At The Don’s Mercy

The Bird and the Predator

ALICIA

The book smelled like my father's cologne and those cheap cigars he thought made him look powerful.

I crouched behind the big bookshelf, the one that cost more than most people's houses. A penlight between my teeth. My knees were screaming. Forty-five minutes, maybe longer. Time stretches when you're terrified. Feels like pulling taffy.

The ledger was where I knew it would be. Third shelf. Second row. Slightly crooked because Marcello's a slob and my father never notices anything that doesn't involve money or humiliation.

I flipped through. Shipment numbers. Dates. Names I'd memorized like prayers. No camera, too risky so I just absorbed. Let the numbers burn into my brain like a brand. If I got out of this house alive someday, those numbers would be my currency. My something.

I didn't know what yet.

Growing up in a house like this, you learn to be two people. The submissive, obedient girl. That one's a lie.

Then there's the one I am when the lights go out.

I don't even know her name yet.

My fingers were shaking by the last page. Adrenaline, yeah. But also rage. That low, constant hum that's been in my chest since I was fifteen and that doctor put his hand on my thigh and said just relax, sweetheart.

I fought him off with a letter opener. He walked away with a scar on his cheek.

My father killed him two days later. Not because he hurt me, but because he almost made a mess my father couldn't clean up. Then he looked at me like I was the one who'd done something wrong.

That's what they never tell you. In this world, your body isn't yours. It's a transaction. An asset. A bargaining chip that loses value if someone takes a bite before the sale.

I was damaged goods at fifteen.

Now I'm twenty-two and I've been damaged so many times I've forgotten what whole feels like.

The floorboard outside the study groaned.

I killed the light. Slid the ledger back and pressed my spine against the cold brick. Heartbeat in my throat. In my teeth. In my goddamn fingernails.

My father's voice came through. Angry. Scared. That particular pitch he gets when he's about to lose money.

"Where the f**k is the shipment, Marcello?"

Glass broke. A bottle, probably.

Marcello's voice wobbled. "The Caruso family raided the Brooklyn docks an hour ago, Boss. We have nothing to hand over."

Silence. Then: "Bastian Marcone is tracking those routes himself. If the transaction isn't settled by tomorrow midnight, he will s*******r every captain on my payroll."

Bastian Marcone.

Twenty-eight. Took over after his father died—supposedly a heart attack, but nobody buys that s**t story. Killed or exiled everyone who looked at him wrong. Moves weapons across three continents.

And now he was coming here. To claim something.

"There is an alternative," Marcello said, closer now. "Marcone demanded collateral. A blood tie. A Cavallo woman to secure the alliance."

My lungs stopped.

"Mia is eighteen," my father said, clinical as choosing a horse. "Soft. Brainless. She'll do what she's told and keep her mouth shut."

Mia.

Hell no. She believes love is real. That if she's sweet enough, the world will be sweet back.

They'd eat her alive.

"But Alicia..." My father's voice dropped lower. Meaner. "Alicia's a stubborn, ruined asset. The syndicate still whispers about the scandal with the doctor. If I offer Marcone Alicia, je would take it as an insult."

I curled my fists so tight I felt my nails cut into my palms. The pain was good. Real. Kept me from screaming.

Being fifteen and afraid. Fighting for your life with a sharp piece of metal against a grown man.

I'd never felt more broken. But also, weirdly more alive.

Mia couldn't handle Bastian Marcone. But maybe I could.

Not as a wife. As something worse.

"It's settled," Marcello said. "Mia signs the betrothal contract tomorrow night. He takes the docks, he takes the girl, the debt's wiped clean."

"And if the little b***h cries?"

"She'll sign. Or I'll break her fingers until she does."

The door clicked shut.

I stood in the dark, breathing through my mouth, trying not to throw up.

Break her fingers.

That was Marcello. My father. The entire rotten foundation of this family. I'd spent years being invisible just so I could learn their secrets, map their weaknesses.

Now I was going to use all of it. I pulled the bobby pin out of my hair and straightened it between my teet

Click. I found a folder with the name Macrone. I opened it, reading by moonlight.

I wasn't the one they wanted. But Marcone had never met me. He'd heard the rumors, sure but maybe I could make him think differently. Walk into that room first, before Mia, before my father, and slide that contract toward myself like I had any right to it.

I didn't have a plan. I had a feeling. A deep, reckless, stupid feeling that's been my only compass for years.

A floorboard groaned. Not outside the study. The grand staircase.

Someone was in the house. I shoved the folder back. Slammed the drawer. Pressed into the deepest shadow behind the bookshelf. My heart was so loud I thought it'd give me away.

The doors swung open.

I didn't see his face right away. I smelled him first. Cold air. Leather. Metal. Something sharp underneath—cedarwood, darker. Gunpowder. Faint but unmistakable.

He didn't turn on the lights.

Just walked in, tall and broad, moving like he owned the room—which, I guess, he did. This whole city was his. My father only pretended.

He stopped at the desk. Ran his gloved hand along the wood. Slow. Deliberate. Like he was reading something.

Then he tilted his head.

My blood went cold. He wasn't looking around. He was listening. He turned toward the bookshelf.

Beautiful is the first word I could use to describe his face, violent in ways that makes you want to run and stay at the same time. Sharp jaw. Dark hair falling across his forehead. Eyes like silver coins passed through too many dead hands.

He walked toward me. I stopped breathing.

He stopped two feet away from me, raised his hand. Thought he was going to grab me. But he just reached past me. Pulled a book off the shelf. Flipped through it like he had all the time in the world.

Pages rustled. That was the only sound.

"You should learn to hold your breath longer," he murmured. "Little bird."

Low. Rough. Gravel under tires.

He didn't look at me. Put the book back. Turned. Walked out. Doors stayed open.

I slid down the wall, landed hard, gasping. Shaking so badly I couldn't feel my fingers.

He knew. The whole time.

I sat there in the dark, trying to remember how to breathe.

Tomorrow, he plans to claim a Cavallo woman.

They thought they were giving him Mia.

He had no f*****g idea what he'd just unleashed.