Silent Vows (Bonds of Betrayal): Chapter 1

I step back from my canvas, tilting my head to study the interplay of shadow and light. The late afternoon sun streams through the tall industrial windows of Columbia’s art studio, catching the paint flecks on my hands and turning them into constellations against my skin. My thesis exhibition piece is finally starting to speak—a moody interpretation of the New York skyline that Professor Martinez says shows promise, but needs more emotion, more raw truth beneath the surface.

Paint-splattered easels crowd the space around me, their wooden frames worn smooth by generations of aspiring artists. The scent of linseed oil and turpentine hangs heavy in the air, mingling with the earthy smell of clay from the sculpture studio next door.

This is my sanctuary, the one place where I can truly be myself—or at least, the self I want to be.

I study my canvas critically. The skyline emerges from a background of deep blues and purples, the buildings more suggestion than reality. There’s something missing, though. Some truth I’m not quite brave enough to paint. The shadows need to be darker, more threatening.

Like the ones that have always lurked at the edges of my world, no matter how hard I try to paint them away.

“You need to push harder,” Professor Martinez had said during our last critique. “Find the emotion you’re afraid to show.”

I almost laughed. How do you explain that your father is one of New York’s most feared Mafia dons? That the careful, controlled life I’ve built—art student by day, dutiful daughter by night—is just another kind of canvas, one where I paint myself normal? That maybe the reason I’m drawn to cityscapes is because they let me control the chaos, decide which shadows to highlight and which to hide?

My phone buzzes again—the third time in ten minutes. I ignore it, focusing instead on mixing the perfect shade of midnight blue. The color reminds me of my father’s study late at night, when the deals are made that we never talk about over breakfast.

The phone starts ringing again. The sound echoes through the empty studio, making me jump. A drop of blue paint splatters onto my white sneaker as I glance at the screen. My mother’s name flashes urgently, and something in my gut twists. She never calls this many times unless …

“Bella?” Her voice is shrill, stripped of its usual affected sophistication. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for⁠—”

“I’m working on my thesis piece,” I cut in, already annoyed. God, Mom knows how to get under my skin so easily. “You know how important⁠—”

“It’s your father.” The words slice through my irritation. “There’s been … there’s been an accident. You need to come to Mount Sinai right now.”

The paintbrush slips from my fingers, clattering to the floor. “What kind of accident?”

“Just come. Quickly.” She hangs up before I can ask more questions.

My hands shake as I shove supplies into my bag, not bothering to clean up properly. Paint water spills across the table, turquoise blue bleeding into crimson red. I should clean it up—good materials aren’t cheap on a student budget—but I can’t bring myself to care.

All I can think about is my father—Giovanni Russo, the man who’s always been invincible in my eyes, even though I know what he does for a living.

What our whole family is involved in.

The taxi ride to the hospital is twenty minutes of pure torture. Every red light feels like an eternity as my mind spins through possibilities. I’ve spent my life pretending the whispered conversations and late-night meetings were normal business dealings, but I know better. Maybe it was a rival family. Maybe someone finally decided to make a move. Maybe⁠—

I throw money at the driver and practically run through the emergency room doors. The antiseptic smell hits me first, then the fluorescent lights that make everything look sickly and unreal. The waiting room is a patchwork of misery—worried families huddled in uncomfortable chairs, nurses rushing past with purposeful strides, the quiet beeping of machines that means someone somewhere is still alive.

I spot them immediately—my uncle Carmine, speaking in hushed tones with Matteo DeLuca, my father’s best friend and one of the most dangerous men in New York. Carmine looks out of place in his expensive Italian suit, his balding head shining under the harsh lights. But it’s Matteo who commands attention.

At thirty-eight, he cuts an imposing figure in his perfectly tailored black suit, his broad shoulders tense as he nods at whatever Carmine is saying. Silver threads at his temples only add to his authority. When he turns and sees me, his steel-blue eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that makes my breath catch. I’ve always felt like prey when he looks at me like that, even though he’s supposedly on our side.

“Isabella,” he says, my full name rolling off his tongue like a prayer or a curse—I’m never quite sure which with him. There’s something in his eyes, something heavy and significant that makes my heart stutter.

Before he can say more, my mother appears, mascara streaking down her carefully made-up face. At forty-five, Cher Russo is still stunning, all sleek blonde hair and elegant bones. But now her perfect facade is cracking, her designer dress wrinkled as if she’s been hugging herself.

“He’s gone, bella mia.” She pulls me into an embrace that smells of Chanel No. 5 and despair. “Your father … he didn’t make it.”

The world tilts sideways. I feel strong hands steady me—Matteo’s—but I jerk away from his touch. Through the roaring in my ears, I catch fragments of conversation: “shooting” … “rival family” … “protection needed.” My mother is wailing now, a perfect performance of grief that seems more practiced than genuine. Uncle Carmine’s eyes gleam with something that looks disturbingly like opportunity.

“We need to discuss arrangements,” Carmine is saying, but Matteo cuts him off with a sharp gesture.

“Not now,” he growls, and for a moment, I see why men fear him. His gaze returns to me, softer but no less intense. “Go say goodbye to your father, Isabella. I’ll handle everything else.”

