Claimed by the True Heir

To protect my boyfriend, Nico, the illegitimate son of our allies, the Moretti family, from their internal power struggles, I agreed to leave New York with him.

But on the eve of my adoptive father, the Don of the Falcone family, signing our transfer orders, he backed out.

Through the hidden door of the cigar lounge, I heard his right-hand man tease him:

"So you really kept up that act for three months just to get rid of the princess?"

"But she's your childhood sweetheart. You really have the heart to some miserable fishing village in the Baltics all by herself?"

Nico's voice was nonchalant. "It's just an outpost across the pond. How far can it be?"

"Scarlett is too controlling. If I don't get her out of the picture, how am I supposed to get any breathing room? Besides, I need to put Chloe at ease."

I stood behind that hidden door for a long time that night, my grip on the doorknob tightening until my knuckles were white, before I finally let go.

I turned and walked away, pulling out my tablet to change my flight plan.

I changed the destination from the official plan of that desolate Baltic outpost to a seat at the High Table in Sicily, which is the absolute center of old-world Mafia power.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten.

I am the princess of the Falcone family. And he is nothing but filth from the gutter.

We were never a match.

To protect my boyfriend, Nico, the illegitimate son of our allies, the Moretti family, from their internal power struggles, I agreed to leave New York with him.

But on the eve of my adoptive father, the Don of the Falcone family, signing our transfer orders, he backed out.

Through the hidden door of the cigar lounge, I heard his right-hand man tease him:

"So you really kept up that act for three months just to get rid of the princess?"

"But she's your childhood sweetheart. You really have the heart to some miserable fishing village in the Baltics all by herself?"

Nico's voice was nonchalant. "It's just an outpost across the pond. How far can it be?"

"Scarlett is too controlling. If I don't get her out of the picture, how am I supposed to get any breathing room? Besides, I need to put Chloe at ease."

I stood behind that hidden door for a long time that night, my grip on the doorknob tightening until my knuckles were white, before I finally let go.

I turned and walked away, pulling out my tablet to change my flight plan.

I changed the destination from the official plan of that desolate Baltic outpost to a seat at the High Table in Sicily, which is the absolute center of old-world Mafia power.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten.

I am the princess of the Falcone family. And he is nothing but filth from the gutter.

We were never a match.

...

The moment I heard the