Page 166 of Fall Before Her Throne

“Wagers are not guarantees that our family will survive.”

“I know, but⁠—”

“Plus, she doesn’t want that leadership,” I said. “You heard her voice. She just wants to be left alone.”

Leona nodded. “I know. I’m not sure what the right thing to do is. But I…I just don’t want you to get too deep into this.” She grabbed my hands. “We keep each other safe. Our family does. Trusting each other does. Loving each other does. Leading the Camorra won’t solve the problems we face every day. It will just make them worse.”

“I…”

“Just think about other options, okay?” She squeezed my hand. Caspian called for her from downstairs, and she leaned over the bannister to shout back at him. “No matter what happens, though, I trust you.”

She headed downstairs, leaving me to contemplate the possibilities of our future.

I frowned while I listened to her chat with Caspian. The first day we came to our new home, Leona had expressed something similar. Max had even warned against trying to usurp the Camorra’s place of power—he’d called me greedy for not just trying to shut it all down. But I wasn’t sure how to reconcile the opportunity their organization gave us with the caution they both expressed.

Could neither of them see what I could see?

Or was I the one missing something?

53

LEONA

The gala was here. The Camorra had been in New York for three weeks, and they were already ingratiating themselves into the upper echelons of society. It had to stop before we couldn’t control it any longer.

My eyes scanned the guest list that Ciel, Max, and Obi had prepared while I finished taming my curls into a half-up, half-down style. I pulled a bobby pin from between my lips and used it to pin the last curl into place. Then, I picked out a few strategic wisps to frame my face and inspected my work—a dark cat eye, light gold shimmer on my eyes, and a red lip.

Makeup felt like armor. It hid the dark circles under my eyes and smoothed the imperfections I worried over, even though none of my men seemed to notice or care about them. And was there any reason for me to fret over them? When I was also strapping a gun and knife to my thigh, just in case someone tried to kill me?

Probably not.

The makeup still made me feel badass. Polished. Like if I pretended hard enough, acted the part, I just might pull the queen act off.

My eyes caught on the left side of my face. Then I glanced at the pale, fading marks on my chest, peeking out from underneath my robe. Remnants of the pain I’d survived.

I still woke up from nightmares, terrified and gasping. I still felt cold in my bones.

But those scars didn’t hurt me anymore. My men were right: carrying our pain together made it easier.

I picked up a Q-tip and used it to clear the makeup off my scar. To show off the evidence of my strength, despite how heavy it sometimes felt. Greco wanted to break us. I’d already broken before, and my men had put me back together. I wouldn’t break again.

My palm spread over the dossier, tracing over the pictures of the people who were supposed to be at the fundraising gala tonight.

Politicians, lawmakers, businessmen. People who we had caught doing even worse shit than we did, pretending like they were sparkling white angels who should be in charge.

We weren’t perfect. We were objectively bad people. We were criminals who killed people, sold drugs, and distributed weapons. My entire business—the mafia organization—profited off breaking the law and getting away with it.

But there had to be shades between black and white, right?

We weren’t like them.

I might be a criminal, but I was better than these people who pretended to be good but were the worst of all. Better than the Camorra, who drained country after country dry just because they could.

Fighting them, trying to carve out just a sliver of goodness even amongst the bad, was worth it. We weren’t called the fucking Shadows for nothing. Light and dark coexisted.

A knock on the wall outside the bathroom pulled me from my thoughts. Max stood in the doorway, dressed in a handsome tux, with a black garment bag hanging from his fingertips. He held it up with a smile.

“Got you something.”