Chapter 2

I endured the pain, cried until there was nothing left in me, and buried two children before I'd ever had the chance to hold them.

Both times, Salvatore knelt beside my hospital bed.

The second time, he drew a knife and drove the blade through his own palm.

Blood ran down his wrist as he covered my eyes with that same trembling hand, refusing to let me look at what the doctors carried away.

"Gilly, I swear on the Family, I'll give you a good life. If I ever betray you, may God make me pay for it in blood."

It wasn't an empty promise.

Men like Salvatore didn't swear on the Family lightly.

Blood for blood. A vow made that way was supposed to follow a man into his grave.

I believed him.

For ten years, I believed him.

And now he'd broken that vow without hesitation for a woman he'd known six months.

I couldn't understand it.

How could a man who had once loved me enough to bleed for me become someone I barely recognized?

A phone suddenly rang.

The ringtone was familiar.

I'd heard it countless times late at night. Whenever I asked, Salvatore would tell me it was one of his business contacts, a man who handled shipments through the docks.

I'd never questioned him.

Why would I?

I'd trusted him more than I'd trusted myself.

Only now did I realize how stupid that trust had made me.

Salvatore glanced at the screen but didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he looked at me with the patient expression of a man soothing a child in the middle of a tantrum.

"Why are you making this bigger than it needs to be?"

His voice remained calm.

"We've had ten years together, Gilly. Ten years. And you're ready to throw all of that away because I gave another woman a place beside me?"

My fingers went cold.

He leaned back against the seat.

"You're not eighteen anymore. You have no blood family left, no name of your own, no crew behind you. Outside my protection, you have no one."

His eyes hardened slightly.

"So stop saying things you'll regret."

Then he pulled the Bentley over to the curb.

The engine idled beneath us.

"Take a cab home. I have to pick her up."

He unlocked the doors.

"Think carefully about what I said."

A second later, I was standing alone on the roadside.

The door slammed shut behind me.

Salvatore drove away without looking back.

I watched the Bentley disappear into traffic until I couldn't see it anymore.

Then I bent over and retched.

Nothing came up.

My stomach was empty, but my body kept convulsing until tears blurred my vision and ran down my face.

Salvatore was wrong about one thing.

A man didn't give a woman a place beside him before the entire Family because she meant nothing.

He didn't give her the recognition another woman had waited ten years to receive because he'd simply lost his head for a night.

That place was something I'd waited for through ten years of hunger, blood, miscarriages, bullets, funerals, and war.

He had never given it to me.

He'd given it to Bianca after six months.

Maybe a man's heart didn't disappear.

Maybe it simply moved somewhere else.

I lifted my head.

The sky was heavy and gray, and the wind cut through my clothes, straight into the hollow place inside my chest.

For a long time, I stood there without moving.

Then my thumb brushed over the bare base of my ring finger.

I could almost feel the weight of the ring that should have been there.

Almost.

I took out my phone and made a call.

By the time I returned to the estate, I had stopped crying.

Not long after, the familiar growl of Salvatore's Bentley sounded outside.

I looked through the window.

One of his soldiers got out first and moved several paces away, deliberately turning his back to the car.

Salvatore remained inside.

So did Bianca.

The windows were dark, but one of them had been left open barely an inch.

Through that narrow gap came a woman's breathless voice.

Then Salvatore's.

"Say it."

A soft laugh.

"Say what?"

"You know what."

There was a pause.

Then Bianca whispered, almost shyly, "Husband."

Salvatore laughed under his breath.

"Again."

"Husband."

"Good girl."

Another silence followed, filled with sounds I didn't need explained.

Then I heard him murmur, "I'd give you my life."

I stood behind the curtain, unable to move.

The summer sun burned against the windows, fierce enough to bleach the stone courtyard white.

But I felt as if I'd been dropped naked into snow.

Nearly an hour passed before the front door finally opened.

Salvatore walked in with Bianca tucked against his side.

She was small and delicate, almost fragile beside him.

The moment she saw me sitting in the living room, her steps stopped.

Her eyes immediately filled with tears.

"Why is she here?"

Salvatore frowned.

Bianca pulled away from him.

"You told me this was our home."

Her voice trembled.

"Were you lying to me? You still can't let her go, can you?"

"Bianca."

"I love you, Salvatore, but I won't live under the same roof as another woman and pretend I have no dignity."

She turned toward the door.

"I'm leaving."

Salvatore caught her before she'd taken two steps.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her firmly back against his chest.

"What are you talking about?"

Bianca struggled weakly in his arms.

"The Family witnessed my claim. Everyone knows the place I've given you."

He lowered his voice, coaxing her.

"You're the woman who stands beside me now. This is your home."

Only after saying that did he finally look at me.

There was no guilt in his face.

No apology.

As though what he was about to say was the most reasonable arrangement in the world.

"Gilly, there's a safe house outside the territory. It's quiet, and the men know not to bother you there."

He paused.

"Go stay there for a while."

For a moment, I thought I'd heard him wrong.

My mind emptied before the pain arrived.

Then came the dull ache beneath my ribs, slow and physical, as if something inside my chest were being crushed by hand.

My gaze moved around the room.

Three years ago, when we'd first walked through these doors, the estate had still smelled of fresh paint and new wood.

Salvatore had stood behind me and wrapped both arms around my waist.

His eyes had been red.

"Gilly, look."

He'd kissed my temple.

"We finally have a home."

I'd laughed at him for getting emotional.

But he'd only held me tighter.

"You, me, and our children. This is where we're going to grow old."

I'd believed that too.

Now, three years later, he was standing in the same room with another woman in his arms, telling me to leave.

Not asking.

Telling.

I looked at him.

"You're throwing me out?"

Something shifted in Salvatore's expression.

Not guilt.

Impatience.

"Gilly."

Bianca's fingers tightened around his shirt.

That tiny movement was enough.

Salvatore's gaze cooled.

"My wife is upset."

The word hit harder than I expected.

My wife.

He said it naturally.

Effortlessly.

A title I'd waited ten years to hear had become Bianca's after six months.

"I don't want to say it twice."

Salvatore was still smiling.

But his voice had dropped into that quiet, measured register every man under him knew.

The voice that came before an order became a threat.

For the first time, I realized he wasn't speaking to me as the woman who had slept beneath bridges beside him.

He wasn't speaking to the girl who had starved with him, bled for him, buried his children, and stayed when there had been nothing worth staying for.

He was speaking to me as the Boss.

And he expected obedience.

My throat tightened until swallowing hurt.

Salvatore watched me with complete certainty.

He thought he knew how this would end.

I would cry.

I would rage.

Then I would give in, just as I always had.

After a long silence, I lowered my eyes.

"All right."

The words came out almost soundless.

"I'll go."