CHAPTER 1

EVELINA

“It’s time.”

I don’t move.

“Evelina,” my mother hisses behind me, her voice tight. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

Harder for who?

I stare at myself in the mirror. The gown clings to my skin like it wants to suffocate me.

I’m twenty-two. I should be graduating. Falling in love. Living.

Instead, I’m being handed over like an envelope full of cash — traded by my family to settle old debts with the Moretti mafia.

They call it ...