Chapter 1

Five years I've been married to Nero Marchetti. Five years the Family still won't call me his wife.

Because five years running, that antique Colt has fired live rounds into my chest.

They call it the Vow Roulette. Oldest tradition in the Marchetti bloodline. Six chambers, five live, one blank. Pull the blank and the Family accepts you. Pull a live one and you wait a year.

Five years. Five bullets. Five sets of cracked ribs, five smiles for Nero as he kissed my forehead and whispered maybe next year, cara.

I don't get a seat at the family council. I don't get the Donna's ring. I don't even get to have his kid.

Sabrina Conti — the consigliera — gets all of it instead. She takes my chair at every dinner. Wears the Donna's ring "in trust." Stands next to Nero at every sit-down I'm locked out of. She's not filling in for me anymore. She's just become the wife.

Tonight I snuck into the Sanctum. I was going to swap out a bullet.

But when I cracked the cylinder open, I didn't do a thing. Closed it back up and walked out without a word.

At dawn, Nero ran the ceremony for the fifth year running. Whole Council watching.

Then he came to me. That regretful look. Warm brass casing in his palm.

"I'm sorry, cara. Still not the blank."

He squeezed my hand. "One more year. I swear it. They'll accept you."

I didn't cry. Didn't fight like I used to.

I just smiled. "It's fine."

He doesn't know I'm done waiting.

You can't pull a blank from a gun that never had one loaded.

Nero's hand is still hanging in the air.

Guess my it's fine threw him. Every other year I broke. My eyes would go glassy and I'd hit him with the same question:

"We're legally married. Why do I still need some ritual to say I'm your wife?"

And he'd pull me in and feed me the same three lines. The Code can't be broken. Just a little longer. I'll find a way.

Bullshit. All of it.

This year I skip it.

I turn around and walk out into the cold April dawn.

Behind me, Sabrina's voice, sweet as syrup:

"Don't take it hard, Nero. She's just upset. I'll talk to her."

Four a.m. the next morning. Nero's already gone.

The Marchettis take the Renewal seriously. Doesn't matter what deals are on the table, what wars are brewing. Every man in the family flies back to the Sicilian estate for it. Candles at the Sanctum before dawn. Blood on the register by noon.

Every year I sit on the edge of the bed and watch the sky go gray.

Wait. He does his rites. Comes back in the afternoon. Flies me home to New York.

Year after year.

Not this year.

I'm done waiting.

I fold the last shirt into my suitcase. Zip it shut.

Five years of marriage and this is all I've got. One suitcase. Dragged back and forth between New York and Sicily like a dog on a leash.

The door swings open. No knock.

Sabrina. Slim black suit, arms crossed. That smile of hers, sharp enough to cut.

"Miss Bellini. I told you two days ago. New rule this year."

"Any wife the Family hasn't recognized has to do the penitenza during the Renewal. Since the Colt turned you down again—"

She checks her watch.

"—you should already be on your knees at the Sanctum. Head down, mouth shut. Baciamano for every Capo who walks past. White dress. No jewelry. Seven hours."

I don't answer.

Everyone in this house knows what Sabrina's rules really are.

They're not tradition. They're not even about the Family. They're just her way of grinding me down, year after year, one humiliation at a time.

I told Nero once. Twice. Said I wouldn't do them. First year, he backed me up. But after round three of live shells, he changed his tune.

"Sabrina grew up in this family, cara. She knows la tradizione. Just listen to her."

Don't you want to be recognized, cara?

She cornered me a week before we flew out too. Laid down this year's penitenza. I let it slide.

Because a week before the flight, I found out I was pregnant.

I wanted to fight. For the baby, just this once. My plan was simple — sneak into the Sanctum, palm one of the live rounds, drop a blank in its place. Just one blank. Once the Family "accepted" me, no one in this house could touch the kid.

Except when I cracked that cylinder open, all six chambers were live.

There was no blank to swap. There never had been.

"Miss Bellini." Sabrina sighs, patient as a saint. "I don't want to push. But rules are rules, and the Capos are already downstairs. If you don't show, what am I supposed to tell them? I'm just the consigliera."

I don't fold this year.

I laugh. Short. Ugly.

"Sabrina. You got that much free time on your hands? Making up new rules for me every week just to feel important?"

She stiffens.

I step closer. Voice low.

"Say the Family won't have me. Fine. But don't forget — the state of New York does. I'm his wife. That's paper you can't burn."