Chapter 2

I met Dante Moretti in a trauma bay at Bellevue.

I was twenty-three, a night-shift ER nurse, too tired to be afraid of anyone. He came in at two a.m. with a bullet in his shoulder and four men with guns telling me to hurry.

I told them to get out of my trauma bay.

Dante laughed through the pain. "Do what she says."

He sent white roses every day for a month. He held my hand at my father's funeral. The night he proposed, he said, "You'll never be alone again, Sienna."

He meant it.

Right up until his brother died, and Gemma needed him.

Late nights at her house. Birthday dinners he missed. A table I set for two and ate at alone. His men stopped meeting my eyes. The mansion got quieter every month.

And tonight, he'd brought divorce papers to a peace meeting like they were just another document.

Now I sat in a guest room in Lorenzo Salvatore's estate, an hour north of the city, wearing a borrowed cashmere sweater and staring at a silent phone.

At one a.m., it buzzed.

Dante.

My heart jumped like a fool.

"Don't provoke him. Gemma's in shock, I'm staying with her tonight. Be smart, Sienna."

Be smart.

I pressed both hands over my mouth so no one would hear the sound I made.

A knock.

"Sienna." Lorenzo's voice. "May I come in?"

I wiped my face. "It's your house."

"It's your room."

He opened the door but didn't step inside. Shirtsleeves rolled. A mug in his hand.

"Ginger tea," he said. "For the nausea."

"I'm not nauseous."

"You've been in the bathroom four times. Old house. Thin walls."

Heat crawled up my neck. He set the mug on the dresser by the door and stepped back, like he knew exactly how much space a frightened woman needed.

"Why are you being kind?" I asked. "I'm a debt."

"You're about to be my wife. In this house, no one raises a voice to you. No one touches you. If a man here even looks at you wrong, you tell me."

"And after Sunday?"

"Separate rooms. Separate lives. The marriage is a treaty, not a cage."

"Why did you ask for a bride at all? You could have asked for money. Territory."

His jaw tightened. "I asked for a woman of his house because I wanted to see what kind of man he was."

"And?"

"Now I know."

He didn't say anything cruel about Dante. He didn't have to.

"Lock your door if it helps you sleep," he said.

"You have the key."

"No." He nodded toward the lock. "There's only one. It's on your side."

He closed the door.

I looked down. A brass key sat in the lock.

On my side.

For three years, I'd lived in a house where I couldn't lock a single door.

My husband's enemy had handed me the only key in the first hour.

I lay awake until dawn, one hand on my stomach.

At six a.m., my phone lit up.

Not Dante.

An unknown number. A photo.

Gemma, in my bed. In my silk robe. Holding up her left hand.

On her finger was my engagement ring. My grandmother's sapphire. The one Dante had asked me to leave on the table at Vincenzo's.

Underneath, one line:

"He's proposing on Sunday. Same day as your wedding. He says he wants you to see it."