The standalone prequel to the Truculence series and also part of The Fidelity World. Every king needs a queen… My job was to find a wife, one malleable and well-trained, to protect my empire and keep the rules of La Cosa Nostra from ruining what I built and stealing my chance to destroy those who hurt my family. Infidelity had failed me; after two agreements, I had nothing to show for it. Angry and pushed to my limit, I cruised for a body to accept my sort of release. She was knock-kneed, sickly, and dirty, but her eyes cut through me. Her words were foul and her nails brittle, but she understood my needs better than I did. And when I had a chance to end her, she rose from the ashes like a phoenix, and I could do nothing but let her live. I needed to give her the world, one bloody body at a time. She sold herself to save her son, and I bought them both to save myself.

Nathan I should have been dead, but Midas saved me. He gave me the weapons to seek revenge on my enemies and family to love again. It should have been enough...but it wasn't. I need to feel their blood on my hands, hear their screams in my ears, and mark their passing on my flesh. Then I found her. Chiara My father taught me what was most important for a woman of La Cosa Nostra: to be silent and worth what power I could bring. But I lost my place, because I hated him for what he'd done. Scorned him for breaking the one I could have ever given myself to. Then he found me. The ties that bind She was taboo. He was from bad blood. She was untouchable. He was a punishment on his cheating mother. She was born from the man I called father. He was cast aside from the man who wished made him. I hate her. I love him. We need each other.