Page 1 of Ivory Sins
1
Prologue
I’vealwaysknownhowI would die.
Not when or where—just the how. In my family’s world, death comes with a signature. Clean. Professional. A message written in blood.
But the letter sitting on my mahogany desk tonight promises something different. Something worse.
The heavy cream envelope bears no postmark, no return address. Just my name in elegant calligraphy: Olivia Bellanti, Esq. Inside, a flash drive.
My hands tremble as I insert the drive into my laptop. A video recording of myself, seven years younger, standing over a body in the rain flickers onto the screen. The timestamp reads 2:17 AM, October 15, 2017. The night I thought I had buried forever.
As the video plays, my mind goes numb with fear. The footage shows me hitting Enzo DiMartino with my car, stepping out to check on him, and then driving away in a panic.
Below the video, five words glare at me in the same precise handwriting as a caption: “Time to pay your dues.”
I should call Luca, my father, and Matteo, my brother. One word from them and an army of soldiers would materialize around me, guns drawn, ready to kill or die for the family’s princess. But they can’t protect me from this. No one can.
The DiMartino family. Their name is whispered in the darkest corners of the criminal world, a ghostly presence shrouded in rumors and fear. Known for their ruthless efficiency and brutal reprisals, they are the unseen puppeteers of the underworld. No one dares cross them and live to tell the tale.
Gruesome stories circulate—stories of enemies who disappeared without a trace, of entire families wiped out overnight, and of bodies found with chilling messages carved into their flesh.
The smart thing would be to run. I’ve got offshore accounts, false identities, everything I’d need to disappear. Being consigliere to the Bellanti syndicate taught me well. Too well.
But as I stare at the video, at the threat. Beneath it, I know running isn’t an option. Not anymore. Because the dead man in the video isn’t just any victim—he’s the son of Alex DiMartino, the enigmatic and feared leader of the DiMartino family.
My father always taught me that in our world, you’re either the hunter or the prey. What he never taught me was what to do when you’re both.
Sometimes, the only way to survive is to face the very thing you’ve been running from.
Even if it means losing everything you’ve built trying to escape it.
2
Olivia
Thesecretswekeep,they say, can either set us free or hold us captive.
In my situation, there's no way in hell that the former can ever be the case. Not even in my wildest dreams. I guess it's safe to say that I'm not only weighed down by my guilt, but I'm also a captive of this dark memory that haunts my sleep almost every night.
At 28, I have my whole life planned. I have it all figured out and nothing can ever take me unawares.
Or at least that's what my confidence and composure make people believe.
However, deep down, I'm not as fierce as I appear to be and I often hide my anxiety under competence and professionalism.
I'm already a renowned lawyer, and I’m hell-bent on keeping the Bellanti syndicate out of trouble—that’s my role in the family.
All of my siblings have something that's unique to them, something that's beneficial to the family. And this is mine—using the law to protect the Bellanti syndicate at all costs.
To the rest of the world, Olivia Bellanti is so put together, organized and always elegant in her professional attire and designer medicated glasses. That's what they see on the outside—a classy woman with natural beauty and perfect manicure.
Truth is, beneath the confident exterior is a scared little girl weighed down by a burden too heavy to bear alone. Yet I've convinced the world that I'm resilient, and in no need of anyone's help whatsoever.
But it's not true. It's just an act, a mask to conceal my own insecurities, to hide the horror of what I've done.
In my office, I exhale sharply, my manicured fingers rubbing my eyes as I sit in my chair. The scent of freshly brewed coffee wafts through the air, mingling with the smell of aged paper and old books.
