For twenty years, our families hunted each other like wolves. Then I fell for her—my enemy’s daughter—like fate was laughing. “Choose,” my uncle hissed, pressing the family ring into my palm. “Her… or your blood.” I swallowed my love and wore hatred like armor. But at the execution ground she leaned close, eyes blazing: “I kept my promise. You didn’t.” The crowd screamed. My world cracked. So… who betrayed whom?
For twenty years, the Callahans and the Russos didn’t just dislike each other—we documented our hatred. Court filings, union complaints, anonymous tips to the city, smashed truck windows in the dark. People in our Connecticut town picked a side the way they picked a church. I was raised on one lesson: A Russo smile is…