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Prologue
ANNA
That was a hollow victory,
The kind that had dragged me under like a rope around my ankle until I'd left the light of my normal life behind. A life where I might’ve met a nice boring guy and had a nice boring future, one filled with promise. But that’s not what I wound up with. My future wasn’t up to me anymore, it was once, but now it's filled with danger. But it’s all gone now, stolen by the burning need to escape. If only we hadn’t tried to deceive them, we might’ve had a chance.
If only…
“Take it off, Anna.”
His words had come from behind me as I lifted my trembling hands to missed buttons and torn lace. Still, I'd made do, wanting it. God, I'd wanted it. My lips throbbed from his kiss. My heart betrayed my own skin. It reacted to him…fluttering like a raven trapped in my chest.
“Make your decision, launderer,” Finley Salvatore had murmured in my ear. “Be mine forever.”
Forever.I knew what the word meant from someone like him. It meant there was no more fighting, no more finding a way out, no more trying to escape the unmerciful grip of the Salvatores. We’d be laundering their dirty money for as long as we lived.
Owned…by him, by Finley Salvatore…
“Anna…no!”my father screamed from the room next door. “Let her go, youfucking bastard!”
I closed my eyes to the feel of Finley, his warmth at my back as his hand closed around my throat. He had blood on his knuckles, blood he'd spilled for me.
But it wasn't his blood…
Not yet, at least.
He'd said he’d fight for me, said he’d inflict the kind of violence that’d make me scared of him. I knew what he'd done…I also knew he was capable of much worse. I knew that because he had everything now.
My loyalty and my lies.
Every dark, dirty secret I’d ever owned.
They were his demons to carry around now.
He'd said he’d wear them with pride.
If I'd had the chance to start over, would I have come here to this place…to Cosa Nostra Institute, a place controlled by the ruthless Mafia Commission? I wanted to say no.
I wanted to say the price was too great. You see, when you lay with lions, you weren’t really protected. You just realize you weren’t who you thought you were at all.
When you lay with lions…you’re just like them. A predator…
I'd come here to find a way out of this world, but instead I’d been sucked deeper and deeper into it. So deep I can’t find my way out of the darkness, so deep that all the laundering in the world won’t make up for it. Maybe I don’t want to anymore. Maybe here I could finally make a home…a home with him.
“Make your decision, Anna. Will you take my money?” he asked again. “Take it dirty and make it clean?”
We stared at each other. He knew I wanted more than that. He knew money wasn’t something I craved. A billion dollars laundered? It meant nothing to me. But him, on other hand? Him I wanted so much, it burned.
My father roared his fury in the other room as I lifted my gaze to the mirror and the faint glow of the flames that flickered and danced on the thick wad of cash in his hand.Launder their money…the words consumed me. All their bloodstained, filthy money.
Did I want that? To belong to them?To belong to him…
The answer roared inside me, an answer I couldn’t fight anymore.
Yes…
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