Twisted Pride

The third installment in the Camorra Chronicles series is set in a world of rival organized crime dynasties: the Chicago Outfit, which controls the Midwest, and the Camorra, which rules Las Vegas and the West Coast. The novel opens with a prologue from Serafina Mione's perspective during her captivity, as Remo Falcone, the Capo, or leader, of the Camorra enters her shower and challenges her to touch him, establishing the central dynamic of forbidden desire between captor and captive.

The narrative then shifts to the days before the kidnapping. Serafina, the nineteen-year-old niece of Dante Cavallaro, Boss of the Outfit, prepares for her arranged marriage to Danilo Mancini, the Underboss, or second-in-command, of Indianapolis. Known publicly as the "Ice Princess" for her composure, Serafina is spirited and defiant in private. Her twin brother Samuel, a Made Man (fully inducted member) in the Outfit, is fiercely protective of her. Serafina does not love Danilo but accepts the marriage as her duty.

Remo plans the kidnapping as retribution for the Outfit's attack on Camorra territory. Accompanied by his Enforcer Fabiano Scuderi, a former Outfit member whose own father tried to have him killed, Remo intends to hold Serafina captive and make her family suffer with guilt, destroying the Outfit from within. On the wedding day, Camorra cars ambush the vehicle carrying Serafina and Samuel. Samuel is shot, and Serafina flees into a forest, but Remo tackles her. They inject her with a tranquilizer as she hears her father and brother calling her name.

Serafina wakes in a motel and is transported to Las Vegas, first to the Sugar Trap, a strip club that serves as a Camorra base. There Remo introduces his brothers: Nino, his emotionless second-in-command, and Savio, his younger brother. Remo taunts Serafina about her lost wedding night, but she refuses to submit. In a basement cell, Remo hands her his knife to test her. Drawing on self-defense training, Serafina attacks and cuts his arm before he overpowers her. He does not assault her, instead telling her she is "the queen" in his chess game before ordering her to undress.

When a guard watches Serafina shower without permission, Remo kills him. The blood flowing into the shower triggers a severe panic attack, and Remo carries Serafina to a guest bedroom in the Falcone mansion. He leaves her a knife and tells her to kill herself if she wants the easy way out. She presses the blade to his throat instead, declaring he will never break her.

Remo arranges a live video call with her family and gives Serafina a choice on camera: pay for the Outfit's sins with pain or with her body. She chooses pain, guiding his blade to her forearm. The cut's location mirrors scars hidden beneath Remo's and Nino's tattoos, and he hesitates, leaving only a shallow wound.

A routine develops. Remo takes Serafina on daily runs and walks, steals her first kiss, and challenges her assumptions about her arranged marriage, arguing that captivity and engagement offer the same lack of choice. Serafina is disturbed to find his logic compelling. Nino's wife Kiara, originally from a rival crime syndicate called the Famiglia and forced into her own marriage, whispers to Serafina that she can get under Remo's skin. Adamo, Remo's youngest brother at nearly fourteen, brings Serafina books and ice cream, revealing the household's more human side.

When Samuel launches an unauthorized rescue mission, Remo and Nino overpower the attackers. Believing Samuel may die, Serafina offers Remo her body in exchange for her brother's life. Remo refuses and instead has Serafina fake screams of torture in a cell next to Samuel's, then releases Samuel with the false belief that Serafina will suffer for every Outfit mistake.

The sexual tension escalates until Remo brings Serafina to her first orgasm during a garden encounter. Consumed with guilt over betraying Danilo and her family, she runs, but Remo follows. She initially resists but gives in, and they have sex for the first time. Afterward, Remo sends the bloodstained sheets to her family with a note claiming he raped her, deepening their anguish. They continue sleeping together, each encounter strengthening a bond neither can deny.

Remo negotiates Serafina's return in exchange for Rocco Scuderi, Fabiano's father. On the final morning, he orders her to wear her ruined wedding dress. She believes he will keep her, but he follows through, shoving her toward her family while whispering that he owns her. She whispers back that he gave her a piece of his heart. He does not deny it. Serafina collapses into her father's arms.

Back in Minneapolis, Serafina breaks off her engagement to Danilo; the Mancini family demands her eleven-year-old sister Sofia as a replacement bride at eighteen. When Serafina tries to tell Samuel that Remo did not force her, Samuel insists she has trauma-induced denial. She then discovers she is pregnant with Remo's twins. Her family urges her to end the pregnancy, but she refuses and gives birth to Nevio and Greta, both unmistakably Falcone with Remo's black hair and dark eyes. Samuel can hold Greta but cannot bring himself to look at Nevio, who is the image of Remo. Meanwhile, Remo spirals in Las Vegas, engaging in brutal cage fights and refusing other women's company.

The crisis arrives when the Outfit captures Adamo and tortures him on a Darknet livestream. Serafina throws herself in front of the boy to stop the violence. Remo offers himself in exchange for his brother, surrendering unarmed. Serafina then watches her family torture Remo, who stares directly into the camera.

That night, Serafina makes her choice. She packs supplies for the twins, arms herself, and sedates Samuel. In the torture room, she frees Remo and tells him about his children. When Danilo discovers them, she shoots his arm. Facing her family at gunpoint, she pleads that her children are Falcones who deserve to live without shame. Dante tells her that if she leaves, she is a traitor who will never see her family again. She accepts and drives away with Remo and the twins.

At the Falcone mansion, Nino declares the children Falcones and therefore family. When Remo wakes and meets his twins, he tells Serafina he has never been happier. He reveals the full horror of his childhood: His mother slashed Nino's wrists and set their bedroom on fire to punish their abusive father. Nine-year-old Remo burned his hands and body pulling his brothers through the window to safety. The fallen angel tattoo on his back commemorates the destruction of his innocence. Remo proposes, and Serafina accepts.

At the wedding, Remo secretly arranges for Samuel to attend by guaranteeing his safety. When Serafina spots her twin at the ceremony's edge, Samuel tells her he came because he would do anything for her, even if he can never forgive Remo. Their rings reflect their bond: Remo's is black tungsten carbide with ebony for enduring strength, while Serafina's features entwining wings set with white diamonds and black sapphires, symbolizing their union of light and darkness. The novel closes with Remo reflecting that Serafina, meant to be his ultimate weapon against the Outfit, became his greatest triumph: not a pawn destroyed but the woman who captured his heart and gave him a family.