After I completed the orphanage’s formal education program, fate intervened in the form of a formidable woman: the matriarch of the Corell crime family. She summoned me personally and offered what felt like an impossible gift. She would finance my education at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze—one of the most elite art institutions in the country.
There was, of course, a price.
In exchange, I would be bound to her son, Zaldy Corell—the future Don. He was five years older than me, hardened by loss, and still openly haunted by the woman who had left him years earlier. Maria Lee had gone to Paris, where she refined her influence, sharpened her ambitions, and elevated her status among Europe’s elite criminal circles.
I hesitated. I was barely eighteen. Zaldy was twenty-three and already feared within the organization.
“Does he know about this arrangement?” I asked quietly, my fingers clenched in my lap.
“Yes,” the matriarch replied after a pause. Her gaze softened just enough to disarm me. “He has agreed.”
Out of gratitude—and obligation—I accepted. She had been the only source of kindness I’d ever known, the only person who saw something worthwhile in me. Refusing her felt impossible.