I watch as they lower my father’s body into the ground. Devyn stands next to me, but she doesn’t even attempt to appear saddened. Her husband, Timofei, stands on her other side, and my wife stands on mine. Wife, the word is almost comical when it comes to Fallon. She is the mother of my children, she carries my last name, and yet, she is a stranger. She’s not the girl I married all those years ago. She’s morphed into a woman that I don’t recognize—selfish, bitter, and angry.

The funeral is short, not the normal Catholic mass that my father would want. In all honesty, he’s lucky he’s getting buried in a cemetery at all. He fucked with Devyn, his own daughter’s life, tried to barter her and use her for his gain. It isn’t abnormal in our life to do something like that, but Patrick O’Neil played too fucking dirty for too long. He tried to fuck over the Russians, and simultaneously, the Cartel.

The fucking fool.

I’m not a fool like my father though. I sat back and watched the way he worked. I learned quickly what not to do in life. When the opportunity presented itself to align with the Russians, I took advantage. Not only to save our group but to help my baby sister out as well.

Patrick O’Neil was a bastard of epic proportions, and his reign of terror did not end once we walked through the front door of our childhood home. Devyn was a good girl, always the dutiful daughter, but not because she necessarily wanted to be, but because she was threatened within an inch of her life to be. We all were.

My own wife, Fallon, could learn a thing or two from my sweet baby sister. Maybe all of us could. Maybe if our other siblings, Callum and Brenna, had paid more attention on how to act, they’d still be alive. Instead, they’re burning in hell with our father.

“Brother,” Mannix murmurs.

Looking around I notice that I’m sitting in front of the casket, now alone. I lift my chin “Mannix,” I say.

My brother is only ten months younger than me, and the closest of all my siblings. He’s also the smartest. Father hated him, beat him throughout our childhood and adulthood because he was so intelligent. Jealousy can be an ugly fucking thing. Nothing would stop Mannix though, he’s the only one of us who is college educated, and he did that shit all on his own. He’s my confidant and right-hand man.

“He’s gone. It only took one little girl to rid the world of the bastard,” he grunts.

He’s speaking of our sister, Devyn. She killed him, in a room full of men watching; she pulled out a gun and shot our father in the head. I’ve never been so proud of her than I was at that exact moment. Maybe that makes me as sick as Patrick, I don’t know, but I smiled when the fuck died, and when it was his quietest and most obedient child to do the deed.

“It’s fitting she’s the one who did it,” I say with a smile playing on my lips.

He nods with his own smile. “Time to clean house, now.”

I lift my chin. I know exactly what he’s referring to. Not only do I need to clean house within my father’s organization. I also need to clean my personal house, and Fallon is the first piece of business I intend to deal with. “Indeed,” I agree with a nod.

Standing from the chair, I decide there is no time like the present. Turning away from my father’s casket, I make my way toward the waiting limousine. There will be no reception afterward, no celebration of life. How do you celebrate the life of a tyrant? Especially when the only people left to remember him are the ones he abused.

Once I slip inside of the limousine, I let out a breath. Fallon is on the complete other side and it’s just the two of us. I didn’t force the children to come to this event. School is more important than the funeral of a grandfather who ignored their existence. Sunday dinners were the only time he saw them, but I don’t remember him ever even talking to any of them.

“Driver, take me to the club,” she announces, her overly pouty lips painted bright red with glossy lipstick.

“No, take us to my office,” I state.

Fallon’s eyes widen before they narrow. “Your office? Why?” she sneers.

I ignore her. She doesn’t need to know the reason why, yet. She will soon enough. The driver pulls into the parking lot of where my office is located. It isn’t anything fancy, a cliché actually. A bar my family has owned for generations. It started when the O’Neils came over from Ireland.

Two of my brothers run the daily operations, Lachlann and Shaughan. They’re part of the organization as well, but their main duty is to collect protection dues from the businesses in the neighborhood. They are also in charge of listening, of finding out any information, that I need to hear from the streets. They are invaluable. They are also the ones who informed me of my wife’s current activities.

I walk into the bar, listening to Fallon’s high heels click behind me. No doubt she looks as though she’s a newborn calf. The woman thinks she needs to wear the highest heels invented, even though she can’t fucking walk in them. She thinks she looks sexy, but instead she looks fucking sloppy.

“Sit,” I announce once we walk inside of my office.

Flipping the light on, I wait until she’s past the threshold and then I close, and lock, the door behind her. She walks over to the chair in front of my desk and slowly eases down. “What is this all about, Aidan?” she asks.

I watch as her bottom lip pokes out, her eyes dropping as she attempts to look almost seductive. After almost fifteen years, I know all of her looks and her manipulations.

