PROLOGUE

                                    

                                          
My eighteenth birthday. The day everything changes. I have spent the last eighteen years playing the good child. The solider. The princess of the Hunt mafia family. Obeying my father's wishes and becoming the ruthless killer he desired me to be. Only so his demise would be so much sweeter. At the age of eighteen, every child of the mafia is given a choice to remain loyal to their family, to serve them without fail or face exile. There are not many who choose exile as the mafia's reach is far and wide, reaching even the lightest corners of the earth. But this is my chance to escape, to live the life I've always wanted. The life my mother wanted me to have and to destroy my father in the process. Being the only heir to the British mafia, leaving would destroy him more than killing him ever would and I can't wait. 
Our entire mafia family, my father's men – my sense of security, all stand around the long table in the grand hall. My father standing at the head of the table, an empty seat beside him ready for me to take my rightful place as his heir and next ruler of our family. Me standing on the opposite end, all eyes in the dimly lit room on me as my father asks the fateful question. 
"Will you, my darling daughter Arya, be joining me or do I have to put a bullet between your eyes?" My father asks. His voice harsh and tense, commanding an answer from me. 
The submissive side of me wants to give in to please him, knowing there will be a softer punishment for that response than the one I really want to give him. But I have been waiting to long for this moment to give into reason. 
The corner of my lips play up into a smile as I stare back at my father. A smile slowly forming on his face, a low throaty chuckle erupting from his lips as he thinks he's won. 
"Looks like you're going to have to put a bullet between my eyes, father." I say firmly a smirk spread across my face. Gasps erupt from several lips in the room as several fists slam down firmly onto the table in protest. My father stands in his spot, his chuckling halted, ignoring the comments and chaos being thrown at him in that moment as the two of us lock eyes. 
"So be it." He says raising his gun effectively silencing everyone else in the room. I close my eyes and wait for the shot. The sound of the gun firing echoes throughout the hall, and I welcome the sound of the bullet passing just to the right of my head into the splintering the wall behind me. The sound that ends my suffering and let me start anew. No more Arya Hunt, ruthless killer, princess of the mafia. 
No... she is now dead.
Now my life can begin.