Rebirth: Becoming the Mafia Princess I Never Wanted to Be

I woke to the smell of my mother's lavender sachets and the sound of rain against a window I had not seen in twelve years. The room was small and pink, with a chipped white dresser and a crucifix above the bed that I had stared through every childhood fever. My childhood bedroom. The one I had left the morning I married Julian Croft, carrying two suitcases and the certainty that I was escaping into a better life. I sat up. My hands were smooth and unlined. My body was eighteen years old, light and new, and my mind was still full of a life that had not happened yet. I remembered dying. Not the details — I never got the details, just the cold and the dark and Julian's voice somewhere above me saying my name the way you read a receipt you are about to discard. I remembered everything else