1. Gigi

1

GIGI

The Trapanis sure know how to throw a party. Here on our yacht, anchored off the coast of southern Italy, we're a world apart from the rest of humanity.

Lights blink on the shoreline, a golden line dividing the dark ocean and star-littered sky. A warm breeze wraps its fingers around my hair, bringing with it that sweet-salt smell of the Mediterranean Sea.

I turn my back to the railing to have the wind in my face and watch my sister, Carla, whose eighteenth birthday we're celebrating. She's laughing with a bunch of girls her age. They're all dressed as if they just walked off some catwalk at a prêt-à-porter designer fashion show. Nobody here is in a dress priced under five thousand euros. They're slipping into a giggling fit, and boys are looking on, champagne flowing from several bottles and splashing on the deck.

What a waste.

And someone is going to have to clean that up.

It's not only the luxury of this yacht and being out at sea that underlines the sharp divide for me. It's the mix of company on the boat tonight: mostly Carla's friends from boarding school. Rich, elite, entitled. In the shadows, the people who serve and clean up after them. Waiters. Chefs. Mixologists. Bodyguards .

When I turned eighteen ten years ago, I didn't celebrate in such flamboyant style. I wanted to jump ship from this privileged life to one that lets you melt into the shadows.

I wanted to disappear, and not only because my mom had died of cancer earlier that year. I wanted nobody to notice me, unlike Carla, who's living her best life in the limelight of the European young, rich, and beautiful. Let's hope this abundance of zero caution isn't going to bite my little sister in the ass.

Carla is of age now, and in the world we're part of, turning eighteen comes with serious hazards. So far, Don Trapani hasn't said anything about her future, but my stepdad—and her biological father—is progressive and has allowed us more freedom than I've ever imagined. For now, Carla seems safe, but I know better.

I was eighteen once and almost forced into marriage. I stood my ground and fought tooth and nail for what I wanted—a life free of the Mafia and the obligations that came with it. I'll be forever grateful for my stepfather who bowed to my wishes and let me be.

A server approaches me with a fresh tray of filled champagne flutes, and I shake my head. I'm heading to London for an art auction in the morning. Now that the toasts are done, I can sneak off to my cabin, but the DJ has turned up the volume, and I might struggle to sleep.

With champagne, I can never stick to just one glass, and I can't be hungover on the job tomorrow. Red wine, on the other hand, is a whole other ballgame.

"I'll have some wine. Bring me a Merlot, please."

The server nods. That will knock me out in thirty minutes flat.

As he walks off, my stepdad, Don Mario Trapani, puts an empty glass on the server's tray and comes to take my hand. His fingers are warm, his skin soft, his hand a safe haven for the young girl I once was. It's still a strong, firm hold, but gentle at the same time. He's never raised a hand to me in anger or in malice, but I'm not naive—this hand must have blood on it, but it's never been mine. Don Trapani has proven himself to be an unexpected protective shield against this world we live in.

"Gigi." He steps away to look at me at arm's length. After a few intense seconds, he swallows, his face pained. "You always look so beautiful. Just like your mother did."

"Thank you, Papa." I'm the spitting image of my mom. A walking reminder of her to this man who took us in and loved us. With the way he looks at me and the emotion playing over his face, it's as if she's here tonight. I blink away the swell of tears. "It was a lovely speech."

He squeezes my fingers as he raises them to his lips for a peck.

"Walk with me, cara ," he says.

I let him guide me down the main deck towards a quieter spot away from the party crowds.

We take a wide berth around a couple smooching. They're either too drunk or too high to notice or care that their elderly host is strolling past them, because they don't stop.

"Quite a party, isn't it?" I chuckle. We all know how that's going to end.

"They're young and carefree." My stepdad smiles and winks at me. "Let them enjoy it while it lasts. As for Carla, let me spoil her while I can."

We're spoiled, for sure, each of us in our own way, but the way he says it makes my heart clutch. At seventy-two, my stepdad looks fit, but his eyes are tired.

Mom was Don Trapani's second and last wife, and when she married him, he adopted me as his own, surname and all. Don Mario Trapani is mostly a good man and a good father, but all the love and devotion from this man could never wipe my memories clean. My first experience of a father—and men in general—is forever tainted. Men have this switch in them which they could flip on and off without warning. As a child, I've been on the receiving end of that flipped switch too many times.

I shrug off my dark thoughts. Ever since Don Trapani married Mom, I've had little reason to fear men on that level.

To think my stepdad has three kids, each from a different decade as we all have ten years between us. My stepbrother, Vincenzo Trapani, is the only offspring from his first marriage and also his only son. For some reason, he couldn't be here tonight, and I've been so relieved it's almost comical. Vincenzo might never have raised a hand at me, but he has a mean streak and makes my skin crawl.

We walk in silence until we reach the other side of the yacht where the party is less of a distraction, my mind wandering to memories of Mom and the unrelenting passing of time.

I know why he is cornering me. Now that Carla is eighteen, we should split our inheritance. "About the Swiss?—"

"Now's not the time, Gigi." My stepdad sighs as he lets go of my hand, and we lean on the railing to look out to the sea.

