Page 1 of Savage Enemy

PROLOGUE

VAL

BEFORE

I wondered about the corpse in my wedding gown while I watched my father’s black sedan teetering over the edge of the bridge. Her name. Where she came from. How she really died.

Who had loved her?

For what felt like an eternity, the damn car didn’t fall into the river. But it would—because it had to.

My freedom depended on it. My life did too.

Drop, for God’s sake.

For mine.

At the last moment, the car tipped forward and plunged into the blue-green water, stunning the crowd into silence.

I let out the breath I’d been holding.

The wake rocked the ferry from where I stood, and the woman beside me let out a piercing shriek.

We both grabbed the guardrail.

The water settled. It was over.

Emergency sirens wailed through the streets.

In the days that followed, headlines would read, “Valentina Moscatelli, 18, Drowns in Chicago River on Wedding Day.”

I doubted my fiancé would bother to pretend to mourn for even a minute. He would have a new bride within a week.

Friends and family would believe I drowned in my wedding dress, trapped in the submerged car, surrounded by floating layers of white lace.

All of them—all but mynonna.

After learning my father had sold me to Chicago’s infamous forty-something Russian sociopath, Nonna planned my escape, managing every detail. She gave me a fighting chance to stay alive and to have the kind of life my mother never had before my father killed her.

Nonna saved me from the Mafia before Vladimir Klimov could marry me and imprison me in Bratva territory, where I would have disappeared forever. The sick bastard killed his wives when he got tired of them, usually within the first year.

My father knew this as well as anyone, but he never loved me enough to care whether I lived or died.

Only the business deal I secured for him mattered.

Calling me his little princess didn’t fool anyone.

“This is Valentina,mia piccola principessa,” he would say whenever introducing me to potential business partners.

Most people saw through his motives and his false affection for me. His cold expressions and the way he never looked at me or touched me gave him away.

I was property.

My father believed he owned me. Like a rancher selling off a prized heifer to the highest bidder seeking prime breeding stock.

Thanks to Nonna, I had a chance to escape the depraved bastard. The life she’d planned for me offered a chance to live outside the Mafia. And maybe even marry a good, honest man with a steady job.

It didn’t matter if my future husband and I lived on modest salaries. I only ever wanted a safe home with someone whowouldn’t hurt me, and a warm house filled with the laughter of our children.

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