Blood Oath

Sienna's POV

There is peace in silence or so I used to believe before the knock shattered my sanctuary, before the quiet cradle of stone and incense was torn from me like a ripped page from scripture. Now, silence feels like a warning. A stillness before a storm.

The convent bell had just struck midnight, a dull toll that echoed through the old stone walls like a heartbeat. I was in the chapel alone, as I often was when sleep evaded me, seated on the third pew from the altar, fingers curled around the rosary that had once belonged to my mother. Or so I'd been told. The candle flames flickered as if exhaling secrets.

I stared at the crucifix, waiting for the peace I usually found in prayer. It didn't come tonight. My thoughts were restless. My skin was prickling. My soul unsettled. I didn't know it then, but something had already shifted.

The first sign came with Sister Agatha's hurried footsteps. She rarely moved faster than a whisper, but now I heard her sandals slapping the stone floor, echoing louder than thunder in the dead of night.

She burst into the chapel, her gray habit fluttering like a ghost behind her. Her eyes landed on me, wide and filled with something I hadn't seen in years: fear.

"Child," she said, breathless. "They've come for you." I blinked. "What?"

She strode forward, grasped my hand with thin fingers. "Go. To the dormitory. Gather your things."

"I don't-what are you talking about?" I asked, standing. "Who's come for me?"

Her answer was the second sign that nothing would ever be the same. "Your family." I froze. That word meant nothing to me. Not really. I was abandoned at the convent's gate when I was barely five years old. No name, no history. Only a golden locket and a bloodied note tucked into my dress with the word Sienna and a symbol I would later discover belonged to a mafia family.

But Sister Agatha never talked about that. Neither did I. I was raised by nuns, educated by them, loved-if not with warmth, then at least with duty. I was never adopted. Never claimed. For sixteen years, I wondered if I was someone's shame, or someone's sacrifice. Either way, I learned not to ask.

So now, hearing your family has come for you felt surreal. Like a myth resurrected.

I let Sister Agatha pull me down the hall, past slumbering doors and flickering sconces, to the narrow room I called mine. She grabbed my satchel and shoved it into my hands. "They said you have ten minutes."

"Who are they?" She looked away. "Men. Not kind ones." That's when the fear truly set in. A chill crept over my skin as I packed, shoving books and my locket into the bag, changing out of my nightgown into a modest dress. My fingers trembled as I laced the front. I didn't want to cry. I didn't want to leave. But I had the sense even then that refusal wasn't an option.

"They said you belong to the Rosettis," Sister Agatha murmured behind me. I stiffened. I'd heard that name only once before, whispered by an old priest who had mistaken me for someone else. A name associated with blood, power, and money. A name uttered with more fear than reverence.

"The Rosettis?" I asked. She only nodded before I could ask anything else, a new sound echoed down the hall. Boots. Heavy ones. Many of them. The door swung open without a knock. A man entered first-tall, broad-shouldered, clean-cut in a way that screamed danger disguised in civility. He wore a tailored black coat and dark leather gloves. Behind him were two more, each built like walls, each armed.

My breath caught. I instinctively stepped back. The man in front assessed me like I was merchandise. His eyes were sharp, gray, and calculating. "Sienna Rosetti?" he asked. I didn't answer. "She's never used that name," Sister Agatha said softly. "She's known only as Sienna."

"Well, she'll have to get used to it." He nodded to the others. "Let's go."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," I snapped, surprising even myself. The man tilted his head. He looked almost amused. "You don't have a choice." My fists clenched. "I don't even know who you are."

"I'm your escort."

"I didn't ask to be escorted."

"Tough," he said. "Orders are orders. The Don wants his daughter back." That word. Don. It silenced the room. "Daughter?" I whispered. "I don't... I don't have a father."

"You do. His name is Riccardo Rosetti. And you'll be seeing him in about eight hours." I shook my head. "There must be a mistake." He stepped closer. "No mistake, Sienna. You've been hidden long enough. Your father has enemies. And now, so do you." A hand closed around my upper arm one of the guards. I yanked back instinctively. Sister Agatha stepped forward. "Please. She's not ready-"

"She doesn't have to be ready," the man snapped. "She just has to move." They dragged me, gently but firmly, through the convent's ancient halls. My legs moved on autopilot, but inside, I was screaming. Not with fear-but with confusion, betrayal, anger.

Outside, the world looked different. It smelled different too-crisp with frost, stained with exhaust fumes and roses. A long black car waited beyond the iron gates.

I looked back one last time as the convent doors swung shut behind me. Sister Agatha stood in the archway, hands clasped to her chest, lips moving in prayer. I wanted to run back. To scream. To demand they explain why now? Why take me from the only home I've ever known?

But the car door opened, and everything inside me went quiet.bI slid in. The man-my "escort" followed. They drove for hours. The silence stretched between us like a chasm. I stared out the tinted window, watching fields turn into freeways, and freeways into a dark horizon. I asked no questions. He gave no answers.

But as dawn broke, casting a pale orange across the sky, I finally spoke. "Why now?" I whispered. He glanced at me. "Because you've come of age."

"That's it?" He exhaled. "You'll understand soon. But you're part of something bigger, Sienna. Something bloody. Something powerful. You were hidden to protect you. Now it's time to play your part." My throat tightened. "What part?" He gave me a slow, unreadable smile. "You're to marry Nico D'Amore." I blinked. The name meant nothing to me. But the way he said it made something in my stomach drop.

"And if I say no?" He turned his gaze back to the road. "You won't."

"You don't know me."

"I don't need to. The contract was signed before you were born." I stared at him in horror. "This is insane. You're telling me I was raised in a convent, kept from my family, and now I'm being forced to marry a stranger?"

"Yes," he said simply.

"Why?"

"To end a war." A bitter laugh escaped me. "I'm a peace treaty?"

"You're a Rosetti. You're leverage. You're blood." The car slowed.

A tall iron gate loomed ahead, beyond it a massive estate draped in shadow and wealth. The Rosetti Manor. As we pulled through the gates, my heart pounded like a war drum. I wasn't just leaving the convent. I was stepping into a world of guns and secrets. Of power and marriage contracts. Of fathers I'd never met and enemies I didn't know I had and somewhere inside this gilded prison waited a man named Nico D'Amore. The man I was supposed to marry. The man whose name tasted like a threat on the wind.