"No? But Carla's share?—"

"I've always wanted for you what your mom wanted," Don Trapani interrupts. "Freedom from family obligations, from this spiderweb we're caught in. God knows, after decades of trying to leave the Mafia, my son is dragging me back in."

Deep in my gut, unease stirs. What did Vincenzo get involved in this time? He's been Don Trapani's headache for years, on and off, always poised to turn into a full-on migraine.

"What's happened?" I ask, reminding myself I'm my own person, with my own thriving business, unattached and unbound to the Trapanis' Mafia affairs. This shouldn't affect me. In fact, I won't let it affect me.

For ten years, I've worked to extricate myself from their web as I'd vowed to Mom I would. I plan to take Carla along as soon as I possibly can. When she was born, a chamber opened in my heart shaped just like that little baby girl, almost as if she were my own. Over the years, this space has expanded and grown with her. I'll never leave her behind.

"The world is changing, cara . I am no longer able to keep up with it…or with your brother."

"He isn't my brother," I whisper, because in my gut, I sense where this would go if I don't nip it in the bud. Vincenzo is my stepbrother and no blood of mine. We share the same surname, nothing more.

"In this, he sees you as his younger sister."

And a pawn. I fist the railing and clench it hard, anything to contain the anger rising in me. Anger that smells of fear.

"I have my own life, my own business." I owe him nothing. I need him for nothing. I plan to keep it this way. To be honest, Vincenzo Trapani can go fuck himself.

"Which you built and found success with by using the Trapani name and connections. Don't think you would've gotten this far without it, cara . And don't snub your origins. They will always be part of you."

I push down on the anger, which is morphing into panic in my chest. It's all true. More than a century of Mafia blood runs in me; rivulets gathered from all over Italy into my veins. I might not be Don Trapani's own daughter, but I'm from old stock, too. I'm a product of my past, but I refuse to give it a future by bending to anybody's will. Least of all my stepbrother's. "I've built what I have, and nobody will take it away from me."

"This isn't about your business, Gigi."

No, it isn't. It's about how fragile this wall I've built around me could prove to be if Vincenzo decides I'm handy in the bigger scheme of his plans—it's about how fragile I'll prove to be if things come to a head.

Don Trapani sighs, and in this moment, he's no longer my stepdad but a Mafia Don. I sense the change in him, in his stance and the bow of his head.

"I've given you all this freedom, Gigi, sending you to boarding school in Switzerland, allowing you to study in England and France. In retrospect, maybe every one of them was a delusional decision on my part. I thought I'd be able to protect you forever, but I can no longer promise that. I'm too old for this game." He shifts on his feet and lowers his gaze. "You know how this works, cara ."

I do. And it's the type of knowledge that keeps me up at night, worrying if I've done enough, if my fort would hold. I've seen more of the machinations of the Mafia than I ever cared for. Every vow I made to Mom on her deathbed, every truth I held myself honest to, surges up in me.

"What about Carla?"

I'd promised to keep her safe, to make sure she has the same exit from this life as me.

"She's Vincenzo's half-sister. They share the same blood, but when it comes down to it, she'll be in the same boat as you are."

Over my dead body. I won't see my sister bartered and married off to secure some new alliance Vincenzo must be forging with another crime ring. I will protect her with my life.

Don Trapani's words might be subtle, but I read their true meaning between the lines: under the dark water of this underworld we hail from, monsters are stirring.

My heart rate has been escalating with each minute of this conversation, and now it pulses in my temple as fear shoots up to settle in the form of a stress headache.

I have time. I've always been ready. My business has kept me travel fit and I'm ready to run without much notice. I'm not so concerned about myself, but Carla is innocent and naive, and living in a bubble that can pop at any time.

"Now that she's done with school, she'll need a permanent bodyguard," I venture aloud.

She's no longer protected by the confines of a very exclusive boarding school in Switzerland. It's the same school I went to, but beyond our education, the only difference between me and Carla is the first decade of my life where I got to know the ‘real world' firsthand. Those ten years are making all the difference in our perspectives on life. Where Carla is still happy to go with the flow, I make sure not to get caught in the tide in the first place.

"You too, cara ."

"I'm fine."

For almost a decade, I've lived under the radar, not attending any events as a Trapani daughter, a Mafia princess for the taking. I've stayed as far away as humanly possible, made myself vanish in a way, and surely, this must pay off now.

"One day, I'm going to insist, Gigi, and I won't take no for an answer."

I close my eyes, refusing to believe my own ears. Things can't be this dire?

"Can you talk to her about the bodyguard?" Don Trapani says, not giving me the gap to counter him. "She isn't going to be happy."

Trust me, no eighteen-year-old is happy to be watched twenty-four-seven by some random guy who'd take a bullet for her.

"I will."

Now my whole body is tensed up, my shoulders hitched to my ears. I've been walking on eggshells for decades, and it's exhausting. Now, I'll have to get it into Carla's head that the freedom she knows is like a carpet. Ready to be ripped right from underneath your feet by the people you trust the most.

I'd hate for her to learn this lesson the hard way.