Chapter 2

The second his back disappears through the door, my tears finally break.

This game was never fair. Whoever he wants wins. That's all it ever was.

I wipe my face pick up the wine glass on the table and drain every last drop.

Outside, I press my hand against the burning ache in my chest and dial a number with shaking fingers.

"You wanted to get married. The answer's yes. Seven days. I'll be there."

Back at the penthouse, I swallow four painkillers.

Ninety-nine rounds have trained my body to handle pain. But tonight, for reasons I can't name, everything hurts worse than it ever has.

I stare at the photograph on the wall — the one that appeared just weeks ago. Our engagement portrait. Me in white silk, him in black, his hand resting low on my waist.

He took me to shoot it after I cleared round ninety-nine. I'd laughed and asked if that was cheating his own game.

He scoffed. "My game. My rules. And you're the only reason I ever break them."

Now he's broken them for someone else. And he stood there watching me take a bullet like a fool.

He doesn't come home that night.

I see everything in the videos Anya sends me.

Dante has her pressed up against every surface of his most lavish penthouse. Their marks are everywhere — the walls, the sheets, the floors. The rare South Pacific black pearl he flew halfway across the world to buy for me last month — it’s caught between his teeth now, dragging slowly over her skin while she breaks, screaming his name.

His face — raw, savage, consumed with want , is something I've never seen. Not once. Not for me.

Miss Bellamy, you can see how addicted he is to me. Be smart and walk away.

I stare at the message until my fingertips go white. I will not let myself cry again.

The night I met Dante Marchetti, my grandmother was dying.

Heart failure. The hospital was going to discharge her because I couldn't pay. I was twenty-two, broke, and out of options.

He walked into that waiting room like the angel of death in a five-thousand-dollar suit. Paid Gran's bill in cash. Then he handed me a black card — an invitation.

He looked at me the way a wolf looks at a rabbit. Smiling.

"It's just a game, sweetheart. Play it well, and everybody wins."

Even outside the Five Families, you heard the stories. Dante Marchetti was twisted. Years ago, the woman he loved sold him out to a rival. He never trusted love again. He built the Queen's Gauntlet to watch women tear each other apart for the chance to sit beside him — to prove how far they'd go, how low they'd crawl.

I took the card anyway.

I needed the money. I needed Gran alive.

Inside the game he called himself the King. He sat on a black leather throne and watched women bleed for his crown.

I clenched my teeth and survived ninety-nine rounds.

Bungee jumps with frayed cords. A sealed coffin with a live python. Seven minutes underwater without air. Live cockroaches shoved into my mouth. Every trial that made other women scream and shatter — I took in silence.

One round was a skydive. My competitor slashed my arm with a blade and ripped the only parachute off my back.

The plane was over open ocean. I was bleeding, falling soon either way. The earpiece crackled, and Dante's amused voice came through.

"You've won forty-some rounds, Wren-bird. Didn't think you'd end up here. Any last words?"

I closed my eyes. "Wire Gran's medical bills before they cut her off."

His low laugh filled my ear. I jumped.

They pulled me out of the Atlantic. I woke up in the ICU.

Later, he came to my room. His eyes were hollow.

"That round's yours. I changed the rule mid-game — the winner is whoever's more reckless." A bitter, self-mocking smile. "You want out? A hundred million. Walk away clean. Right now."

He looked, for the first time, lonely.

Something inside me tore open. I didn't answer. I just reached up and pulled him into my arms.

His face changed in a heartbeat — wild, unguarded joy. He cupped the back of my head and kissed me like a drowning man.

"Wren. You're mine now. From this second on. I'll give you everything."

He bought me a brownstone. Ten percent of the family's legitimate holdings, in my name. He walked me into every Family event with his hand at the small of my back and made every soldier and capo kiss my ring and call me Madonna.

When the woman who'd betrayed him years ago crawled back into a banquet — weeping at his feet, humiliating me in front of the room, begging him to take her back — he didn't hesitate. He grabbed a wine bottle and cracked it across her skull. His men dragged her out. She was taken to the docks and never seen again.

He stood there with blood on his cuffs and said: "Anyone else want to insult my Queen? Step up."

He spoiled me so completely that everyone believed it. Every capo. Every heir. Every woman watching from the sidelines.

Even me.

I believed I was the one. The special one. The woman who could make Dante Marchetti believe in love again.

Until tonight.

Until I finally understood — it was never anything but my own delusion.