Prologue
Isabella Drago cried out as she landed on her back. Something had broken, she just knew it.
“Get up.”
“I can’t, Daddy. It hurts.”
“And men will make sure it keeps on hurting. Get up.”
She stared at her father through her hair, sweating. His men stood around waiting, but not giving their opinion. No one stopped him. Not that she imagined they would. They were all just waiting for the right set of instructions and if it was for them to kill her, again, they’d do it. This was exactly what they would all do. They followed orders, her father’s to be exact.
At one time, they had also followed her brother’s, but she didn’t dare bring him up, not at this moment
Slamming her palm to the ground, she got up. Pain shot through her young body and she couldn’t contain the whimper that slipped past her lips. She needed to learn to keep her head, especially now.
Standing up, she faced her father. Blood dripped from her lip, and she knew why he’d taken her out of boarding school. She was taught at home, under his supervision.
“You need to learn to focus. To keep me in your sights at all times.” He moved across the mat and she watched each and every footstep, wanting nothing more than to run. Her father wasn’t a cruel man.
In all the time she’d been with him, he’d never once raised a hand to her, until this very week, that was. When she was attacked from behind, not expecting it.
“Fight back,” the words were said softly against her ear.
She knew without a doubt it was Randy, one of her father’s loyal soldiers who hadn’t been part of the Family. He wasn’t blood-related, but she’d heard he was the bastard of one of the capos, and it was one of the reasons her father wasn’t liked much. He was known for taking in strays, and it pissed off the rest of the Families that he didn’t care if they were pureblood.
She hated the Family.
Hated being a Drago.
But her father had always been different behind closed doors. If they were at a party or social gathering, she must play the part of a submissive, young girl, turning into a woman who would be married off one day. She stood with all of the other girls, waiting, terrified, watching as the men leered or drank too much. Her father never did. No, he was always about control.
When they were alone, she was his princess. She could talk to him about anything, read, study, and explore. She wore dungarees as she played in the garden or ate hot dogs, getting mustard all over her mouth.
Where was that man?
She knew.
He’d died when her brother had.
This new world she was part of terrified her.
Thrown to the ground, she curled up in a ball, and she heard him shout, “Enough,” as Randy hit her in the stomach.
Immediately, the man stepped back, and her father was there.
“We’ll go to sparring.” He pulled her up to her feet, even as her stomach repelled the action.
This was all too much. She couldn’t take it. “Daddy, please.”
“I’m going to get you strong. I promise.”
And so, it continued, her torture. She had no choice but to learn and try to defend herself.
If not, she truly believed her father would kill her.
****
Later that night, nursing her wounds, wanting to do nothing more than cry, Isabella tensed when her bedroom door opened up and her father stepped inside.
All day, he’d looked mean, fierce, scary. Right that very second, he looked anything but.
He was broken.
He cleared his throat. “I know you’re not asleep.”
She didn’t say a word as he moved toward the bed. He knelt down on the floor and ran his fingers through his hair, resting his elbows on the bed.
“I know you’re confused right now. You’re in pain, and I’m sorry. I know that everything I’m doing is probably scaring you half to death. That’s not my intention and I hope you know that.”
She licked her dry lips, feeling the tears as they slipped from her eyes.
“I promised your mother, the love of my life, that you would have a better one. That you would find a man you loved and I’d protect you from the Family at every single turn.” He sighed. “You know I disobey the Family each time I don’t take a woman?”
She nodded. It was an issue with many of the capos as well as the Boss, that he continued to mourn his dead wife, her mother, the love of his life. “I could keep my promise to her. When your brother died…” He stopped and even she had to gasp.
Her brother, Philip, had died at twenty-one, in a shoot-out with a rival MC. He’d been killed instantly, a single bullet to the head. No pain. Nothing.
“Philip’s passing changes everything, Isabella.” Her father never shortened her name. He didn’t do it for anyone, it was always their full name.
“What does it change?” she asked.
“You’re my only heir. This, one day, will all be yours, or passed onto whomever you’re supposed to marry. The vultures are already circling, wanting to know who I’d pick for my daughter who isn’t even a teenager yet.” He ran a hand down his face and she realized he was crying. “I wanted to give you the world, but this life now, it won’t let me. All I can do is make you strong. The men here will eat you up and spit you back out. They will hurt you. I’m not a fool. I know some of the women are in nightmarish situations where their men hurt them. I don’t want that for you. I want you to be able to sit at that table when I die, and to control it. To be a force to be reckoned with.”
“Daddy, I’m a girl.”
“And one day, you’re going to be a woman. I will train you. I’ll prepare you. Every single day we have together, it will be for you. If there is one thing I can do now before I die, it is to make sure you will never be at the mercy of men. Please, Isabella, I know you will hate me, but don’t let them win.”
“I won’t, Daddy, I promise.”
Chapter One
Ten years later
“Tears are weakness. Never let them see you cry.”
Isabella didn’t cry as her father’s casket was lowered into the ground. She watched, broken inside, but to everyone watching, she showed no emotion. It had taken her years to learn to lock her feelings inside. There were times when her father was alive that he admitted he wished he’d never taught her because he wasn’t able to read her.
Through hours of his countless training, she’d become the perfect son, or daughter. Most of the men here would hate who she was. None of them would believe that she’d killed to save her father, how she was faster than most of her guards, and once she realized her father’s reason for training her, she never failed him. Whenever she was slammed to the ground, she got right back up and asked for more.
There was no stopping her.
Of course, with training also came the need to keep her a woman, and so she’d been fed constantly as well. Even though she was a strong woman, fit, she hadn’t lost any curves.
She looked around the graveyard. Everyone was dressed in black. All of the capos were in one place, but their soldiers were not too far behind. They all had enemies, all of them were wanted dead.
She didn’t give a fuck who wanted them dead.