Chapter 1

Vivienne's POV

I curled up in the gap between two shipping containers.

Last night's haute couture gown, worth tens of thousands of dollars, had a hem caked with mud, the pearl-trimmed edges torn in large patches, and silk stained with dark and light splotches whose colors were indistinguishable in the dim dock lighting.

I knew what they were. Wine, mud, blood.

The heel of one stiletto had broken off at some point, so I'd slipped both shoes off and clutched them in my hands, my bare feet pressing against the icy cement floor.

Autumn crouched beside me, one hand gripping my wrist the entire time, squeezing hard enough to make my bones ache.

She was trembling too, but her breathing remained carefully controlled and low.

Ahead of us at the dock, a transatlantic liner sat moored at its berth.

The lights from the deck blurred and reflected on the black surface of the water.

The cargo hatch of the lower hold still gaped open, men in rough work clothes filing in one after another, boxes hoisted on their shoulders.

I raised my hand to unfasten the emerald necklace at my throat.

My mother had clasped it around my neck herself last night.

"Happy birthday, my Vivienne."

Before my fingers reached the clasp, Autumn had already seized my wrist, the force making me gasp sharply.

"No."

"I can use it to buy passage."

"You're going to walk up to a ticket window with a priceless emerald necklace?" Autumn's voice was barely above a whisper, practically squeezed through her teeth. "You think it's only Moretti's people looking for you? The rats around here can smell blood—they'd strip you to the bone and sell the pieces for cash."

The sound of men shouting drifted from a distance, and Autumn immediately pressed herself lower, nearly shielding my entire body with hers.

"Then how do we—"

She tucked the pendant back inside my collar.

"I've already found a way." She cut me off, her tone carrying not a trace of hesitation.

"You stay here, don't move, don't answer anyone who comes, and I'll be right back."

She released my wrist and turned away, and in that instant I saw a scrape on the back of her neck that I hadn't noticed before, already dried and scabbed over.

Then she was gone.

I curled back into the shadows, gathering the gown's skirt over my knees and lowering my head.

While I waited for Autumn, I leaned against the cold iron wall of the shipping container and closed my eyes.

Memory surged back uncontrollably, like a breaking tide, drowning me in an instant.

Last night. Ashford Manor.

Crystal chandeliers flooded the ballroom with light, champagne towers stacked into golden pyramids, the orchestra still playing.

I wore that haute couture gown, the emerald necklace my mother had just fastened around my neck.

Guests raised their glasses to me one after another, smiling and saying, "Happy twenty-fifth birthday, Miss Vivienne."

My father, the man who controlled the Brooklyn docks, was now at the landing of the staircase, clinking glasses with Salvatore, the head of the Moretti family.

According to my mother, Salvatore had recently set his sights on our territory.

I watched my father with some concern.

Salvatore clapped him on the shoulder and leaned in to whisper something in his ear.

Father nodded. The two of them went upstairs, one after the other.

Before leaving, he turned back to smile at me, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes filled with pride for his daughter.

Mother and my sixteen-year-old brother Julian followed behind them.

The orchestra changed to a new piece. Someone asked me to dance.

Then I heard the gunshot.

Too soft, muffled by two floors and a tightly closed suite door, it sounded like someone dropping a wine glass.

No one noticed. The orchestra kept playing, guests kept raising their glasses.

Only I felt every hair on the back of my neck stand on end in that instant.

I lifted my skirt and ran toward the stairs, my heels striking the marble steps in urgent echoes.

The second-floor corridor was empty and quiet, the suite door left slightly ajar, warm light spilling through the gap.

I rushed to the door and reached out to push it open, then froze.

Through the crack, Father lay on the Persian carpet, his chest blooming with a large dark red bloodstain, his eyes wide open staring at the ceiling, never to blink again.

Salvatore stood before him, the barrel of his gun still trailing a wisp of smoke, his face wearing an expression of utterly disinterested calm.

My throat felt gripped by an invisible hand, unable to produce even a breath of sound.

And Mother...

Mother was being restrained by another man I'd never seen before, pinned against the edge of the sofa—his face one I'd glimpsed once in a photo from one of Father's drinking parties, the head of another gang.

His hands tore at the shoulder straps of Mother's dress, his mouth saying something I couldn't make out, his eyes naked with long-coveted desire.

He panted heavily, his chest heaving.

