Chapter 1

The doctor said three months. I told my husband — the most feared man in New York. He checked his phone, told me to stop being dramatic, and walked out to hold another woman's hand. Seven years I'd given the Valenti empire. Seven years, and I wasn't worth sixty seconds of his time.

It started that morning at Mount Sinai, in a sterile white room that smelled like bleach and bad news. Dr. Huang was gentle, the way people are gentle when they're about to destroy you.

"Mrs. Valenti, the scans confirm it. Pancreatic cancer, stage four. It's metastasized to the liver."

I sat perfectly still. The Don's wife does not flinch. The Don's wife does not cry in public. These were the rules Gianna — Dominic's mother — had drilled into me since I was nineteen years old, standing at an altar in a borrowed dress, marrying a man I'd met twice.

"How long?" I asked.

"Three months. Perhaps four, with aggressive treatment."

I nodded like she'd told me the weather forecast. Inside, something cracked — not loudly, not dramatically — just a quiet fracture, like ice forming on a lake nobody visits.

The driver brought me back to the Valenti compound in Westchester. Twelve thousand square feet of Italian marble, crystal chandeliers, and silence. My prison had always been beautiful.

I found Dominic in his study, Natalia Cortez perched on the edge of his desk, her long legs crossed, her laughter filling the room like smoke. She was everything I wasn't — bold, magnetic, dangerous. His consigliere. His confidante. The woman his entire family wished he'd married instead of me.

"Dominic," I said from the doorway. "I need to speak with you. Alone."

Natalia's dark eyes slid to me, her smile never faltering. She didn't move from his desk.

Dominic barely looked up. "Whatever it is, Bella, it can wait. We're in the middle of something."

"It can't wait." My voice trembled, and I hated myself for it. "I went to the doctor today."

He sighed — that specific sigh he reserved exclusively for me, heavy with impatience. "And?"

"It's cancer." The word tasted like ash. "Pancreatic. Stage four. The doctor says I have three months."

The room went quiet. Even Natalia stopped smiling.

For one breath, I thought I saw something shift in Dominic's face. Something that might have been fear, or sorrow, or the memory of the man he'd been on our wedding night when he'd whispered, "I'll protect you."

Then his phone buzzed. He glanced at it. The moment evaporated.

"We'll get you the best doctors," he said flatly, already typing a response. "Natalia, call Dr. Bernstein. Set up a second opinion."

"Of course," Natalia said smoothly, pulling out her phone. She turned to me with practiced concern. "Don't worry, Bella. We'll take care of everything."

We. As if she were his wife and I were the guest.

"I don't need Natalia to call my doctor," I said, my hands clenching at my sides. "I need you to hear me, Dominic. I'm dying."

He stood, straightening his cuffs. "You're not dying. You're being dramatic. People survive cancer every day."

"Not this kind. Not at this stage."

But he was already walking past me, his hand on Natalia's back as he guided her toward the door. "I have a meeting downtown. We'll discuss this later."

They left together, and I stood alone in his study, the smell of Natalia's perfume lingering like evidence of a crime.

I turned to leave and nearly collided with Gianna, who stood in the hallway, her arms crossed, her face carved from decades of contempt.

"Whatever stunt you're pulling," she said quietly, "it won't work. My son stopped caring about you years ago."

She brushed past me, her shoulder hitting mine just hard enough to sting.

I walked to my bedroom — the one I slept in alone, since Dominic had moved to the master suite "for work calls" three years ago — and sat on the edge of the bed.

Three months. That's what I had left.

And as I sat in the silence of the house I'd given everything to, I heard something that froze my blood — Natalia's voice drifting up from the garden, speaking into her phone:

"Relax. She's not going to last long anyway. And when she's gone, everything falls into place."