Left To Die, Finally Free

At the Costa family's annual capo banquet, Marco Costa declared the family would extend protection to one woman only: Rosa Frost, his childhood sweetheart, newly divorced and newly returned to the family fold.

One by one, the other women slipped away into the night with their money, their dignity, and fresh protectors already lined up.

I, Viola Rossi, once his Donna, was severed from the Costa family entirely, with nowhere left to go.

Twenty-one years prior, The System ripped me into this life with a brutal mandate: make one of four made men fall irrevocably in love with me, and I'd earn my way back to my real life with a healthy body.

I failed.

Every single one of them chose Rosa.

The system's final mercy: die here, go home.

I stood in a rotting Brooklyn dock warehouse, gun in hand, and closed my eyes.

Right as darkness closed in, a raw, raging scream of my name tore through the silence, like the man shouting would burn the whole world apart to reach me.

At the Costa family's annual capo banquet, Marco Costa declared the family would extend protection to one woman only: Rosa Frost, his childhood sweetheart, newly divorced and newly returned to the family fold.

One by one, the other women slipped away into the night with their money, their dignity, and fresh protectors already lined up.

I, Viola Rossi, once his Donna, was severed from the Costa family entirely, with nowhere left to go.

Twenty-one years prior, The System ripped me into this life with a brutal mandate: make one of four made men fall irrevocably in love with me, and I'd earn my way back to my real life with a healthy body.

I failed.

Every single one of them chose Rosa.

The system's final mercy: die here, go home.

I stood in a rotting Brooklyn dock warehouse, gun in hand, and closed my eyes.

Right as darkness closed in, a raw, raging scream of my name tore through the silence, like the man shouting would burn the whole world apart to reach me.

...

The Brooklyn dock warehouse was a tomb.

This is where I check out.

My exit ticket was tucked behind a loose brick.

It was Luca's prized snub-nose .22, the one he'd given me before he chose Rosa and shredded our vows in front of the Five Families.

The System was gonna let me go home.

All I had to do was die.

I pressed the muzzle tight to my temple, finger curling steady around the trigger.

I closed my eyes.

Across the East River, Manhattan's fireworks burst in the sky, distant laughter riding the wind.

None of it meant a damn thing.

My own heartbeat was pounding so hard against my ribs that it drowned out everything else, like someone was turning the world's volume down, notch by notch.

Twenty-one years.

That was how long The System had kept me here.

Its rule was simple: make one of the Four Pillars