Page 1 of The Rhino's Rose

Prologue

Sicily

Eleven years before Chapter One

Hovering in the dark hallway outside my father’s study, I hold my breath and listen. Normally, I would be asleep in my bedroom at this hour, but my stomach didn’t approve of all the desserts I ate earlier, or the extra glass of wine my father let me have since it was “a big birthday.”

Every living member of the Falsone family attended the party, plus some of the made men who work for my father, and even a couple dons of other families. My father’s toast called it a celebration of my debut into womanhood.

Embarrassingly, he knew the biological accuracy of that statement because he’d been made aware that I got my first period a couple of weeks ago. Keeping anything secret from him is impossible. As one of Sicily’s most-feared mafia dons, no one in his employ would dare get on his bad side. The consequences could be deadly.

I’ve grown up knowing that everything I do—or don’t do—is reported to my father. By my nannies, tutors, the household staff, the handful of cousins who are the closest thing I have to friends. Don’t ask me why I expected the details of my bodily functions to be any different. I guess because I didn’t think my father would care to know that I got my first period. We’ve never been close. I honestly can’t remember the last time he hugged me.

Isabella, my nanny since forever, the closest thing I have to a mother figure, says my father holds himself apart from me to protect me.

Since I literally never leave our heavily guarded compound, I’m safe from physical danger. As for protecting me from the harsh truths of being a mafia family, why do that when I’ll need to learn all about the inner workings so I can take over one day? My mother died when I was just two years old, and I’m an only child. If my father had plans to remarry and make babies until he has a son, he would have started long ago.

Now that I’m officially a woman in his eyes, maybe I should tell him I’m ready to step into the role of heir. The worst he can say is no, right? When I heard his voice from down the hall, I thought this might be as good a time asany to make the suggestion. Until I heard the second male voice, Nicolo Nicchi’s unmistakable rasp.

“Not until she turns sixteen. That was the deal.” The metallictingof a flip lighter opening punctuates my father’s evenly spoken words, followed by the familiar inhalation and exhalation sounds of his cigar habit.

“Yes, Angelo, thatwasthe deal,” Nicolo, one of the other family dons in attendance earlier, answers. “But you wouldn’t have invited me to her party and presented her as a woman if you didn’t intend to give her to me sooner.”

Give me to him?

“She’s thirteen years old, Nicolo. She’s not even a full month into womanhood.”

Oh my god. It’s not bad enough that my father knows my brand-new menstrual cycle, he’s sharing that information with the head of one of the other families? That’s just?—

“I assume that means she is untouched?” Nicolo has the audacity to ask.

Again, I hold my breath, this time waiting for the crack of my father’s fist on Nicolo’s jaw.

It never comes. Only my father’s cool, calm voice. “Not so much as a kiss. I ensure she never has opportunity for any intimate contact with others, just as we agreed.”

Just as they agreed?What the hell?

“Good, good. I want her pure in every way when I take her.”

“When she’ssixteen, Nicolo. I gave my word, here in this room, and I will keep it—three years from now.”

“Surely you aren’t attempting to intimidateme, the person who handed you Giuseppe Morello’s head on a platter, quite literally, so that you could take control of his territory. That offering was personal, Angelo. I crafted it with my own hands.”

I cup my hand over my mouth as the contents of my stomach lurch upward. My father promised me to Nicolo in exchange for expanding the Falsone family’s territory? I had just turned ten when that happened. I remember Nicolo coming to the house with a present I thought was a birthday gift for me, but he took it into my father’s study instead, and I never saw it again. Now I know what was in the box. And I understand the weird comment Nicolo made when he walked past me on his way out of the house.

“I will see you in six years, little girl.”

Only now, Nicolo wants to shorten the timeline.

“I am amending the terms of our deal, Falsone, and if you say another word in rebuttal, yours may be the next head I deliver. Many have offered greater prizes than yours, but I declined those proposals out of respect for our agreement. I am here, my betrothed is ready, and I’m not leaving without what is mine. Wake her now, before I lose my patience. I’m sure you would rather my mood is one of tolerance when I take my bride-to-be to her new home.”

My father won’t let it happen. Promising me to acreepy old man is bad enough. Letting him have me when I just turned thirteen… he wouldn’t do such a horrific thing. Not to his daughter. We aren’t close, but I’m still his flesh and blood. His only child.

My pulse is pounding so loud in my ears, I barely hear my father’s long, resigned sigh. But his words are crystal clear.

“Help yourself to a brandy and a cigar, Nicolo. I’ll wake Rosa and get her ready to go.”

No.I must have heard him wrong. He wouldn’t.He wouldn’t.

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