Chapter 1

The first rule of marrying a mob boss: never go through his pockets.

The second rule: if you do, don't let him see your hands shake.

Mine don't.

I'm hanging up Garrett's tuxedo jacket — the one he wore to the Bonanno christening last night — when my fingers close around something stiff in the inside pocket.

A receipt. The Plaza. Two glasses of Dom Pérignon. One filet, rare. One lobster, butter on the side. A chocolate soufflé, for two.

He sees me holding it. Doesn't even blink.

"Sit-down with the Sicilians. Vivian sang at the after-party. I left before dessert."

"Sure." I drop the receipt into the trash.

There are a hundred women orbiting the Cole family — showgirls, capos' daughters, the redhead who runs the casino floor in Atlantic City. But there's only one Garrett would sit through a three-hour dinner for. Only one who could make the Reaper of New York behave like a goddamn altar boy.

Vivian Marsh.

I used to fight him over her. Screamed. Threw a crystal tumbler at his head and split his eyebrow open. Almost walked out — twice.

Then I took a bullet meant for him in a parking garage off Mulberry Street, crawled across the concrete with my own blood pooling under me, and dragged him into the back of his Lincoln before the second shooter could finish the job.

He broke after that. Knelt by my hospital bed with his forehead pressed to my hand and swore on his father's grave he'd never see her again unless it was family business.

That was eighteen months ago.

I walk out the back door to the woodpile. We have staff for this. I don't care. I like the weight of the axe. I like the sound steel makes splitting something clean down the middle.

I bring it down.

Crack.

Garrett follows. Stops a few feet behind me.

"Scarlett." His voice is too careful. "You're not going to say anything?"

Crack.

"You're not even going to yell at me?"

I almost died for this man. And here he is — smelling like another woman's perfume, asking why I'm not throwing a tantrum.

I'm not, because somewhere between the ICU and tonight, I stopped loving him.

I just hadn't said it out loud yet.

I split one more log. Stack them neat against the wall. Brush the bark off my palms and walk past him into the house.

He follows. Of course he follows.

"What the hell is going on with you, Scar?"

I run cold water over my hands at the kitchen sink. There's blood under one of my nails — not mine, from a soldier I sewed up in the safe-house basement two nights ago. It won't come out.

He hates my hands. He's never said it, but I know. He told me once Vivian's hands looked like they'd never touched anything ugly in her life.

Mine have touched nothing else.

I dry them on a dish towel and pick up the leather notebook on the counter. Three months of work. Every contact in the underground medical network from Boston to Miami. Every off-books surgeon, every safe-house pharmacist, every gunshot protocol I rewrote from scratch. My handwriting, every page.

Last week, old Doc Warren came to see me. He's the Family Doctor of Record — the one official, licensed physician the Cole family puts on retainer. Clean medical license. Townhouse on Park Avenue. A private practice that quietly doubles as a laundering front. Six-figure annual stipend signed off by the Don himself. Only one such seat in the whole organization. Warren's stepping down at the end of the year. He told me, eyes wet, that I was his pick. Twelve years of basement surgery — and finally, a way out into the daylight. A real license. A real life. Clean hands.

It's all I've ever wanted.

I push the notebook across the island.

"It's done."

He flips through it. Doesn't really look. "I'll pass it up the chain when I get a minute."

He sets it down at the edge of the counter like it's a takeout menu.

I don't say anything. I start the water for pasta.

We eat in silence. Then he sets his fork down.

"There's only one Doctor seat, Scarlett."

My hand stops on the wine bottle. "I know."

"Baby. You're the best off-books surgeon on the East Coast. With or without the seat, you're set for life."

I look up.

"But Vivian's different. Her lungs are shot from singing six nights a week. The seat is her only way out."

I set the bottle down.

"And?"

He won't meet my eyes.

"I put her name in with yours. She tests better. Sacred Heart pre-med. Gold Star daughter. Big-city polish. Her file's stronger than yours, sweetheart."

The blood drops out of my face.

"Garrett. Doc Warren told me the seat was mine. A month ago."

His jaw tightens.

"Nobody promises anything in this life. Best candidate gets it."

"Don't —"

"Don't be petty, Scarlett. You'll never want for anything. But Vivian goes back to that club, she's dead in a year. You really want that on you?"

I don't answer.

I can't eat another bite.

Upstairs, I lie on my side of the bed and stare at the ceiling. He comes in. Slides a hand around my waist. Lower.

I push him off.

He goes still.

"What now?"

"I'm tired."

"Christ, Scarlett. You're impossible to live with these days."

He turns his face to the wall.

I lie there in the dark with my eyes wide open. For the first time in five years of marriage to a man the rest of the world is terrified of —

I'm not afraid of him at all anymore.

I'm just done.