My feelings are forever… the engagement is not.


    Vinn Costa used to hang the moon in my sky. He’s my brother’s brutally handsome best friend. He doesn’t know I exist, but I’ve always loved him.


    Until he did something unforgivable.


    Vinn’s not a sweet boy anymore. He’s grown into a cold gangster. He’s the most powerful man in Boston, a beautiful lost cause.


    I cut him from my life. I moved on.


    Or I would have, if he hadn’t roped me into a lie so dangerous I had no choice to y along.


    Now I have to pretend I’m his expecting fiancée, or we’re both dead.


    I need to walk away, but I have to see this through.


    I’m stuck… with the monster in the Vinn-suit.


    PROLOGUE


    Liana


    Dead.


    The word made no sense. Sometimes I heard it in cartoons, but I could never understand what it meant. They’d said it over and over-your parents are dead.


    Where was Mommy?


    Why wasn’t she back yet?


    The quilted coverlet wrapped my body. My head pounded. I’d spent the day crying, dragging Charlotte, my stuffed rabbit, throughout the strange house with cold floors, chased from rooms by that boy-Mike. He was mean. He’d stolen Charlotte, and I couldn’t go to sleep without her. I rubbed the crust of tears sealing my eyes shut.This text is property of N?/velD/rama.Org.


    The door creaked.


    A boy stepped through in pajamas. I tried to disappear under the covers, and stopped. His hair brushed his shoulders. He seemed much younger than Mike. A shy grin tugged at his lips as he lowered something to me.


    “Charlotte!” The wool scratched my face as I hugged the rabbit. “Thank you.”


    “You’re wee.”


    “Who are you?”


    “Vinny. I’m Mike’s cousin.” He kneeled beside the bed. “What’s your name?”


    “Liana.” A dim hope flickered in my chest. “Do you know where my mommy is?”


    “Sorry.” He pulled theforter to my chin. Then he stroked my hair, from the side to the back, just like my mother. “Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”


    “I miss her.”


    “You have us now. We’ll be your family.”


    I wasn’t sure about that, but I believed Vinny’s smile. His gentleness had lulled me into safety. I slumped with exhaustion.


    “It’s time to sleep, Liana. Close your eyes.”


    “Okay.”


    He nted a kiss on my brow, and then he disappeared, closing the door softly. Heat red across my cheeks and burrowed into my heart. Yearster, I wondered why its warmth had never left me.