By My Rules

My name is Violet. I was the consigliere to the Leon mafia family in New York, and I wrote the rules of this city’s underworld myself. Yet, the man I had kept by my side for ten years, Drake Leon, was now trampling all over them.

Ten years was more than enough time for a stray dog to grow into a wolf that can stand on its own. A decade ago, he was hacked to pieces by enemies on the streets of Brooklyn. Covered in blood, he crawled to me like a dying dog.

I took him in. I put a gun in his hand. I taught him the rules of the mafia. Step by step, using my position as the Leon mafia family’s consigliere, I groomed him to become the boss of the Manhattan port district. Ten years later, he controlled the most valuable port under the Leon family for me, and for another woman, he framed her in standing grace.

When that girl named Lina showed up pregnant, wearing the blue diamond necklace my mother left me, and sat in the seat that was supposed to be mine, I didn’t lose my temper. Instead, I had someone take the pathology report from the hospital, along with the child, seal them in a gift box, and deliver them to Drake’s new estate.

Half an hour later, the study door was kicked open. He stormed in, drenched in night rain, carrying the scent of gunpowder. The barrel of his gun pressed straight against my forehead.

“Violet.” He stared at me, his eyes bloodshot. “You touch her child, and I’ll make sure you’re buried with her.”

I stayed seated by the fireplace. I didn’t move. I simply pushed a document to the center of the table.

“Don’t rush into madness.” I looked up at him and continued, “As of fifteen minutes ago, I’ve frozen three warehouses under your name, two shipping routes, and seven offshore accounts.”

Only then did his expression finally change.

I smiled faintly, my voice soft. “Drake, you seem to have forgotten something. The reason for your accomplishments today isn’t because you know how to pull a trigger. It’s because I allowed you to live.”

My name is Violet. I was the consigliere to the Leon mafia family in New York, the woman who drafted every rule in this underworld. Yet Drake Leon, the man I held close for a decade, was now defying them all.

The Godfather’s winter banquet was the most exclusive event in New York’s underworld. Anyone seated at the main table held the power of life and death over half the city, and the seat to the right of the head chair—the one that should have been mine—was now occupied by a girl in an out-of-place white dress.

Her name was Lina. One of her hands rested lightly over her still-flat stomach, and around her neck hung the blue diamond necklace I spent three full years searching for—my mother’s keepsake. She looked up at