Slowly, I walk over to my desk and sit down. Reaching to my left, I open the desk drawer and pull out the thick manila envelope. Another cliché of my life. My cheating whore of a wife. It shouldn’t surprise me. I can’t remember the last time she even got wet when we fucked. However, she knows what could happen to her if she were caught with another man—death.

I toss the envelope toward her without a word. Steepling my fingers together, I rest my chin on the tips and watch her. She gently pulls the flap up, then slips her hand inside. I watch as my diamond ring catches on the paper in the process. It’s gaudy, ugly as fuck, but it’s what she wanted for our ten-year anniversary, so it’s what she got.

Her eyes widen when she looks at the first picture, then she flips through the rest and her chest starts to rise and fall rapidly as she attempts to catch her breath.

“What should I do with you, Fallon?” I ask, keeping my voice low and calm.

Her wide green eyes look up at me, her pumped full of collagen bottom lip trembling. “It’ll never happen again, A. I swear it,” she says in a pleading voice.

I snort at her words. “I know it won’t, Fallon. That doesn’t answer my question, what should I do with you?”

“What do you mean?” she whimpers.

Leaning back in my chair, I place my hands on the armrests. “The rules of our contract, of our world, state that you fuck someone else, and I can kill you. Nobody would bat an eye.” I shrug.

She lifts her hand to her throat and wraps her fingers around. “You wouldn’t. I’m the mother of your children,” she cries out dramatically.

“Are they mine?” I question out of spite.

I know they’re mine. Even if they weren’t, I love them all equally and I would never want to know the truth. They’re mine. Her eyes narrow but she doesn’t respond to my harsh question. “Are you going to kill me, A? Are you going to be as cruel as your father?” she asks.

What I should do is backhand her just for that comment alone. However, I don’t. I am not my father. I don’t get off on hitting women and children, on forcing people to cower down at my feet. Standing, I dig my phone out of my pocket. Scrolling through my contacts, I call one of my brothers.

“Rian, it’s time,” I state when he picks up my call.

“No, noooo,” Fallon screams.

She knows who Rian is, he’s our organization’s grim reaper. Her time has come. My brother knocks on the door only a few seconds later, Fallon’s screams still filling the room, but I find that they don’t bother me as much as I had thought they would. Opening the door, I let my brother walk in. Only the sight of him quiets Fallon’s screams. Her watery eyes look over to me, then meet his, then turn back to me.

“Please, don’t do this, Aidan. We loved each other once, we can again,” she whimpers.

Rian chuckles. He knows love. His wife is a rare gem, and she is completely devoted to him. “I never want to see you again, Fallon. As far as the world knows, you’re fucking dead.”

Lifting my chin to my brother, he dips his own to me. I watch as he wraps his hand around Fallon’s bicep and drags her out of my office. When the door slams closed behind them, I know that that chapter of my life is fucking over.

My father looks down his nose at me. His black eyes are cold, so cold that I always expect them to instantly turn blue when they meet my own. I don’t see him often, not that I ever did. My mother was his whore, a kept woman that he had on the side. He showered her in furs, jewels, a free place to live, and he gave her me. Unfortunately, he didn’t have use for a bastard kid, especially a girl. Not when he had a small baseball team’s worth of kids with his actual wife.

I should feel lucky. Antonio Rossi never beat me, he never talked down to me, but he also never once acknowledged me. I have never been allowed to call him dad or father. He has always been known to me as Mr. Rossi.

When it was his time to visit my mother, she would prepare for days ahead of time. She would clean everything, even if it had already been clean. She would hire a babysitter to take me away, and I wouldn’t return for three days. Every single time.

As I grew, those visits became less and less. My mother turned to drinking and in one of her drunken sob fests one evening when I was ten she admitted that he hadn’t been seeing her anymore. She told me that he had found someone younger, and, why wouldn’t he? Antonio Rossi was head of the local Italian mafia.

He took me away when I turned thirteen. I didn’t know where I was going, or why. All I knew was that Mr. Rossi came and told me to pack a small bag. I put my most valuable possessions inside, my iPod, my journal, and a picture of my best friends. Then I filled it with clothes.

I thought maybe he was going to take me home, to his home. He didn’t. His black eyes met mine as soon as the door closed, and his driver pulled onto the street.

“You’re going to a friend’s place. She’ll take care of you until it’s time for you to work for me.”

“Work for you?” I whisper.

He smirks. “Yes, Giovanna, work. You are of no use to me as a daughter. I cannot barter you for a marriage because you’re just a bastard. So, all I can do is put you to work when you’re of age. Your mother is a drunk mess. I no longer plan on taking care of her, and you are not a bargaining chip for her. So, you’ll go to this house, live and observe. Learn, and if you’re good, then you will have a prosperous life.”

