“I love you so fucking much,” he growled, his grip tightening on my face. My lips parted, and my stomach flipped because I’d never seen him like this before. “I need you to know that. I need you to know that what I’m about to tell you won’t change anything between us. You’re mine, and no one can take you from me.”
I wrapped my hand around his wrist, my heart pounding. “Sani, what’s going on?”
He swallowed hard. He let his hands slip down my neck in a soothing caressand rest on my shoulders as he held my gaze. “Callum didn’t talk, but one of his men did. Although I’m not sure they were even his men. The soldier was Irish.”
My eyebrows drew together. “Irish?”
“Si. They were planning to take you to Ireland. To a relative.”
“What?” I scoffed. “I don’t have any Irish relatives.”
“That you know of,” he said softly. He licked his lips to stall his next sentence. “You have an uncle. Sean McKenna. I believe he was the man yourmammawas running from. Your mother was Aisling McKenna, born an Irish Mafia princess to the largest and most powerful Irish mob. Aisling McKenna went missing when she was seventeen. A few weeks after her parents were brutally murdered by her brother, Sean.”
I stared at him, my head shaking as my body moved of its own accord. I threw the cover off me and got to my feet, pushing past him to pace the bedroom.
“How… how is that…? What? I don’t understand…” Words were spilling from my mouth, but I had no idea what I was trying to say. My mum wasn’t an Irish Mafia princess. She wasn’t even Irish. There was no way.
“The earliest Nero could find anything on her was when she was nineteen and arrived in France with a new identity. She must have been lying low for two years, just trying to survive.”
He moved to the bed, perched on the side and watched me carefully, giving me space to process.
“This is… crazy! Insane. It can’t be true!”
His gaze shifted to my locket. “There are rumours that the McKennas first made their wealth and power as dockworkers and sailors back in the early 1900s, smuggling uncut, raw gemstones from the British Colonies.”
I grabbed the sapphire in my palm and squeezed as the denial turned into horror.
“Callum is working with your uncle, Aria. We believe Callum’s a bastard Leone who had his own vendetta against my family and must have teamed up with the McKennas. The Leones and McKennas used to be allies. They had a business arrangement, but when the Leones were killed and dismantled, the contract became invalid. My family refused to associate with the McKennas, as they had allied with enemies of ours. A few years ago, after they heard we’d entered into a new pact with the New York Mafia to grant them access to our Roman port, the Irish came back to us, wanting the same deal. We declined. They must have taken that personally. This explains how Callum has been funded without any trace of illegal money laundering or fraud. Sean must have set him up with a new identity and a plausible backstory.”
I stopped pacing and asked, “Do you think Sean killed my mum? Her own brother?”
Sani nodded. “He’s not a good man, Aria. He killed his parents just to take control of the family. He most likely didn’t kill her himself, but the order would have come from him.”
“But why?” I choked, fresh tears brimming in my eyes.
“I can only imagine what kind of future yourmammaknew she had if she had stayed in Ireland under his control. She would have been sold into a marriage alliance at some point. She ran. By the time Sean probably found her, she would have been too old to be of any use to him. But you…”
A shudder trickled down my spine. Of course. “But why wouldn’t he take me the night of the fire? Why wait for years and take me now?”
Sani stood up and wrapped his arms around me. “Men like Sean McKenna see people as assets. Things they can use to gain an advantage or power. Whatever reason he had for killing yourmammaand letting you go would have been for his own gain. My guess… he figured out who yourpapiwas and saw it as a way into Italy undetected. He wanted you to go to Rome. He sent Callum to stay close to you and manipulate Piero into targeting me. We lost our port. Our deals with other mafia families have fallen apart or are extremely strained. Our reputation has been tarnished. And I nearly ended up in prison, losing our control of the capital. Who would benefit from all of that? McKenna.”
“And now he’s after me? Because he thinks he owns me? A man I’ve never even met!”
Sani grabbed my face. “He doesn’t. You’ve never been a McKenna, Aria. You were a Caruso, and now you’re a Buccini. I will always protect you. My family will always protect you. He’ll never get to you. Okay?”
I nodded slowly as he wiped the tears from my eyes. But we both knew it wouldn’t be that simple. If Sean McKenna had gone to all this trouble already, he wasn’t about to give up.
The numbness had overshadowed the shock and fear.
An Irish Mafia princess by blood.
I’d never even set foot in Ireland. My mum didn’t even have an Irish accent. Or perhaps she’d just learned how to hide it.
I blinked, letting my vision sharpen back into our living room where the urgent family meeting was taking place. They were all there. Alessio had flown in with Elenora and their teenage twins. Giovanni, Olivia, Liliana, and Raffaele were sitting on the neighbouring sofa. Even Cecilia was present, sitting next to Soraya at the dining table. Max was bedridden, recovering from being shot, but his andCamilla’s faces filled a screen propped up on the coffee table.
Apparently, my identity wasn’t the only problem. The greater issue was that Santino had married me and broken the oldest tradition among mafia families. Marriage alliances are the most powerful and sacred bonds. Marrying a mafia princess into a rival family without her family’s consent or knowledge was the most barbaric and disrespectful act.
Alessio stood at the front of us all with his arms folded. “McKenna will be expecting Callum and Arianna in Ireland any day now. Which means we don’t have much time to rectify this.”
