Ruthless Princess (Mafia Royals 1)

We sat on whatever surface we could find.

“One tear,” Junior whispered. “You get one tear, and then we walk back out there and celebrate.”

I nodded, and sure enough, one tear fell. Asher wiped it away from my cheek since he was closest, and then we all stood and stared at one another.

“We won’t fail,” Junior said, voice hoarse. “Because everyone’s lives depend on us now.”

“Us,” Asher repeated.

My heart broke for Breaker as his eyes searched mine. I gave him a reaffirming nod.

And then his small voice piped up. “Blood in.”

“No out,” we said in unison.

Chapter One

Serena

Five Years Later

Being Nixon Abandonato’s oldest daughter had its perks, I mean I should at least get something being the daughter of one of the Cosa Nostra’s most powerful mob bosses. At sixteen, he let me pick out whatever car I wanted, and when I say whatever car, I mean—in the world.

And because I knew that it would piss Junior off and I lived for his constant scowls in my direction… I asked for the new Maserati Gran Tourismo MC, the exact same car he got the year before only better because mine was newer.

Swear every time I drove it, he wanted to purposefully get me into an accident.

This day was no different.

Day one of hell.

Day one of my senior year at Eagle Elite.

Just like it was Junior’s.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. In fact, we had been told repeatedly when we grew up that we could go to college wherever we wanted. Could have whatever life we wanted—as long as we swore our loyalty to the five families of the Cosa Nostra, we’d be good.

And then it happened.

They refused to tell us what it actually was, but I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face that day as he placed a small white toy horse in the middle of the kitchen table and whispered. “We have to talk.”

A white horse apparently had been sent to every single boss, and with that, a cryptic note that said: You should have killed them all. It was signed MP. Nobody knew who it was from, but the symbolism wasn’t lost on any of us. After all, a white horse never meant surrender to the mafia—it meant war.

And this time, we had no idea who the snitch was, or who wanted us dead, which meant I had to say goodbye to Stanford. I’d only been there a year, and for the first time in my life, I hated the mafia for taking that away from me.

We all transferred to Eagle Elite, the University the five families of Chicago owned—the one place we would be safe.

We had no choice.

The dads, the bosses, whatever you wanted to call them, decided they’d been too easy on us anyway, that we wouldn’t survive in this world if we didn’t know how to rule it.

Part of me wondered if they used that as an excuse, so they didn’t terrify us of what was coming.

Either way, it had been a hard lesson.

I shuddered, recalling that first day.

It was a lesson I never wanted to remember but was forced to relive every single time I saw Junior kiss another girl, every time he watched me flirt with other guys and invite them to drive my car.

I ignored the goosebumps that erupted all over my body when I thought about that day, the day it all went to hell.

The day I was forced to ignore my heart, ignore the blood that pumped through my veins, and recognize that it had never been mine in the first place.

His. My dad’s. The Boss of the Abandonato Family.

I gripped the steering wheel with my red leather gloves and hit the accelerator, wondering what it would feel like to just run right into that tree; my dad would be so pissed, we weren’t allowed to go out that way, it was blood in, no out for the rest of our lives.

The mafia refused to let you die until it said you could.

And I was no different.

I could feel Junior’s car on my ass; I hit my brakes as dirt puffed up around my backfires, he swerved and pulled out to the right so that both our cars were side by side.

I rolled down my window. “Junior, you know texting and driving is a crime punishable by ticket, right?”

He stared me down and then very slowly lifted his hand and showed me a middle finger. “Says the princess who tries to put on lipstick with one hand while stuffing her bra with the other.”

Heat rushed to my face. I would kill him one day.

Unfortunately, today was not that day.

“Cute, Junior, it’s almost like you don’t remember how much you fumbled with these.” I weighed my breasts in my hands. “Then again, if I were you, I would try to forget all those awkward moments too. What was it that one time? Five seconds? What a record!” I slow clapped.