure, I wanted to choose my own dress, but my father said that this was one of the many gifts a bride should accept for her wedding from her husband. I was okay with that considering I got to have a say in his tuxedo. Whatever my dress looked like, I was sure that we would match perfectly. You could never go wrong with a tuxedo.

Closing my eyes once again, I tried to conjure up the perfect image of him in my head so that I could touch myself, but I couldn't. I just couldn't. Obviously, I'd seen him, but my brain was being stupid and I just couldn't settle the raging nerves in the pit of my stomach.

There was a knock at my bathroom door.

"Yes?" I called out.

"I hope you're out of that tub already!" Nonna said on the other side of the door.

Sighing, I giggled softly as I sat up and began scrubbing my body.

"I'm done," I lied, smiling to myself.