Summary:

Back cover
My name is Allera Orgoglio. My last name means Pride in Italian. My first name doesn’t really mean anything, but I’m named after the Russian god Allera. My eldest sister, Verona, is named for a city in Italy. My next eldest sister's name, Marishka, means sea of bitterness in Hungarian, which I think fits her perfectly. Then, there's me, and then my youngest sister, Neovora. Her name doesn’t mean anything at all, but mom just thought her last girl should have a pretty, elegant name. If we met on the street, you wouldn’t believe I was one of the Orgoglio princesses of the underworld. Then again, I could still barely wrap my head around it after growing up sitting in day long consiglio meetings with my parents and sisters, and private study sessions with the consiglio’s children- the most elite kids in the underworld- after 16 years, so I tend to keep that to myself. Then there’s this thing called il segnato ceremony, that only the seven royal families can be in, where the new ruling couple is chosen by il marchio appearing somewhere on their body, and of course bondage of the couple is mandatory, whether you want to or not. I didn’t sign up for this, I don’t want to even be a queen, but when il marchio appears, it’s impossible to hide it.