Chapter 1 - The Broken Oath
“My mother cleaned houses,” Vincent repeated, his voice dangerously low, slicing through the tense silence of Belladonna House like a razor.
The silence stretched so tautly that the rhythmic drip of melting sleet from Vincent’s wool overcoat onto the polished marble floor sounded like ticking seconds on a bomb. Two hundred of the state’s most influential figures—senators, real estate moguls, and media tycoons—held their breath.
Vivian DeMarco’s face paled. She tried to yank the leather riding crop from his grip again, but his fingers remained locked around it like iron shackles. "Vincent, sweetheart, you’re making a scene in front of our guests," she hissed under her breath, trying to flash a picture-perfect smile for the cameras that were secretly recording from the shadows. "She’s just staff. A nobody. She disrespected me, and in the DeMarco family, we do not tolerate insolence from servants."
"This is not the DeMarco family estate," Vincent said smoothly, though the muscle feebly twitching in his jaw betrayed the violent storm brewing beneath his calm facade. "This is Belladonna House. My house. And under my roof, we do not strike unarmed women."
He snapped his wrist. The thick leather crop snapped in two with a sound like a gunshot. Vivian gasped, flinching back into the arms of her personal assistant. Vincent casually tossed the broken pieces onto the floor, right into the puddle of spilled wine.
Then, for the first time since entering the ballroom, Vincent Moretti turned his full attention toward me.
I stood my ground, refusing to bow my head, even as my left arm throbbed with a burning, white-hot agony. The white linen apron covering my generous curves was ruined, soaked in crimson cabernet that looked eerily like arterial blood. My thick brown hair, which had been neatly pinned into a maid’s donut bun earlier that evening, was starting to unravel. I knew how I looked to these aristocratic vultures—a heavy, disheveled, working-class girl caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But as Vincent’s dark, piercing eyes locked onto mine, his intense gaze suddenly froze.
His dark eyebrows pulled together. The ambient noise of the ballroom—the whispered rumors, the rustle of silk dresses, the muffled rain outside—seemed to fade away into nonexistence for him. His gaze dropped from my eyes down to my collarbone.
During the physical struggle with Vivian, the top three buttons of my uniform shirt had torn open. Hanging around my neck, resting against my bare skin, was an old, tarnished silver locket. It was an oval piece of cheap metal, battered by time and worn smooth by years of anxious thumbing.
Vincent stepped closer to me. The four towering bodyguards in dark suits behind him moved in unison, instantly forming a physical wall between us and the gaping crowd.
"Where..." Vincent’s voice cracked slightly, losing its terrifying coldness for a split second. "Where did you get that locket?"
I instinctively grabbed the cold silver metal, covering it with my fingers. "It’s mine. It’s the only thing my mother left me before she died in the orphanage hospital."
Vincent took another step forward. His tall, broad-shouldered frame loomed over me, radiating heat and the scents of rain, expensive tobacco, and cedarwood. Gently, almost reverently, he reached out with two fingers. I flinched slightly, expecting another blow, but his touch was impossibly soft as he lifted the silver piece from my palm.
He flipped the back of the locket over. There, scratched crude and deep into the metal by an amateur hand, were two letters: V + E.
Vincent inhaled sharply, a sound resembling a man coming up for air after nearly drowning. "Elena..." he whispered, his eyes wide with a mix of shock, grief, and an overwhelming, buried memory. "Your mother was Elena Vance."
"How do you know my mother’s name?" I asked, my voice trembling for the first time that night. "She died twenty years ago."
"Vincent!" Vivian snapped, stepping forward, her high heels clicking loudly. "What are you doing touching that pathetic creature? Step away from her! We have a party to host, and the press is outside!"
Vincent didn’t even turn around. He raised a single hand, signaling his head lieutenant, Marco.
"Clear the room," Vincent ordered, his tone devoid of any emotion.
"Vincent, you can't be serious!" Vivian squeaked in disbelief. "These are senior politicians! The DeMarco family business partners!"
"I said," Vincent raised his voice, a deep, resonant growl that made the glass chandeliers tremble overhead, "CLEAR THE BALLROOM. NOW."
Marco immediately pulled a heavy black sidearm from his coat, holding it at his side. "Ladies and gentlemen," Marco announced calmly to the two hundred elite guests, "the party is officially over. Please proceed to the main exits immediately. Anyone attempting to record or leak tonight's events will find their assets frozen and their names blacklisted by the Moretti Syndicate by sunrise."
A collective gasp echoed across the grand hall. Politicians hurried to grab their furs, socialites tripped over their long gowns, and within five minutes, the grand ballroom of Belladonna House was completely emptied of its wealthy spectators. Only four people remained: Vincent, Vivian, myself, and Marco standing guard at the massive mahogany doors.
"Vincent, this is madness!" Vivian cried out, her eyes red with humiliation and fury. "You humiliated me in front of everyone! All for a fat, worthless maid who can't even carry a drink without spilling it!"
Vincent finally turned to face his fiancée. The look in his eyes was lethal. "Vivian DeMarco. Our engagement was a business arrangement constructed by your father to pay off his fifty-million-dollar gambling debt to my family. You were meant to bring grace and peace to this house."
He took a step toward her, forcing her to back up until her spine hit the grand piano. "Instead, you brought cruelty. You brought the same mindless vanity that my family has fought to eradicate from our city for a decade."
He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a velvet box containing a thirty-carat diamond ring he was supposed to present to her later that evening, and dropped it into the dirty puddle of wine on the floor.
"The engagement is off," Vincent said coldly. "Get out of my house."
Vivian’s breath hitched. She looked at the ring in the puddle, then at Vincent, and finally threw a look of pure, unadulterated venom at me. "You think you’ve won, you miserable little beggar?" she spat at me. "You have no idea what you’ve just started. My father will burn the Moretti empire to the ground for this disgrace!"
"Tell your father he is welcome to try," Vincent replied calmly. "Marco, escort Miss DeMarco off the property. If she resists, use whatever force is necessary."
"Yes, Don Vincent," Marco bowed. He grabbed Vivian by her upper arm with a grip of steel and dragged her, screaming and cursing, out through the double doors.
The heavy mahogany doors slammed shut, leaving the massive, echoing ballroom in total silence.
I stood there, my body shaking as the adrenaline began to wear off. The severe pain in my forearm and shoulder flared up with renewed intensity. The room started to tilt around me. My knees, bruised from the hard marble floor, gave out completely.
I expected to hit the ground.
Instead, two strong, warm arms caught me before I landed. Vincent scooped me up into his arms effortlessly, cradling my plus-size frame against his broad chest as if I weighed nothing at all.
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"I've got you," he muttered, his voice surprisingly gentle near my ear. "Hold on, Clara. You're safe now."
As darkness started to creep into the edges of my vision from shock and physical exhaustion, one lingering question burned in my mind: How did the most dangerous Mafia boss in the state know my name?
