The letter began the way only Nico could have begun it, and I heard his voice in it so clearly that I had to stop after the first line and press the heel of my hand to my mouth.

Empire of Ashes is a serialized dark mafia romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.

I have planned my way through a hundred rooms full of people who wanted me dead. I did not have the first idea what to do with a room full of people who only wanted me to dance.

Empire of Ashes is a serialized dark mafia romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.

Someone stood up, and the room went to ice, and my hand — my traitor hand, trained by a war I had just finished promising to stop fighting — moved an inch toward a hip where no weapon was. I'd come to my own wedding unarmed for the first time in my adult life, and my body had not yet received the news.

Empire of Ashes is a serialized dark mafia romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.

I have stood in rooms that were built to kill me and felt my pulse stay exactly where I left it. I have read a man his own murder off a ledger in a steady voice. I once talked a Don off a fire with my husband three feet from the man's soldiers and never let my hand shake.

Empire of Ashes is a serialized dark mafia romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.

I had the war built again by noon. I am, if nothing else, consistent.

Empire of Ashes is a serialized dark mafia romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.

I carried Greco's gift for a day and a half before I understood that the carrying was the whole trap.

Empire of Ashes is a serialized dark mafia romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.

I built the war in a single night, the old way, before I caught myself.

Empire of Ashes is a serialized dark mafia romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.

We did get new windows.

Empire of Ashes is a serialized dark mafia romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.

I was already moving when the consigliere turned the gun on my husband, and I want to tell you I crossed the table in time — that I was the one who saved him — because it would make a cleaner story, and God knows I'd earned a clean story by then.

Empire of Ashes is a serialized dark mafia romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.

The Commission met for the second time in two weeks, which had not happened in thirty years, and everyone in the room knew it, the way you know weather. The city was changing fast enough now that even the families who ran it couldn't keep up, and the thing they were all afraid of and couldn't name was that the speed was coming from a girl.

Empire of Ashes is a serialized dark mafia romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.