As I walk numbly toward the hospital room where my father’s body lies, I catch snippets of a heated conversation behind me. Matteo’s deep voice rumbles, “I made a promise to Giovanni …”

Followed by Carmine’s oily response, “Then you know what needs to be done.”

I pause at the doorway, my hand trembling on the handle. Through the small window, I can see the still form under the white sheet, and reality crashes over me. This isn’t one of my paintings where I can control the shadows, where I can choose what to reveal and what to hide. My father is dead. My carefully constructed world of art school and normal life has just shattered.

Inside the room, the machines are silent. The sheet covers him completely, but I can still see the strong line of his jaw, the hands that used to lift me onto his shoulders when I was little. The hands that probably killed people. The hands that definitely ordered deaths. But also, the hands that held mine steady the first time he taught me to paint, telling me that art was my escape, my way to be something different than what we are.

My legs give out and I sink into the chair beside his bed. Just yesterday morning, he was at the breakfast table, drinking his espresso and reading the paper like always. He asked about my thesis exhibition, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners when he smiled. “Show them who you really are, bella mia,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Art is the purest truth we have.”

Was he trying to tell me goodbye? Did he know something was coming?

I reach for his hand under the sheet but stop myself. I don’t want to feel the coldness, I don’t want that to be my last memory of him. Instead, I remember him warm and alive—teaching me to mix colors when I was five, steadying me on my first bicycle, wiping away tears after my first heartbreak. Always strong. Always there.

“Papa,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “Papa, please.”

The grief hits me like a physical blow, and suddenly I can’t breathe. My chest feels too tight, each breath a struggle. The fluorescent lights are too bright, too harsh, turning everything into a grotesque still life—the white sheet, the gray walls, the chrome railings of the hospital bed. My artist’s eye tries to break it down into shapes and shadows, a futile attempt to make sense of the senseless.

A sob tears from my throat, raw and primal. I press my fist against my mouth to stifle it, but it’s like trying to hold back the ocean. Years of careful control shatter as the tears come, hot and endless. I cry for the father I knew—the one who sat through every school art show, who taught me to see beauty in shadows.

And I cry for the father I didn’t know—the one who ruled New York’s underworld, who had enemies dangerous enough to put him here.

Memories flood back, taking on new meaning. The way he always checked the cars before we got in them. The armed men who followed us at a discrete distance when we went shopping. The nights he came home late, tension lined in his shoulders, but he always stopped to kiss my forehead and ask about my latest painting.

He tried so hard to give me a normal life, to let me live in the light while he handled the darkness. But the darkness found us anyway.

“I should have listened more,” I whisper, gripping the edge of his bed until my knuckles turn white. “Should have let you teach me about your world instead of hiding in mine. Should have told you I loved you this morning instead of rushing off to the studio.”

My tears fall onto the white sheet, creating small dark circles. Like paint on canvas, I think hysterically. Like the drops of midnight blue that fell on my sneaker just an hour ago when my whole world was still intact.

“I’m so sorry, Papa,” I whisper. “I should have been here. I should have …”

But I don’t know how to finish that sentence. Should have what? Accepted the world he tried to protect me from? Paid more attention to the danger instead of hiding in my art?

The door opens behind me, and I know without turning that it’s Matteo. His presence fills the room like smoke, dangerous and impossible to ignore. I try to wipe away my tears, to rebuild my composure, but it’s like trying to rebuild a sandcastle after the tide has already come in.

“Your father would want you to be strong now,” he says quietly.

A hollow laugh escapes me. “Strong? I’m an art student. I paint pretty pictures. I’m not … I was never …” The words tangle in my throat.

“You’re Giovanni Russo’s daughter,” Matteo says, his voice gentle but firm. “You’re stronger than you know.”

I don’t know if I believe him. Instead, I look at my father’s body one last time, trying to burn every detail into my memory. The proud line of his nose beneath the sheet. The way his presence fills the room even in death. The last time I painted him, it was a Father’s Day gift—a portrait of him in his study, reading glasses perched on his nose, warm lamplight softening his features. I made him look kind, approachable.

Now I wonder if I ever really saw him at all.

His voice echoes in my head: Remember who you are, bella mia. You’re an artist, yes, but you’re also my daughter. And in our world, that means something whether you want it to or not.

“Come,” Matteo says gently, and this time when his hand touches my shoulder, I don’t pull away. “There are things we need to discuss.”

I press a kiss to my father’s sheet-covered forehead, my tears falling freely now. “Ti amo, Papa,” I whisper. “Perdonami.” I love you. Forgive me.

As I follow him out of the room, I can feel the weight of eyes on us—Carmine’s calculating gaze, my mother’s tearful stare, and the curious glances of the hospital staff who probably think we’re just another grieving family. If only they knew what was really happening.

If only I knew.

But one thing is becoming terrifyingly clear—the safe, separate life I’ve built for myself was always just an illusion. A pretty picture I painted to hide the truth. And now that illusion is shattering, leaving me with nothing but shadows and the weight of all the things my father never told me. All the things I was too afraid to learn.

My heart feels like a canvas slashed to pieces, and I don’t know how to repair it. All I know is that my father’s world is coming for me, whether I’m ready or not.