Bound To The Don

The last time I laughed like that, I had no idea it would be the last time.

Flour covered my lap, my apron, and the tip of my nose. I sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor, snorting so hard my ribs ached. Noah sat across from me, white powder streaked down his black shirt, a fork hovering over our fifth test batch of pistachio cake.

The whole apartment smelled like warm sugar and vanilla. Like home. Like the only place I was ever truly happy.

"You have flour everywhere," Noah said.

"It's part of the process." I pointed my whisk at him like a sword. "You can't make the best pistachio cake in the city without getting messy."

"Is that so?"

"Science."

He grinned and reached over. His thumb brushed my cheek, slow and careful, wiping away a smudge I'd probably put there on purpose. Then he stayed there. His palm cupped my jaw, warm and a little rough, and my breath hitched.

Two years. He still made my stomach flip like it was our first date.

"One day," Noah said, his voice dropping low, "we won't be doing this on a kitchen floor. I'm going to put a ring on your finger, Sera. We'll get a real shop downtown, with a huge glass window and your name over the door in gold letters."

My smile stayed glued to my face.

My heart did not.

It dropped like a stone, and my fingers curled around the whisk until my knuckles turned white. A lump swelled in my throat. I swallowed it down, hard.

Gold letters. A ring. A future. If only he knew.

"Someday," I whispered.

It sounded less like a promise and more like a prayer.

Noah's eyebrows pinched. He opened his mouth to ask, and my phone buzzed on the counter. Once. Twice. A sharp, angry rattle against the wood.

I scrambled up, wiping my hands on my apron, and grabbed it.

**Papa: Come home. Now. Alone.**

The cold hit me first. It started in my chest and crawled down my arms until my fingertips went numb. Papa never texted like that. Papa never said *alone*.

"Sera?" Noah was beside me now, his hand settling on my shoulder. "What's wrong? You went pale."

I flipped the phone face down. Fast. Too fast.

"Nothing." I plastered on a bright smile that made my cheeks hurt. "Family stuff. Papa needs me to run a quick errand."

A lie. A tiny one, said to the one person I'd never lied to before.

Noah studied my face for a second too long. Then he kissed my forehead and let it go. That trust made my stomach twist worse than any threat could have.

*Coward,* I told myself. *You don't even know what's coming yet.*

---

An hour later, I stood outside my father's study with my hand frozen on the doorknob.

The Rossi estate was always quiet, but tonight the silence felt heavy, like the air before a storm. My heels clicked too loudly on the marble. My pulse thudded in my ears.

I pushed the door open.

Two men in black suits stood on either side of it. Tall. Silent. Hands folded in front of them, eyes fixed on nothing. I had never seen them before, and something about the way they didn't blink made the back of my neck prickle.

"Papa?"

He sat behind his huge mahogany desk, and for a second I almost didn't recognize him.

Enzo Rossi, the man who once carried me on his shoulders through a crowded street festival, looked like he had aged ten years since Sunday dinner. His hair seemed grayer. His shoulders curved inward like he was trying to disappear. A heavy crystal glass of whiskey shook in his hand, the ice rattling softly.

He didn't look up.

"What's going on?" My voice came out thin. "Who are these men?"

My father took a long, shaky gulp. His throat bobbed. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded like gravel scraped over glass.

"We lost a shipment last week, Sera. The whole cargo. Seized." He stared at the desk, at the wood grain, at anything but me. "We owe the Valenti family a debt. A debt we can't pay in cash."

*Valenti.*

Even the name made the room feel colder. Everyone in this city knew it. Nobody said it above a whisper.

"Okay," I said slowly. "But what does that have to do with me?"

Silence.

Papa's eyes squeezed shut, and a single tear rolled down his weathered cheek. It landed on his sleeve. I had never seen my father cry. Not at Mama's funeral. Not once.

"To stop a war," he said, his voice splitting in two, "a deal was made years ago. A blood pact. When you turned twenty-two..." He drew in a ragged breath. "You are to marry Dante Valenti."

The world went quiet.

Not dramatic, movie-quiet. Real quiet. A high, thin ringing filled my ears, like someone had pressed a pillow over my head. My hands went numb. My knees felt strangely far away, like they belonged to somebody else.

I didn't scream. I didn't cry.

I looked down at the little cake box I'd brought, a slice of pistachio I'd meant to share with him, and I set it very gently on the corner of his desk. Like it was made of glass. Like if I put it down wrong, something inside me would shatter right along with it.

"I have a boyfriend, Papa."

My voice sounded awful. Flat. Calm. Terrifyingly calm.

"I love Noah."

"Not anymore."

Papa finally lifted his eyes. They were red and swollen, and full of something worse than anger. Shame.

"If you try to see him," he said quietly, "if you try to run, the Valentis will put a bullet in that boy's head before you reach the city limits. It's done, Sera. I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry."

*Sorry.*

I stared at him. My nails dug crescents into my palms. My mouth tasted like metal.

He had sold me. My own father had traded me like a shipment of stolen goods. And he was apologizing as if that fixed it.

The man at the door shifted. The leather of his shoes creaked. It was the only sound in the whole room.

With trembling fingers, Papa reached into his jacket and pulled out a photograph. Matte black. Smooth as a blade. He slid it across the desk, and it stopped right at my fingertips.

I didn't want to look.

I looked anyway.

A man in a tailored black suit stared straight into the camera. Sharp jaw. Cold, dark eyes. The kind of eyes that didn't ask permission for anything. Even through paper, his gaze made my skin crawl and my pulse skip, like he could see me looking back.

My hand shook as I flipped the photo over.

Four words, in neat, elegant handwriting.

Friday. Be ready.