Page 1 of Third Degree

Prologue

Daphne

30 years old

I’d been living a lie my entire life. My real name wasn’t even Daphne. I was drowning in a sea of my own deception, struggling to find the shore of truth. It was as though I’d been lying to myself for so long that reality had become a distant memory.

What wasn’t a lie was that the moment I landed in San Diego, the clock started to count down.

It ticked and ticked and ticked until it rang out. The closer to the end, the sooner I got to my inevitable demise. The life I had built, the one filled with happiness, learning, and growing, was slipping through my fingers.

One where the anxiety I used to experience had finally dwindled. Where Daphne was a person who was known for being kind and compassionate, unlike Gianna, who was lost and insecure.

I was bound to a world where women were vowed to be seen and not heard. Their voices were next to none. Their opinions didn’t matter; their own thoughts, feelings, and emotions came second to that of men.

That was the life I was destined to live.

So, regardless of the whole fairytale of me hoping that my parents would grant me an extension when I turned thirty-one, this semblance of peace I’d found was going to crumble whether I liked it or not.

In essence, I would be forced to return to Chicago and marry someone my parents had chosen.

I guess that was the life of a Mafia princess.

When I was just eighteen, I’d pleaded with my parents, desperately seeking their permission to escape the suffocating grip of our high-class community. The denizens of Chicago’s seedy underbelly. But my reasons went beyond simply yearning for a new beginning—I craved the chance to find myself, to discover who I truly was.

But my reluctance to enter into marriage wasn’t solely a rebellion against the lifestyle I was raised in. There was a secret buried deep within me, one that still resided despite my furtive attempts to suppress it.

My heart was already claimed by a man I couldn’t be with.

I knew that once I reached thirty-one and returned home without a spouse, I would be coerced into a loveless union with no possibility of being withhim.

The day before my best friend was to marry, I received a phone call from my mama reminding me that I only had six more months until I turned thirty-one. In fact, they had already finished planning my wedding and were now searching for my knight in shining armor, who was going to rescue my virginal self from the shame of my family.

God, gag me right now.

Although, the virgin part was still intact. Not only did I have to embarrass myself once a year to a doctor who would confirm my hymen was indeed still very much together, but like I said, I had been quite focused on growing myself and less on finding a man to fuck around with.

Alas, here I was, living a lie. No one could know who I was. No one could connect me withla famiglia,so I made few friends and never ventured elsewhere.

Because of my open struggles with my mental health, I often didn’t connect with other Mafia princesses. It was easier for me to separate myself completely. I worked at a brunch restaurant to pass the time and spent most of my days out in my garden.

No one knew who I really was excepthim.

I lived a lie. Who needed a fulfilling romantic life when you had the satisfaction of pruning your own rosebushes? I was the epitome of a modern-day spinster, living in contended solitude and celibacy.

My time in San Diego would be ending in the next six months, whether I liked it or not.

My name is Gianna Daphne Ricci. I am thirty years old, I am a virgin, and in six months, I am doomed once more to be Mafia royalty.

PART 1

1

Gianna Daphne

18 years old

I hated my parents. I hated them even more because the year I graduated, at the peak time when some big transformation into womanhood began, they decided we needed to move to Northern California.

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