Chapter 1 – Debt in Blood
Valentina Cruz
If hell had a lobby, it would smell exactly like my apartment: fried onions, cheap perfume, and the scent of crushed dreams.
I was halfway through writing a literature essay on feminist rage in Jane Eyre — ironic, really — when the front door slammed so hard the cracked picture frame of baby Jesus tilted off the wall. That's how I knew it was my father. Nobody else entered like a hurricane.
I didn't even look up.
"Bathroom's down the hall. Grab a bandage and a lie while you're at it."
He stumbled past the couch, one hand clutched over his nose, which was leaking blood like a bad faucet. His shirt was ripped. His eye was starting to swell. He looked like a man who'd lost a fight with a bat. Or possibly a bear. A bear named Regret.
"Val… baby girl…" he slurred.
I set my laptop aside with the kind of sigh usually reserved for Shakespearean death scenes. "If this is about money again, I swear to God, I'm going to sell your kidneys on Facebook Marketplace."
"I made a mistake," he said.
"You've made a lot. Narrow it down."
He dropped into the busted recliner like his bones were tired of carrying him. "I just needed a little help to get back on my feet."
"That's what you said the last time. And the time before that. And the time you bet my tuition on a cockfight in Tijuana."
His eyes flicked away like he couldn't bear to see the disappointment blooming in mine. That used to work on me. Not anymore.
"What did you do?" I asked flatly.
Silence.
Then, like a guilty toddler caught with a stolen cookie, he mumbled, "I borrowed some money."
I froze. "From who?"
More silence.
"Dad. From who?"
When he didn't answer, I grabbed the throw pillow and screamed into it like a war widow.
"Don't panic," he said.
"Don't panic?" I pulled the pillow away and threw it at him. "Do I look like I'm panicking? No. This is the face of someone calculating whether five years in prison for patricide is worth the peace and quiet."
"Valentina—"
"How much?"
He looked up. His eyes were watery, and not from the broken nose. "Fifty."
"Fifty… hundred?"
He swallowed.
"Thousand?! Are you clinically insane?"
"It wasn't all at once," he whispered.
"Who?" I demanded. "Who would lend you fifty thousand dollars knowing you're basically a raccoon in a human suit?"
He didn't answer.
The air changed. I felt it before he said the name.
"The D'Amico family."
Time stopped.
Outside, a dog barked. A baby cried. Somewhere down the hall, the neighbor's TV blared a soap opera where someone shouted in Spanish about betrayal. Inside me, a cold numbness crept up my spine like a snake.
"You… borrowed money from the mafia?"
He looked ashamed. "I was gonna pay it back. I had a plan—"
"Your last plan was buying fake Bitcoin from a guy named El Pepe on Instagram."
"I didn't know who they really were," he muttered. "They said they were investors."
"They're not investors, they're murderers!"
I stood, my head spinning.
Rafael D'Amico.
I'd heard the name whispered in alleys and shouted in headlines. The heir to the D'Amico crime empire. A man who'd burned down a rival's mansion while people were still inside. A man who once shot his own cousin in the kneecap for disrespecting his name.
That was who my father owed money to?
I didn't know whether to cry or vomit.
"Why are you still here?" I snapped. "Aren't they coming to collect?"
He looked down.
Oh God.
"They already came?" I asked.
He nodded. "An hour ago."
"And I'm still breathing… why?"
He didn't answer.
My chest tightened. "Dad, what did you give them?"
He wouldn't look at me.
"What did you give them?"
Then he said it.
"I gave them you."
⸻
⚫
He explained it in fits and starts. How Rafael's men offered to wipe the slate clean — if my father offered something more "valuable." How they knew Rafael was looking for a wife to fulfill some sort of mafia obligation. How I, poor, stubborn, inconvenient me, was perfect for the role.
"I'm not perfect," I whispered. "I'm sarcastic, broke, and allergic to authority."
"You're beautiful," he said miserably. "And they said… he wanted fire."
"Well, set me on fire and call it a wedding."
He flinched.
I turned away and stared at the cracked window, where the neon flicker of our neighborhood liquor store blinked like a dying star. I felt hollow. Like my body was still standing, but my spirit had packed a bag and left for Canada.
"When?" I asked, voice dry.
"They're coming tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?"
"To… pick you up."
"Like a pizza?"
He didn't answer.
⸻
⚫
Later that night, as I lay on my broken bed with springs stabbing my back and fear pressing against my lungs, I thought about freedom. How it had never really belonged to me. Not as a girl. Not as a Cruz. Not as a product of this cursed family tree.
But I swore one thing:
If Rafael D'Amico thought I was going to be his obedient little mafia wife, he had another thing coming.
I'd go. Because I had no choice.
But I wasn't going quietly.
I was going loud, dressed in red, with claws bared and a plan forming.
Because if I was marrying the Beast…
Then I'd make sure he knew exactly what kind of Beauty he'd chained.