Chapter 1

Ten years of marriage, and here I was again, putting on my perfect smile to deal with another one of Maximus's clingy mistresses. Number 666, by my count.

"I'm not having it! Get Maximus out here!"

The woman on the rooftop already had one leg over the railing. She clutched her seven-month belly, her hair a mess, her makeup smeared down her face in dark streaks.

Not one of the bodyguards watching below dared to move.

"Donna…" the butler panted, running up behind me. "She's... she's been at it for half an hour..."

"Where's Maximus?"

"In the study. With Miss Vance."

I let out a small laugh.

That oak door to the study. Maximus himself had ordered it to be soundproofed three times over. Guess it was coming in handy.

I looked up at her and spoke, my voice calm.

"Jenna, come down. The fall to the stone pavement will kill both of you."

"I want to see him! I'm carrying his child! He won't even answer my calls!"

"So you decide to jump."

"I decided to make him watch!" she shrieked. "Stop acting, Angelina! Your man is in there screwing another woman, and you're out here playing games with me!"

"I'm not playing, Jenna. The baby in your belly is worth seven figures. You jump, you're worth zero. Have the kid, and it's seven million, minimum, in an offshore account. That's the best deal you're gonna get."

She froze.

"He's not coming out today. He's busy."

Suddenly, she slid down the railing and collapsed on the roof, sobbing like a caged animal.

I gave the bodyguards a look.

Two burly soldatos snatched her arms, one on each side.

She wrenched one arm free, lunged at me, and her nails dug hard into my wrist.

"You're so pathetic," she hissed, her face close to mine, tears splashing onto my collarbone. "Ten years ago, he wouldn't touch another woman for you. Ten years ago, he bled the Moretti family dry for you. The night you got shot, he knelt outside St. Patrick's Cathedral all night in the rain, begging God to take his life instead of yours…"

"Jenna."

"And now you can't even get into his bed! You just stand here… and play… the… gracious… WIFE!"

I glanced down at the hand gripping my arm, my expression a perfect mask.

I looked up and smiled at her.

"The private doctor is on his way. He'll take good care of you and the baby."

I pulled my arm free.

Did she really think making a scene would get her anything?

I wasn't playing the gracious wife. I was just done with it all.

In the living room, Mia was waiting with a hot towel. The moment she saw the marks on my wrist, her eyes welled up.

"Why don't you just tell the Don the truth about what happened back then? He brings these women to the estate one after another, faster than he changes shirts. Now even a mistress dares to lay a hand on you!"

I sat down on the sofa and picked up my glass of wine.

"Explain what?"

Mia's eyes were red with frustration. "But it was that Bianca who—"

"It was me who put a gun to my own head, threatening him to get rid of Bianca," I cut her off. "Mia, what did he say to me then?"

Mia bit her lip and said nothing.

But I remembered his eyes.

That was the first time he'd ever looked at me like that. Annoyed. Suffocated. Like I was some psycho who wouldn't let him go.

I answered my own question. "He said I was a control freak. That I was suffocating him."

When I first came to Chicago ten years ago, Maximus did get rid of all his bedwarmers for me. The entire Chicago underworld envied his devotion.

Until Bianca, his childhood sweetheart, came back.

She cried in his arms about how much she missed him, even begged him for a kiss. I went crazy with jealousy.

"Either she goes, or I die." I had pressed the gun to my temple.

My ultimatum sent him into a rage.

After that, he started staying out all night.

Later, I was kidnapped. He missed the rescue window because he was with Bianca while she "attempted suicide" by scratching her wrist.

By the time he arrived, I had been beaten half to death. I'd lost almost all my blood.

And our baby was gone.

Maximus punished himself with the family's harshest code—seven cuts across his own body—and knelt by my bed, begging me to forgive him.

He said he had banished Bianca from Chicago, and begged me to let us go back to how we were…

But some things can't be unbroken.

I shook my head, a bitter taste in my mouth.

All these years, and he'd never change.

Even without Bianca, there would always be another woman, and another, waiting to get into his bed.

"Donna, you should rest," Mia said, her voice full of pity.

I stood up and downed the rest of my wine.

The next morning, as I left my bedroom, I saw two maids whispering in the hallway.

"They replaced the whole carpet in the study. I heard they went at it seven times last night."

"Seriously?"

"Lingerie was thrown everywhere. They even knocked over that vintage bottle of wine. They made a mess all over the Don's files..."

I covered my ears and walked faster.

They saw me and their faces went white.

But I didn't stop. I headed straight for the west wing.

I needed to be in my art studio.

It was the only place in this entire estate that was just mine.

When Maximus built it for me, he'd said, "Angel, this is your kingdom. No one is ever allowed to touch it."

That was seven years ago.

But when I pushed open the carved door to the west wing, I froze.

The hallway was littered with the remains of my paintings.

Renaissance masterpieces, worth millions, were tossed on the floor like trash.

The Botticelli replica I had spent three years restoring was being pried from its frame by a worker, his boot planted right on the canvas.

The worker saw me and dropped his hammer. "D-Donna... Miss Vance said she wanted this place changed..."

"Changed to what?"

"A... a closet."

"That's enough."

A lazy, female voice drifted out from inside.

Camilla, wearing nothing but a white silk robe, walked out barefoot. The map of hickeys on her neck stung my eyes.

She looked me up and down, a smirk playing on her lips.

"Angelina."

She tilted her head and kicked at a pile of canvases.

"Maximus said the light in here is great, so he gave it to me. I'm thinking six island dressers, and a whole wall of Birkins down the middle. This old junk takes up too much space, so I had them toss it."

She watched me, her smile widening.

"You don't mind if I turn this into my closet, do you?"