Chapter one
You don’t become queen without burying a few kings…
That’s what my Nonna whispered in my ear the day they closed the lid on my father’s casket.
The last time I saw his face as he took decades’ worth of secrets six feet under.
Little did I know those mysteries and feuds would soon become mine.
The reference to kings had nothing to do with my father.
He was a king who would go down as a hero in the eyes of this family.
Yet his untimely death shook our family to the core. I always thought it was suspicious, even though there was never any evidence of foul play.
But the empire must continue.
And it has, with me at the helm.
According to my father’s will, it was ruled that I would be the boss of the Capuano family.
At the ripe age of twenty-one, I was placed in charge of one of the most powerful families in the city.
No pressure.
However, Nonna’s warning meant that I now found myself the only queen in a sea of kings that would like nothing more than for me to join my father.
Me vs. all the heads of the other families.
Me vs. all the men.
Terrified doesn’t even begin to cover it. I didn’t know shit about running the family business and I certainly didn’t know anything about killing people.
Bloodshed was my father’s prerogative.
I, on the other hand, was always a lover girl.
I’m sure my father was bitter at the fact his seed only sprouted women.
But as the oldest in a family of women, it was my duty.
For fourteen years, this has been my fucking life.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped being the girl who inherited an empire and became the woman who runs it.
I’ve survived in a world that was never meant for me.
Still alive.
Still in charge.
Still a problem no one’s managed to bury… yet.
It’s crazy how this business will turn anyone into the coldest-hearted person around.
Goodbye lover girl.
Nostalgia and remembrance always flood my thoughts on this day. Brushing a stray hair from my shoulder, I wonder what my life would have been like if father was still in charge. I knew I would have to take over the family business one day, but later would have been better.
