The clock struck midnight, and Emilia Conti's life became a prison.
She stood stiffly in her father's marble-floored dining room, her black birthday dress itching at the collar.
Twenty-one candles burned on a cake no one would eat. Her father, Don Vittorio Conti, sat at the head of the table, his gold ring tapping against his wine glass.
"Sit," he ordered.
Emilia obeyed. The guards by the door—men she'd known since childhood—wouldn't even meet her eyes.
"You're a woman now," Vittorio said. His voice was cold, like the gunmetal gray of his suit. "Time to stop acting like a child. You'll marry Enzo Marchetti next month. Your engagement is tomorrow morning."
The words hit Emilia like a slap.
Marchetti.
The family her father had cursed at dinner tables for years. The ones who'd shot and killed her brother, Paolo and his pregnant wife, leaving her ten year old niece an orphan. That Marchetti?
"You're… selling me to our enemies?" she whispered.
Emilia couldn't say she was surprised.
It was after all Vittorio she was dealing with, he would whore out his own mother if it benefited him.
Daughters were nothing but trade cards... ask Liliana Conti, Emilia's older sister. Three children under the age of four, heavily pregnant again and paraded around town like a fucking breeding mare by the Kamikaze family - Japanese Mafia. But as long as Vittorio gets his shipping yard then all is well that ends well.
Vittorio's fist slammed the table. "You'll end this blood feud! No more arguments. Guards—take her to her room."
Emilia didn't fight as two men led her upstairs.
She'd spent years obeying—wearing the clothes her father picked, smiling at his associates, swallowing her screams into silk pillows. But tonight, staring at the high walls of her gilded bedroom, something snapped.
She texted the only person who'd understand:
> They're making me marry a Marchetti.
Linda replied in seconds:
< Girl, we're breaking you out. 1 AM. Window. Be ready.
*
At 1:07 AM, the mansion's smoke alarms screamed to life.
Right on time Emilia thought, her pulse roaring in her ears as she hurled pillows under the bedsheets.
Linda had promised the guards would be distracted—not just by the alarms, but by the sleeping pills she'd slipped into their nightly coffee.
"Enough to make them sluggish, not suspicious," she'd texted earlier. Still, Emilia's hands trembled as she climbed onto the balcony ledge.
Four floors below, Linda's stolen delivery van idled in the shadows, its headlights off. She waved a flashlight in frantic circles.
"Jump onto the awning!" Linda hissed, her voice barely audible over the blaring alarms.
Emilia's silk dress snagged on the railing as she swung her legs over. For a heartbeat, she froze—What if the awning tears? What if I break my neck?—then leapt.
She missed.
Thorns ripped through her dress as she crashed into the rose bushes below, the scent of crushed petals and iron flooding her nose. A scream tore from her throat.
"Dio mio—"
"Shut up!" Linda vaulted over the garden wall, her curls spilling from a security guard's cap. "You're bleeding."
"You said the awning was reinforced!"
"I said maybe!" Linda yanked her free, leaving a trail of bloodied thorns. "Move—Giovanni's shift starts in two minutes, and he actually does his job."
They lurched into the van, tires screeching as Linda peeled onto the road. Behind them, shouts erupted—"Find her!"—but Emilia didn't look back.
She clutched her torn palm, the pain sharp and sweet. Alive. Free.
Linda tossed her a duffel bag. "Change. And ditch the phone—GPS is probably pinging your dad already."
Emilia fumbled with a sequined crop top and jeans, her fingers still shaking. "Where'd you get these?"
"Stole 'em from my sister's closet. Figured she owes me for decapitating my doll when I was six. Have you spoken to your sister about your father's madness?"
Liliana. The Kamikaze family's "breeding mare."
Emilia's throat tightened. "No but I won't end up like her, Lyn. I won't. Where are we going?"
"You will see. Just the hottest club in town"
*
La Luna wasn't a club—it was a crypt. A sweat-drenched basement throbbing with strobe lights and the reek of cheap tequila.
Emilia's ears rang as Linda dragged her inside, past a bouncer with knuckle tattoos spelling OMERTÀ.
"Drink this." Linda shoved a neon-pink cocktail into her hand. "Tokyo Iced Tea. It will steady your nerve"
Emilia gagged at the syrupy sweetness. "What if someone recognizes me?"
"You think anyone here cares about Contis?" Linda spun her toward the dance floor, where bodies writhed under a flickering sign. "That guy's been eyeing you like dessert. Go!"
Him.
Tall, with a leather jacket hanging off broad shoulders and a smirk that cut through the haze. His eyes glinted—green flecked with gold, like a cat's. Unnerving. Familiar?
"Do it," Linda hissed. "Before your dad's goons raid the place."
Emilia stumbled toward the bar, the Tokyo Iced Tea burning her veins. The stranger's gaze tracked her, hungry and deliberate.
"You look lost," he said, voice smooth as the cognac he swirled in his glass.
"I'm not." She leaned closer, catching the scent of smoke and bergamot. "I'm celebrating."
"Yeah?" His thumb grazed her wrist, calloused and warm. "What's the occasion?"
"I turned twenty-one today." She lifted her chin. "And I'm making my own choices."
He laughed, low and dangerous. "Careful, princess. Choices have consequences."
Princess. Her stomach dropped. Does he know? That she was Conti.
Before she could retreat, he gripped her waist, pulling her into the crowd. His lips brushed her ear. "I'm Luca. Let's see if you can keep up."
"Emilia" She whispered.