ManyWriters

My sister was framed for seducing the Don of a rival family.
As punishment, my husband, Vincent, chained her in a cold storage for three days and nights.
To save her, Vincent demanded a price: my mother's signet ring—the last piece of her I had left—for his mistress.
Blinded by tears, I twisted the signet ring from my finger.
But just as I was about to hand it over...
My son kicked my hand away, his face twisted in disgust. "Who said you could stand?"
"Crawl over here. On your knees. And put it on Aunt Tessa’s hand yourself."
I knelt on the floor and crawled on all fours toward the woman who destroyed my life.
That night, they took a lobe of my lung and gave it to her.
I woke to learn my sister had frozen to death anyway.
Wiping away my tears, I made a call.
"I'll take your deal. But I want ten times what you offered."

He Loved Me in the Morgue

I let the signet ring clatter onto the floor.


"Can you let my sister out now?" My voice was a ragged whisper.


The words had barely left my lips when my son kicked my hand away in disgust.


A sly glint in his eye, he turned and snuggled into Tessa's arms, a sickeningly sweet smile on his face. "How about this? You beg Aunt Tessa. If she accepts the ring from you, I'll let your sister go."


My hand trembled. I looked up in shock.


My sister's weak voice drifted from behind me.


I squeezed my eyes shut, pain lancing through me.


Then I slammed my forehead against the cold floor. Once. Twice.


"Tessa, I'm begging you, please take the signet ring!"


I brought my forehead to the floor again and again.


Blood streamed from the gash on my forehead, hot and wet like tears.


A look of false pity on her face, Tessa helped me up. Then, she leaned in close, her whisper a venomous hiss in my ear. "Do you know why Luke turned your sister in? I told him. I told him your shameless sister seduced the Don of the Torrino family and leaked our Castellano family secrets…"


Her words flipped a switch in my brain, snapping the last thread of my sanity.


I drove my foot straight into her stomach.


As she crumpled to the ground, I pounced, smashing my fists into her face again and again. I didn't stop until her face was as bloody as my own.


Vincent and Luke finally started screaming, shouting for their men to pull me off her.


Seeing Tessa unconscious on the ground, they both glared daggers at me. "If anything happens to her," they snarled, "you will pay."


I ignored them, staggering toward my sister, who was still in chains.


"Mila… Just hold on. I… I'll get you out right now…"


I yanked at the chains, desperately trying to tear them open.


My sister's eyes were sunken, her lips cracked and peeling from days without water. "Sis…" she murmured.


With trembling hands, I brushed the matted hair from her face. I forced a smile. "Mila, don't be scared. I'm going to find the key and get you out of here."


The words had barely left my lips when several burly Soldatos burst in, grabbing me and dragging me away.


They ignored my struggles, dragging me from the cold storage.


In my last glimpse of her, I saw a single tear trace a path down her pale cheek.


Half an hour later, with my hands bound and a hood over my head, I was shoved into a room.


The hood was ripped from my head. I flinched, blinded by the harsh, sterile light.


A sharp crack echoed in the room as a heavy slap struck my face.


I forced my eyes open. Vincent stood over me, his face contorted with rage.


"Isabella, do you have any idea what you've done? Because of you, Tessa had a miscarriage. She's in the ICU at Northwestern Memorial right now!"


Chapter 2