“What will I do?” I ask, his intensity too great, so my eyes automatically point down to my feet.

“Why, my pretty little daughter,” he hisses. “You’ll be the best whore in New York.”

I shiver, thinking of that moment. The moment I found out that I was to be a whore working for my father. He lifts his hand and cups my cheek, the move seemingly tender. However, I learned a long time ago that there is not a single tender bone in Antonio Rossi’s hands.

“You make me the most money, of any of the girls,” he states. I nod.

I do make him the most money. I’m the most requested call girl he has. Most of the women hate me, my clients are always the best. Sometimes I even like them, and I don’t mind being their whore—sometimes.

“There will be an opportunity coming up for you. I’ll let you make your own decision on the matter.”

I gulp, wondering what kind of game he’s playing. “What kind of decision?” I ask, keeping my eyes cast down.

“Stay here, or whore for the Russians.”

My head snaps up and my eyes meet his. “The Russians,” I rasp.

He releases my face and sits back in his chair, a smug look curved on his mouth. “The Russians. We have a trade deal of sorts. A whore, trade deal. Their clients want new pussy, as do mine. I’m giving you the opportunity to go, not because you aren’t valuable, but as a good show of faith, because you are the most valuable whore I own.”

I want to cringe at his words. Own. I’m not his daughter, I’m his slave, his whore. Granted, he doesn’t fuck me, thank God, but he does dangle me around to all of his associates. He boasts about my abilities, about the men who pay tens of thousands of dollars for just one evening of my company. Men who crave Giovanna, for just the taste of her.

“When do you need your answer by?” I ask.

His lips break into a wide smile. “That is the only answer I need. Pack what you need to take with you. A new wardrobe already awaits at your new home. Just pack your personal shit. I’ll be back in an hour.”

I nod. “Yes, Mr. Rossi.”

There would be no use to fight him. He already had a decision made, he knew what he wanted. He was just playing mind games with me. Standing, I smooth down my pencil skirt and suck in a breath, turning away from him.

“Oh, and, Giovanna?” he calls out. I stop, pivoting to face him again. “Wear something to show off my asset. You’re meeting the Pakhan and his men.”

Lifting my chin, I turn away from him again and make my way toward my room. The madam is standing at the door, a medium sized cardboard box in her hand. “Giovanna,” she murmurs.

“Thank you, Carmella,” I exhale, taking the box from her.

She gives me a sad smile. “I will miss you, pretty girl. Be good for your new madam, okay?”

“I will,” I agree, walking into my room and closing the door behind me.

I try not to think about Carmella. She raised me after I was taken from my mother. She taught me how to be a woman. She taught me the art of seduction. Then, when I was old enough, she taught me the skills that make me a better whore than she ever was. If it weren’t for her, Antonio Rossi wouldn’t be as impressed with me as he is.

Reaching into my closet, I pull out a clingy, royal blue satin dress. It has a little stretch woven in with the fabric that allows it to hug every single curve of mine, accentuating my body beneath. My mother gave me her dark eyes, but when the sun catches them the right way you can see that they’re not black, they’re actually blue. She also blessed me with her perfectly proportionate, lushly curved body. My father gave me his darker olive toned skin, black as midnight thick hair, and thick lips.

Slipping my feet into a pair of gold high heels, I grab the only thing I really care about. My picture of my friends from junior high, my iPod that doesn’t work anymore, and a stack of five journals. Nothing else matters, it’s all just—stuff. It feels like déjà vu, packing up to leave my home again, taking my few meager possessions. Being sent to an unknown place, my life being uprooted yet again at the whim of my father.

My father made it perfectly clear that my clothes and lingerie weren’t needed, so I don’t bother even looking into my closet. I don’t really own any of it anyway, not that I ever did. I may be the highest sought-after whore in my father’s stable, but I’m also a whore that isn’t allowed to keep a penny of her earnings. His promise of a prosperous life was nothing but words to make himself feel better.

Carmella has been in charge of purchasing my clothes and shoes, and anything that I might need. I have never seen a dime of the money I’ve earned. My father didn’t lie when he said he owned me, he very much does. There is no way out of his grasp, but maybe, maybe being owned by the Russians will feel less suffocating—maybe.

“Ready?” His voice calls out from the other side of my closed bedroom door.

I glance at myself in the mirror and let out a sigh. I’m not ready, but I don’t have a choice. Gathering my few possessions in my hands, I turn away from my bed, flipping the light off and walk away from everything I have ever known.