Chapter 1

My boyfriend lost me in a poker game.

To the most dangerous man in New York.

Then he posted my fattest photo to the entire family.

"Two hundred pounds of payment," he wrote. "No returns."

Two hundred made men laughed.

None of them knew I had just landed at JFK.

Or who I had become.

My phone hadn't stopped buzzing since the wheels touched the runway. I was still on the jet bridge when I opened The Line, the encrypted chat every soldier, capo, and wife in the Valenti family lived on.

A blood-red banner sat at the top of the screen.

[Congratulations to Don Dante Castellano, Head of the Commission, on winning tonight's marker from the Valenti family.]

Below it was a photo of the betting slip from the private table at the Velvet Room.

Loser: Marco Ricci, Acting Boss of the Valenti Family.

Marker: Sienna Valenti.

Me.

Marco Ricci. My secret boyfriend of three years. The man who called me in Italy every single night and whispered that he was counting the days until I came home.

I came home. He had sold me before my plane even reached the gate.

Then he uploaded the photo himself.

It was me at nineteen. Two hundred pounds. A black funeral dress straining at the seams, mascara running down my cheeks, eyes begging the camera not to look at me. It was taken the day we buried my father, Don Salvatore Valenti.

[Marco Ricci: Gentlemen, meet the marker. Fresh from Europe. Don Castellano, if she's too heavy to carry, I'll throw in a case of Barolo as an apology.]

The comments poured in like a flood.

[Is this a payment or a punishment??]

[Italy fed her good. 250 easy.]

[Castellano's gonna need a forklift lmao]

[Can't shoot, can't talk business, can't fit in a chair. Old Salvatore's bloodline went out with a whimper.]

Useless. That word had followed me through my father's funeral like a bad smell. In a family of killers, a soft, crying girl was nothing.

Ding.

A private voice note from Marco. His voice was thick with whiskey and boredom.

"Sienna, don't make this a whole thing. Castellano was at the table. If I didn't put up something big, we lose the Brooklyn docks. You're Salvatore's daughter. Serving the family is your job. Velvet Room, tomorrow, midnight. Smile. Don't embarrass me."

My hand shook so hard I nearly dropped the phone.

Three years. I had given him my father's chair. My trust. My nights. My whole broken heart. To him, I was a poker chip.

Then a poll appeared in the chat.

[BET: Does the fat princess actually show her face tomorrow night?]

Marco didn't hesitate.

[Marco Ricci: $30K says she hides under her bed and cries.]

A sugary voice note followed. Gia Lombardi. The capo's daughter every man in Little Italy drooled over. The woman whose perfume I had smelled on Marco's collar a year ago and told myself I'd imagined.

"Marco, don't be so mean to poor Sienna! She can't help being... you know. Sweetie, if you're scared, just beg. I'll ask Don Castellano to go easy on you."

I walked into the airport restroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror.

I took off my sunglasses. I slid off my heavy coat.

The woman in the mirror wore a black silk slip dress. Sharp collarbones. A waist you could circle with two hands. Long, lean legs carved from a year of five a.m. training sessions on the cliffs above Monaco. Ninety pounds gone.

And something else. Something I had learned in the back rooms of Monte Carlo that no one in the Valenti family knew I could do.

I had flown home for love.

Turns out, I had flown home for war.

I opened the betting poll. Linked my card. Typed in a number.

$50,000 on [She shows up.]

The chat froze for three full seconds. Then it exploded.

[WHO JUST DROPPED 50K ON HER SHOWING UP??]

I wiped away one last tear and sent my first message in a year.

[Sienna Valenti: I'll be there at midnight. Wear something you don't mind getting champagne on.]

The laughter stopped cold.

Then, for the first time in the history of The Line, the solid black icon at the very top of the member list lit up.

The account that had never spoken. The man four families obeyed without question.

Dante Castellano was typing.