Chapter 1

I was Don Dante Valenti’s dirty little secret for ten years.

I gave him my youth, my loyalty, and my body. I was waiting for a diamond ring. Instead, after fucking me into the mattress, he told me he was putting a crown on someone else.

That was when I realized I was never his partner. I was just a body to be used.

An hour ago.

He took me with a ferocity that bordered on violence. For the thousandth time, I unraveled beneath him, my nails scoring jagged red lines down his sweat-slicked shoulders.

"Yes... Dante... just like that..."

I gasped, my head thrown back, feeling the sheer weight of him, the familiar possession of his thrusts deep inside me. It felt like love. It always felt like love.

He kissed me hard—bruising, demanding, deeper than ever before. When the storm finally broke, I curled against his chest, tracing the jagged scar over his heart with a trembling finger.

Silence filled the dark room, heavy with the scent of sex and expensive cigars.

Then, his voice cut through the quiet like a serrated blade. "Tomorrow night. You’re attending the family dinner."

My heart slammed against my ribs. I looked up, eyes wide.

I had warmed his bed for a decade. I had killed for him. I had bled for him. But never, not once, had he allowed me near the sanctity of a family dinner.

"Dante," I sat up, clutching the silk sheet to my chest, my voice shaking with hope. "Is this it? Are we... are you finally making us official?"

He sat up, reaching for the pack of cigarettes on the nightstand. The lighter flickered, illuminating his sharp, cruel profile.

He blew a ring of smoke toward the ceiling, his tone bored. "Official? What is there to make official? The dinner is a welcome gala for my fiancée. Natalia Volkov, the princess of the Russian Bratva."

Every word hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest.

The air left my lungs. My mind went blank, a static buzz filling my ears. "You’re... getting married? Then what the hell am I?"

The lazy smirk on Dante’s face vanished. He turned to look at me, his dark eyes devoid of warmth. He leaned in close, the scent of tobacco mixing with my own scent on his skin.

"Don’t be naive, Sienna," he purred, a rough finger tilting my chin up, forcing me to look at him. "You didn’t actually think you could be the Lady of the Valenti family, did you?"

I stared at him, my vision blurring. The man I loved was looking at me like I was a dull knife.

"Her. Natalia. When did you decide?"

"Six months ago." He stood up, the sheet falling away to reveal his perfect, sculpted physique. He walked toward the bathroom without a backward glance at the wreckage he’d made of me. "It’s for the alliance. For the empire."

Six months.

I remembered his 'business trips' to Europe over the last half-year. Every time he came back, I was waiting for him, eager and warm.

While I was keeping his bed warm, he was bending the knee to another woman.

I followed him to the bathroom doorway, wrapping the sheet around my trembling body. The mirror reflected my pale, stricken face, my neck mottled with his love bites.

An hour ago, they were marks of ownership. Now, they were brands of shame.

"Do you love her?" The question slipped out, pathetic and small.

"Love?" He turned on the shower, steam instantly fogging the glass. "Sienna, I thought I trained you better than that. This is business. Not a fairytale."

He stepped under the spray, washing my scent off his skin.

"Natalia is young, beautiful, and useful. She brings the entire Eastern Bloc army as her dowry." He grabbed a towel, his dark eyes sweeping over my naked shoulder with a clinical detachment. "And you... you have other uses."

Other uses.

A warm hole. A loyal dog. A sharp blade.

I stood frozen, feeling the sticky remnants of our intimacy run down my leg. I had never felt so filthy.

By the time I pulled myself together and walked back into the suite, Dante was already dressed in a crisp Brioni suit. He sat on the velvet sofa, speaking into his phone.

"The Fabergé egg. Make sure it’s the 'Winter Egg.' It’s Natalia’s favorite. And the flowers—lilies of the valley, flown in from Moscow. She loves the scent. Have a dozen haute couture gowns ready for her fitting. All white. She says it’s the color of angels."

My heart seized. It physically hurt, a cramping, twisting pain.

I looked at him. There was a smile on his face I had never seen in ten years. It was soft. Considerate.

The pain I had managed to swallow came clawing back up my throat.

Clatter.

My phone slipped from my numb fingers and hit the hardwood floor.

Dante turned at the sound, the softness vanishing instantly. "All clean? Good. See yourself out. I’ll take care of your expenses for the month."

He grabbed his cashmere coat and headed for the door. But he paused, hand on the handle, and looked back at me with a smirk that shattered whatever was left of my soul.

"Sienna, you’ve always been my best weapon. So lose that kicked-puppy look. It makes you look pathetic. Like you’re reaching for a star when you belong in the dirt."

"I know you inside and out. I know what you’re thinking. Don't you think that kind of predictability is... boring? If we were actually together, I'd lose my mind."

The door clicked shut.

His footsteps faded, but his words echoed in the empty room, bouncing off the walls of my skull.

I sat on the edge of the cold bed where we had just made love. I started to laugh. A dry, hacking sound. And then, the laughter broke into jagged sobs.

I sat there until the city lights of Chicago blurred into streaks below. Then, I stood up, dressed in my black clothes, and went back to my private studio.

I walked to the wall safe and punched in the code.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Click.

Inside lay a gold Desert Eagle, the grip engraved with my initials. A "gift" from Dante for my eighteenth birthday—the day he first took me.

Next to it were the jewels, the velvet boxes, the deeds to apartments—the scraps he’d tossed me over the years.

Tonight, I took them all out.

I walked to the industrial incinerator in the back of the studio. One by one, I threw them in. The diamond necklace. The deed. The sketches of us.

"Miss Moretti, all this... these are worth millions. You're really getting rid of it?" my assistant asked, his eyes wide with horror as he watched the flames lick at the treasures.

I watched the fire reflect in my eyes, burning away the tears.

"I don't want them anymore," I whispered.

Not just the things. The memories. The man. The decade of my life I had wasted waiting for a monster to learn how to love.

I didn't want any of it.

I walked to the corner of the room and dialed an encrypted number on a burner phone.

"Papa. It’s me."

The voice on the other end was rough, aged, but strong. "Sienna? You finally decided to call."

I gripped the phone tight, my knuckles turning white.

"In seven days," I said, my voice harder than steel. "I want the name Sienna Moretti to disappear from Chicago. Forever."