Chapter 1

The first time Lorenzo Marlowe broke the pact, he took a private photograph of the girl with the red eyes and told me I could do whatever I wanted with it. I loved him so much that I chose to forgive him, telling myself it was nothing more than a careless mistake a soldier makes once and never again.

The second time, Lorenzo let the tape of him and that girl slip loose, and every capo and every kept woman in this city saw it. Omertà covers a great many sins, but not that one. Still, I told myself he was the same Lorenzo I had been promised to. So I swallowed my pride and stayed at his side as though nothing had touched us.

It wasn't until the third time that he and Bianca Greco appeared in front of me. Each of them held a child, and both of them were kneeling on the ground of the Marlowe estate as if penance could be performed on cue. Then everything finally broke.

"Adriana, I'm sorry. The children can't grow up without a mother. Bianca is innocent in this. If you want to be angry, to scream, to strike someone, blame me. I'll take all of it. Just please, care for the twins and let Bianca stay under this roof. I'll agree to anything."

"You once told me you were afraid of the birthing bed. Now we have twins already breathing, already here. Don't worry, Bianca won't take your place. As long as you remain in the Marlowe Family, every mouth in the city will call you the children's true mother. No one will speak against you. I'm begging you."

It felt like my heart was being torn out. I laughed while I was crying.

"Lorenzo, when did you ever give me a chance to choose?"

The Maybach pulled away fast down the long gravel drive. I made a phone call, and I said, "You were right. There is no such thing as just one time. A man who breaks the pact breaks it again. I lost. Come and take me away."

......

The man on the line laughed first, then cursed low.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner? You and Lorenzo were sealed together for eight years, blood promise between two Families. If I put my hand in now, it's like stepping into another man's war. I'm not something people take because no one else will have them."

"Besides, I'm well thought of in this city. A Don, unmarried, with respect in every room I walk into. There are girls who'd line up from here to the coast for me. A woman thrown back from a broken alliance? Even a stray off the docks wouldn't want her—"

Before he could finish, I turned the ring a quarter-turn on my finger, the stone pressed cold into my palm, and said, "So. Do you want a woman thrown back from a broken alliance, or not?"

He paused. Then his tone changed quick.

"Well. If the strays won't have you, Dominic Falcone still will."

"And if the day ever comes that you get a chance like this again, don't you forget me. I'll be at your door the second you call."

After I hung up, I sent him the time and the place to meet and settle the marriage before the Family. He answered right away with some ridiculous little cat drawing, the kind of thing that had no business coming from a man Lorenzo Marlowe would gladly see dead. Meanwhile I looked up into the endless night, and the pain inside me only cut deeper.

The rain had been falling all night. After one long roll of thunder, it came down harder, soaking me through to the skin. I walked five kilometers from the edge of Salvatore territory and finally reached a small hotel on neutral ground and checked in under a name that wasn't mine. I had barely dried myself when my phone rang. Lorenzo.

His voice was full of guilt, the way it always was after.

"Adriana, I left in a hurry earlier. I was afraid the strain might make Bianca ill. Thank God the doctor says she's fine. Are you still out there in the rain? I'll send one of the men with a car to bring you home."

"Your health has always been fragile. If you catch cold before the ceremony, you won't look right standing up in front of every capo in the city—"

"So you still remember there's going to be a ceremony?"

I cut him off, and the bitterness came out plain.

Lorenzo's voice turned cold all at once.

"What is that supposed to mean? I told you, those children were an accident. I didn't know one night would put a child in her, especially with her drugged the way she was. But they're here now. What do you expect me to do, throw them in the river?"

"You forgave me twice already. Why not this time? Can't you look at those two innocent children and feel anything at all? What, you want them out on the street with nothing? The sit-down is in a week, the whole Family will be watching. I don't want to fight with you. Just calm down."

Looking at the message from Dominic lighting up my screen, I spoke, and my voice was cold.

"No. I won't marry you."

"Lorenzo, I've told you before. The one thing I hate most in this life is a man who breaks the pact."

Just as I was about to hang up, Lorenzo shouted, his voice filled with fury.