Chapter 1 - THE PINKY PROMISE
A six-year-old boy proposed to me while I was hiding from the men my stepmother had sent to collect me like property. I laughed, sealed our ridiculous engagement with a pinky promise, and said yes, only for the storage-room door to burst open seconds later and reveal that my new “fiancé” was the son of Michael Moretti, the most feared mafia boss on the East Coast.
My back was pressed against a freezing metal shelf inside Bellarosa, a cramped Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. I clutched a dented frying pan while Regina’s voice sliced through the door.
“You can hide all night, Aurora!” my stepmother shouted. “Tony’s men are outside, and I’m not losing fifty thousand dollars because you suddenly found a backbone!”
Fifty thousand dollars.
That was apparently the price Regina had put on my life.
She’d gambled away everything she owned, then decided her dead husband’s daughter was the last thing valuable enough to trade. For months, I’d run from Brooklyn to Queens to the Bronx, sleeping in filthy motels and taking jobs where nobody asked questions.
Somehow, she always found me.
A sudden rustle came from behind the flour sacks.
I spun around, raising the frying pan, but instead of one of Tony’s thugs, a little boy stepped into view. He wore an expensive wool coat over superhero pajamas.
“Please don’t hit me,” he whispered. “I’m not one of the bad guys.”
His name was Zach. He was six, and apparently he’d run away from his father because he was supposed to see a doctor the next morning.
Despite the terror pounding through my chest, I nearly laughed. “Then I guess we’re both fugitives. I’m hiding from bad people too.”
BANG.
Regina slammed her fist against the door.
“Aurora! Get out here before I let Tony’s men drag you out by your hair!”
My fingers tightened around the pan.
Zach’s eyes dropped to the bruises circling my wrist. His expression changed instantly, becoming strangely serious for such a tiny face.
“In fairy tales,” he whispered, “when a princess gets chased by a witch, a knight saves her.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “I don’t see many knights around Brooklyn.”
“Me.”
He puffed out his little chest.
Zach explained that his father had money, men, and apparently terrified everyone. By flawless six-year-old logic, marrying him meant Regina could never hurt me again.
“Will you marry me, Miss Aurora?”
Something inside me cracked.
I crouched and brushed his dark hair from his forehead. “And if I marry you, you’ll protect me from the witch?”
“One hundred percent.”
He held out his pinky.
“Promise.”
I hooked mine around his. “Then yes. I’ll marry you.”
His face exploded into a grin.
The door crashed open.
I threw myself in front of Zach, frying pan raised, but the man standing there wasn’t Tony.
Tall. Broad shoulders. Perfect black suit. Two dangerous-looking men behind him.
My blood turned cold.
Michael Moretti.
The name criminals across New York whispered instead of spoke.
His gray eyes moved slowly from the blood on my lip to the bruises on my wrist, then to the child standing behind me.
“Zach,” he said quietly. “What did I tell you about running away?”
Before I could breathe, Zach grabbed my hand and stepped proudly to my side.
“Dad, this is Aurora.”
Michael stared at our joined hands.
May you like
Then Zach grinned.
“She just agreed to marry me.”