"...as a gesture of good faith for our alliance."

I heard Salvatore's voice penetrate the gap in the door, flat as if discussing the most ordinary business transaction.

"She's beautiful, isn't she? I've always remembered the way you looked at her."

The man's body pressed tight against Mother's, his right hand clamped firmly over her screams, his left hand ripping away her gown and strapless bra in one motion. His wet, hot tongue licked maliciously at her earlobe, her neck, her breasts, her nipples.

Mother struggled desperately, her nails scratching bloody tracks across the man's face, but he slapped her viciously, snapping her head to the side, blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.

"FUCK, bitch!"

His rough hands slid downward, grasping her buttocks and forcibly prying them apart.

Mother twisted her waist, trying to close her legs, but the man brutally wedged his knee between them, forcing her most intimate parts completely exposed, the moisture secreted from fear and her body's natural response glistening obscenely in the light.

"No... don't..."

Her voice shattered, and in desperation she reached toward the door, toward me, extending one hand...

She saw me.

In that instant, Mother's eyes flooded with an expression I would never forget for the rest of my life—not a plea for help, but a desperate, utter supplication for me to leave, to hide.

I stood frozen in place, unable to move a single finger, yet unable to tear my eyes away from that crack in the door.

The man grinned savagely, one hand pinning Mother's hips, the other unbuckling his belt.

Mother somehow broke free from the man's grip, her knee driving upward—the man grunted and loosened his hold for just an instant. She shoved him away violently and stumbled toward the balcony.

I watched her slender figure climb over the railing, the skirt of her gown spreading in the night wind like a swan with broken wings.

No scream.

Only a dull thud as she fell from four stories to the ground, the sound traveling through the window into my eardrums, crushing the last fragment of peace in my entire world.

My younger brother Julian, that child who still had two years before turning eighteen, who should have been in the suite with our parents, vanished completely in the chaos—no one knew where he'd been taken, whether he was dead or alive.

The party downstairs continued, the crisp sound of crystal glasses clinking, the orchestra's melodious music, the guests' laughter and conversation—

My whole body went weak as I leaned against the wall, about to rush through that door when a hand suddenly clamped over my mouth from behind, the force nearly suffocating me, another arm locking around my waist and dragging my entire body away from that crack in the door.

It was Autumn.

She pulled my struggling form into the narrow passage behind the kitchen, through the corridor stacked with crates of supplies, and escaped from the shadows of the manor's side entrance.

When I wrenched myself free from the memory, my whole body was shaking, my fingernails digging into my flesh, the pain piercing. I trembled all over, teeth clenched on my lower lip to keep any sound from escaping.

I didn't know how long I'd been sitting there until footsteps sounded in the distance. Light, but urgent. I jerked my head up.

Autumn was walking quickly from the other end of the dock, two neatly folded gray-blue uniforms bundled in her arms, her steps steady, showing no sign of anything amiss.

Only when she drew near and moonlight fell across her face did I see the fresh split on the inside of her lower lip, her collar askew, revealing an abnormally red mark near her collarbone.

I looked at her and asked nothing.

There was no point in asking. The answer was written all over her bitten lip.

I simply reached out to straighten her crooked collar, and when my fingertips touched the abnormally warm skin at the side of her neck, her shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly.

"The ship leaves in twenty minutes." She pressed one of the uniforms into my hands. "Change first."

I looked down at the rough gray-blue fabric in my hands, my eyes burning hot.

When the gown peeled away from my body, the silk stuck to my skin.

The rough work clothes were stiff and coarse, the sleeves too long—I rolled up the cuffs twice.

Autumn took my gown, folded it twice, and stuffed it into a gap at the bottom of a shipping container, along with the broken-heeled shoes.

The emerald necklace still hung around my neck.

Autumn reached out and tucked the pendant inside my rough cloth collar, making sure it couldn't be seen from outside.

"The ship's about to leave," she said.

I looked at her and nodded.

In the darkness, a group of laborers was heading toward the gangway.

Autumn lowered her head, and I lowered mine. We followed at the rear, like two dirty, silent shadows, blending into the smell of sweat, coal dust, and profanity, walking forward step by step.

No one recognized me.

No one knew that just hours ago, I had stood at the center of Manhattan's brightest ballroom.

At the end of the gangway, the dark passage below deck gaped open like a tomb for the living.