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CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS A spectacularly beautiful day to become an orphan.
Despite the profoundly sacrilegious thought, Odessa Santella breathed in deep, letting the salt-tinged sea breeze fill her lungs, tilting her head to the sunrays in the hope it would reach her cold, frozen insides. She dug her bare toes into the rough pebbles beneath her feet, willing the discomfort to ground her.
Opening eyes she’d squeezed shut, the better to experience this monumental day, she watched dappling light bouncing off the water, ignoring the craggy cliff face, the sheer drop and the jagged, deadly rocks ten feet beyond where she stood.
It was indeed a beautiful day to—
A rough throat was cleared behind her, shattering her peace—such as it was.
‘Signorina.’
The prompt held warning, as most of her interactions with anyone connected to her father had for as long as she could remember.
It didn’t matter that her father was dead. That she was minutes away from witnessing the final rituals following his death. She would never be free of him. He’d seen to that in the meticulous, cruel way he’d ruled her life.
Odessa took one resigned step back, then another, her pitch-black dress growing heavier on her body as the breeze dropped away and the weight of fate pressed down on her. Taking another moment, she slid her black pumps back onto her feet.
She’d thought she’d be free once Elio Santella had succumbed to his cancer.
How foolish she’d been!
A hundred yards away, two dozen pairs of eyes watched her approach, each set evaluating her, wondering whether she would become a problem they’d have to deal with or whether she would, like all the other women in the family, know her place. Stay in her place.
One set in particular made her skin crawl. Dark as soot. Deadly as a viper.
Vincenzo Bartorelli had revealed his intentions the second Odessa had turned twenty-one. It had only been through a series of mishaps keeping him out of her father’s good grace that she’d been saved from his unwanted advances for the last seven years.
Now, with her father out of the picture, this man who was over twice her age all but salivated every time he clapped eyes on her. And he’d made sure those occasions were frequent since Elio’s death a week ago.
Hell, he would’ve all but moved into the twenty-bedroom mansion her father had called his castle but Odessa termed her prison, if Uncle Flávio hadn’t called first dibs on the property he’d not so secretly coveted since his brother had built it thirty years ago.
Her gaze slid over to her uncle, hoping for some sign that the nightmare hurtling towards her was all in her fevered imagination. The harsh look reprimanding her for keeping everyone waiting and warning her not to make a scene eviscerated any such hope.
His eyes trained on her, he tapped his hand against his leg in silent summons—a demeaning cue he’d picked up from her father. She wanted to yell that she wasn’t a dog to be called to heel. Pursing her lips, she slowed her feet and lifted her chin, her heart thumping as his eyes narrowed.
No doubt her rebellion would earn her punishment before sundown, but she’d grown accustomed to verbal lashes and the occasional backhander.
At some point she’d decided that not behaving herself was worth it.
It kept her soul from shrivelling and dying.
She slotted herself into the too-narrow gap between her two living tormenters and stared down at the casket containing her dead one.
Her father had grown more bitter and vicious in the months before his death. The news that his illness was terminal had warped him into a crueller version of the previously tyrannical mob boss everyone feared. Faced with his dwindling mortality, Elio hadn’t sought to go peacefully. He’d railed against fate and everyone who came within ten feet of him, blaming everyone and everything but the expensive cigars he’d inhaled every day for five decades.
Odessa listened to the priest intone words of peace and salvation. Her lips twisted. Her heart was unable to wish this man who’d tormented her for so long rest. She hoped her mother gave him hell in the afterlife, the way she hadn’t dared when she was alive. She hoped—
Her thoughts stalled, then scattered as the muttering around the graveside rose.
‘What are they doing here?’
‘Is that really him?’
‘I never thought I’d see him here ever again.’
‘Have you heard how powerful he is now?’
