PROLOGUE
ADA
They told me he was dead, and I believed them.
Two weeks later, the first book arrived.
There was no postmark, no return address, but I knew it was from him. I’d been holding a copy the day he set fire to my soul in a stolen car on the edge of darkness. When for twelve hours the world had sparked with light and colour before they’d shrouded it in black again.
After that, they appeared once a month, and it was always the same book, just different versions. Some had discreet covers. Others were straight-up classics. French, German, Italian, Arabic… Every translation you could think of.
Most were torn with age, but a few had been newly reprinted that year. No two copies were identical, but the story never changed because it was our story now. They’d turned him into the villain, and me into a footnote: framed for a crime we didn’t commit, and then punished and kept apart for years because of it.
One was so rare it had been auctioned off for a huge amount of money—the highest anyone had paid for a first edition. The buyer was anonymous, of course. I read about him in a newspaper someone had left behind in a coffee shop. According to the by-line, the final bid had come in from Monaco.
Monaco.
I remember thinking then how sad and strange it was that for all the blood money we had, we were both still bankrupt in all the ways it mattered.
Then, five months ago, the books stopped arriving.
I figured he was dead now for sure, and my grief was so great it felt like every chamber of my heart was being pierced by a bullet.
I waited weeks for my Bratva bastard of a husband to show up and taunt me with the news, but he never came.
That’s when I knew the truth:
Our chains had finally broken.
The war was finally here.
Frankie was coming back for me, and the whole of London was going to burn because of it.
CHAPTER 1
FRANKIE
Twenty-One Years Ago…
“Sinners don’t die well, Francesco… The Devil makes sure of it.”
I’ve heard my father speak these words before, but never when he’s splayed out on a dirty kitchen table, red dripping off the edges. With five holes in his chest, there’s a dull acceptance in his eyes.
“Come closer, figlio mio.” His fingers slip from my wrist, leaving a jagged smear of crimson behind.
It’s spelling out my own fate and sealing it with blood.
Silence.
Honour.
Revenge.
These are the oaths of Omertà. The promises my father swore when he became a made man three decades ago. The same ones I’ll make when my own time comes. Not that he’ll be around to see it. The man who created, loved, and protected me for twelve years is dying in front of me, and all the promises in the world can’t stop it.
Silence.
Honour.
Revenge.
“Francesco?” he wheezes.
“I’m here, Papà.”
“Closer, closer.” His great head flops to the side as he struggles for air.
Lurching forward, I catch his flailing hand in mine, interlocking our fingers like we used to do when I was a small boy. His skin is much cooler than I remembered. His grip, weaker and less sure of itself.
“Antonio made the call,” I mumble. “There’s a medic on the way.”
The bullets shredded his lungs. Antonio told me so himself. Maybe even his heart, too. By the time we’d dragged him all the way to the safehouse, his insides were drowning in blood.
“The meeting was a trap, Francesco. A trap! They were all waiting for us, the bastardi!” His voice rises briefly before he’s coughing and spluttering again.
Most of my father’s men died tonight, including my older brother, Matteo. After that, the black ricochet of betrayal spread right to my family’s front door. I tried to warn mamma on the way here, but the call kept ringing out. That’s when I knew that she and my little sister, Vittoria, were dead as well.
I shut my eyes to keep my pain in check. That’s when I see her. She’s dancing across the tiles at the bottom of the stairs, the way she does when she thinks no one's looking.
Danced.
She wants to be a ballerina.
Wanted.
“Francesco!”
My eyes fly open again. Antonio is frowning at me from across the table. He’s my father’s sotto capo. His underboss. The man who helped him turn London’s first Cosa Nostra cosca into one of the biggest players in the city. Now, he’s a gambler on the losing team, pressing towels to my father’s chest to try and stem the flow of blood as more than just his capo lies dying in front of him.
“It’s no good, amico,” he grunts, sweat glazing his brow. He slows his efforts and glances at the clock above the sink.
“Keep trying,” I beg.
I’m not ready to let him go yet.
“Figlio mio…” My father summons what little strength he has left to squeeze my hand. “This was never a ceasefire for O’Sullivan. It was a massacre.” He grimaces, his face creasing up with fresh agony. “The Irish cut a deal with the Russians, maybe even with the British too. I was wrong to think that the Red Compass could coexist in peace. To a brutto figlio di puttana bastardo mobster like O’Sullivan, the needle will only ever point his way.”
“Tell me what to do,” I say quietly.
“You know what to do. For your mother…Matteo, Vittoria. Avenging our deaths is your life’s path now.”
I nod, accepting my destiny. Feeling the weight of it crushing down on me.
My father has schooled me in this world from the day I was born. I know all the rules and rulers of this city. I know how London was divided into four criminal territories twenty years ago: North. South. East. West. Bratva. Mafia. British. Irish. And then nicknamed ‘The Red Compass’ from all the blood we spilled between us.
Over time, my father grew sick of the war. Sick of the needless slaughter. He was trying to unite us, to bring about an order to the chaos…
His ambition was cut down in bullets exactly one hour ago. It seems the other criminal organisations don’t share his views.
“Be as liberal with your vengeance as you are with your love, figlio mio. Don’t waste it.” My father drops my hand and stares up at the ceiling. “Take my body back to Sicily. Lay me to rest with my wife, daughter, and son. Join us when the time is right.”
He means when the Irish flag lies burning.
The room falls silent. All his words have been spoken. The pauses between each inhale and exhale grow longer and longer like the shadows on the pavement at dinnertime.
I find myself holding my own breath as I wait for his final one.
Hating it.
Wanting it.
Confused by it.
When it finally comes, it feels like the flatline is piercing my soul, driving deep into parts of me I don’t have a name for yet. At the same time, everything else ceases to exist: the cold kitchen, the stained floor, the hastily overturned chairs, the naked lightbulb swinging above our heads…
After a while, Antonio says a prayer in Italian, making the sign of the cross as he closes my father’s eyelids. Then, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his gun. I watch—not really seeing—as he slowly screws a silencer onto the tip of the weapon.