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The first time I saw Dante Moretti, I was nineteen and bleeding out on a back-alley operating table in Brooklyn. A rival crew had gut-shot me during a deal gone wrong, and my brother Luca had dragged me to the nearest sawbones who owed our family a favor.

Dante walked in like he owned the place. Black coat. Eyes like winter. He looked at me—filthy, sobbing, clutching my stomach—and said five words.

"Stop crying. You'll live."

I passed out hating him.

Ten years later, I married him.

The alliance between the Moretti family and the Valesi organization needed cementing. My father, Enzo Valesi, had three daughters. Isabella, the eldest. Me, Elena. And Sofia, who was barely sixteen.

Dante chose me.

"Why?" I asked my father the night before the ceremony. We stood in his study, surrounded by mahogany and cigar smoke. "Isabella's older. She's been groomed for this."

Enzo didn't look at me. "Isabella refused. Said she'd rather enter a convent than a Moretti's bed."

"And Sofia?"

"Sofia is a child." He finally met my eyes. "You're the one he asked for, Elena. Said you looked like you'd fight back."

"Was that supposed to flatter me?"

"It's supposed to tell you that Dante Moretti doesn't want a lamb. He wants a wolf."

I laughed. "Then he picked wrong. I'm no wolf."

My father's gaze didn't waver. "Then learn to become one."

The wedding happened on a sweltering August afternoon in the Moretti estate chapel. Three hundred people. Six armed guards at every exit. Dante slid the ring onto my finger, leaned in, and murmured against my ear: "Try to run, I'll break your legs."

I smiled for the cameras and whispered back: "Try to touch me, I'll cut off your hands."

He laughed. The guests thought we were exchanging sweet nothings.

That was the start of our war.

-

The first year, I tested every boundary.

Dante brought me a diamond necklace from his family vault—eighteen carats, flawless, worth more than my father's entire fleet of armored vehicles. I thanked him politely, then wore it to a back-room poker game in Queens where the stakes were illegal firearms and counterfeit passports.

He found out when a tabloid published a photo of me, drunk and laughing, the necklace dangling between my breasts while a known Russian arms dealer lit my cigarette.

The door to our bedroom slammed open at 3 AM.

"Elena."

I sat up, rubbing my eyes. "You're back early. The shipment from Naples?"

"Delayed." He didn't move from the doorway. "We need to talk."

"About?"

"The last name you carry now. The family you represent."

"Your family, you mean." I swung my legs off the bed and reached for my robe. "Let me guess. The cigar-chomping uncles are upset their little Italian princess wandered into the wrong neighborhood."

"They're upset," Dante said, each word measured, "because the Volkov brothers now know exactly what our vault pieces look like. You painted a target on your own throat."

"You gave me the necklace."

"I gave you something to treasure. Not ammunition for our enemies."

"Then you should've married someone who gave a damn about your jewelry."

His jaw tightened. "You're right. I should have."

Three days of silence followed.

I didn't apologize. Neither did he.

A week later, one of Dante's capos—a man named Gino with a scarred throat and dead eyes—pulled me aside after a family dinner.

"Mrs. Moretti." His voice was gravel scraping glass. "A word of advice."

"I didn't ask for advice."

"You're getting it anyway." He stepped closer, too close, the smell of gun oil and cheap aftershave filling my nose. "The boss chose you because he saw something in you. Don't make him regret it. People who disappoint Dante Moretti disappear."

My stomach clenched, but I held his gaze. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a kindness." He smiled, scar tissue pulling his lips crooked. "The threat comes later."

He walked away, and I stood in that hallway for ten minutes, hands shaking, wondering what kind of cage I'd locked myself into.