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Everyonelovestoreadabout a princess trapped in a tower, waiting for her prince to come save her.
Well, everyone but me, I guess. Personally, anyone who believes in that crap is an idiot—or maybe a hopeless romantic looking for a promise that one day they might also have someone come rescue them from the dull and boring life they live.
You know what I say to that…
Rescue your own goddamn ass! Get out of the tower and find your own fucking adventure because that’s sure as hell what I did.
My father locked me in a large mansion in upstate Huntingford, away from all the prying eyes of Eastrose, where he resided. After losing my mother in an attack by a rival mafia when I was five, I could see why he’d want to keep his only legitimate child and heir safe under lock and key.
Or so he thinks.
Being Daddy’s good little girl lasted until I was eighteen, then I got tired of waiting for Dad’s perfect plan for my life to start. Instead, I decided to fill my time with something I enjoyed and was spectacularly skilled at.
Don’t they always say the best thing to cure boredom is to get a hobby? Not sure becoming a jewel thief of the rich and famous is what they had in mind. Well, I always liked to do the unexpected. Clearly, people needed more imagination if they couldn’t find something they truly loved to do. It’s not like I wasn’t being raised to live a life of crime once I was called back home. Hell, Dearest Daddy is Colmazio Caprioni, the boss of the Caprioni Family. The king of Eastrose, if you will, also known as the largest ruling mafia clan on the East Coast of the continent.
Shortly after I was born and it was known my mother couldn’t have more children, I became target number one. It was well known my daddy doted on me every chance he got. If someone wanted to hurt the king, going after me was a sure-fire win. My mother, Natalina, saved my life by giving up hers. She fought against the attackers, giving my bodyguard time to get me away to safety.
It didn’t take Daddy long before he smuggled Glenda, my nanny, and me out of the country and down into the upper-crust rural life of Apira. He came to visit me once a week until I was ten. He never blamed me for Mother’s death. Instead, it was obvious to anyone who saw us that he was a total pushover when it came to me. I was a daddy’s girl to the max.
Daddy’s dream was to one day have me be his right hand and take my rightful place beside him on the throne of the family business. Of course, there’s still some pushback even though we live in the twenty-first century. Those craggy old-school assholes shouldn’t give a shit if I’m a woman as long as I have the balls to run the family the way it needs to be run.
After Daddy announced his intent to hold the underboss position for me until I was ready, he stopped coming to see me. The flack he got for that statement nearly led to an internal war. Daddy refused to do anything that might risk them finding me through his visits. So I’ve been trapped here in a giant mansion with no family since I was ten, waiting until he’s gotten rid of the opposition. In other words, the asshats who were against me taking my rightful place as the firstborn of the Caprioni Family.
The moment I hit sixteen, Daddy sent tutors to teach me every aspect of what it means to lead a crime family like ours. They covered everything from reading the books, knowing the players in the game, and the best method to get someone to talk with only using toothpicks. I started shooting all kinds of guns from the moment I was able to withstand the recoil of a gun. Then there was the self-defense training. It was rough, and no one took it easy on me. If anything, they went harder because I was the boss’s daughter.
It almost got to the point where Glenda thought I might need to be homeschooled to keep people from noticing the bruises. That’s when Daddy decided to tone down the training until I was out of school. No way was my daddy leaving his little girl defenseless even if I was hidden away from the world. Losing my mother and having to send me away was as hard on him as it was on me. In the end, I knew all of this was going to be worth it for us to be a family again.
It wasn’t all bad. The training sure came in handy when I started stealing shit.
I’m not sure what Daddy would say if he found out about me becoming a notorious thief of all the things in my spare time. That would be thanks to Ryker, who dared me to steal something from Mrs. Gallagher when she was hosting a party at her estate. Growing up, I hated going to these parties more than anything in the world.
Daddy remarried three years after he lost my mother to a witch named Flora. Then he had the audacity to move her into the house with me. Everyone in our neighborhood, Huntingford Estates, believed my daddy was a construction tycoon working overseas. In a way, I suppose it wasn’t a lie, nothing was built in Eastrose without him giving the okay. I know for a fact Daddy only married Flora for business. He didn’t really love her at all, and I could see it in his eyes when he came to visit.
The way he solved that issue was by sending her away to be protected along with me and also kept her out of his way. It gave a better cover story for me as well as it allowed Flora to still have a life in society. I’ve never understood why anyone would want vapid friendships that led to us going to awful, boring parties. Going to these things meant I had to wear a dress and smile as if I cared.
To make matters worse, my best friend couldn’t come with me to these parties. That just meant I had to find another way to make it more interesting—hence, the stealing.
Ryker was my best friend and the boy who lived next door, kind of. He was the son of our butler of sorts. Darian ran the house and looked after us ladies as I grew up. It only makes sense that Ryker and I would end up being friends. There were no other kids for us to hang out with since we lived so far away from everyone else in town. Yeah, we had acquaintances at the private school we both went to, but those aren’t the type of people you make lifelong friendships with. Ryker and I were best friends for life, even made a blood pact like they did in the old mafia days. It was a symbol proving you’d always have each other’s backs no matter what happened in life.
That meant when Ryker dared me to bring him back something from the party, you bet your ass I did it. I found this really amazing pocketknife that had an elephant engraved on it and was filled with sparkling gemstones.
It was perfect.
Ryker loved elephants, and it would totally make him feel better about not being able to come with me. Seeing his face when I brought it back made me want to do it again and again, but getting something even better to make him smile. He eventually yelled at me after the shock wore off and realized what I’d done. Apparently, he was talking about food, but why would I do that when this was so much better? Plus, I tend to do things to the extreme when left unsupervised.
Thus, my hobby was born. From that point on, I started going after items that made it more challenging. I began to scope out people’s houses or what guests were wearing at parties. Then I’d steal them later. I found myself waiting until a full moon because it simply made it easier to see without bringing any light that would give me away.
Once the police started catching on, that’s when it happened. I was now a wanted jewelry thief. In addition to that, the newspapers gave me a nickname—Luna Selene. It had such a nice ring to it I decided to encourage its use. So for added drama, I started to leave moonflowers behind as a signature.
Stealing became less frequent when I graduated high school. I was to begin the intensive learning curve of the Caprioni Family business to the point where I knew every single bit of information by heart. I was to be presented to the Family at the age of twenty-five. Daddy wanted me to come in guns blazing. He wanted to ensure they could find no fault in my abilities so he sent my uncles, his righthand men, to do the job. The downside to this was I was watched more closely by the security that had been doubled around our house and grounds. They caught me sneaking out once, and Uncle Athos was pissed.
Physical training became brutal as they taught me to survive torture, poisons, and to fight to kill whoever I was up against. The worst of it was that Ryker had been sent off to college back in Eastrose. Even though I tried to keep in touch with him, he didn’t reciprocate, leaving me alone to deal with the hardest part of my life so far. It broke my heart to have him walk away, turning his back on our blood oath and me. Rubbing the scar on my hand became a habit. Almost like I was trying to wipe it off my skin for good, but it never worked.
Eventually, I learned I had to stop giving a shit about someone who didn’t give a fuck about me. I learned an important lesson—you couldn’t count on anyone to be there for you but you. My heart hardened as it was proven time and time again by men.
Hence, where my feelings about waiting for a white knight to come save me came from. My daddy and two uncles became all I needed in life. Even my stepmother left to travel the world and live her life as she pleased the moment I was eighteen.