Chapter 2

Before Bianca’s eyes could scan the corner of the stairwell, I was gone. A ghost. I erased every trace of my return.

I pulled the heavy door shut behind me. Softly.

Sealing the filth, the lies, and the betrayal inside.

On Michigan Avenue, the night wind cut at me like a razor. But my mind was clearer than ever.

I floored it.

"Chiara..." The phone connected. I only then realized how badly my voice was shaking.

Tears blurred my vision. The headlights of oncoming cars stabbed at my eyes.

"Alessia? Where are you?" Chiara was my best friend. She was also the family's top lawyer—a ruthless shark who cleaned up our messes. "What's wrong? Are you crying?"

"Can I come over?"

"Get here now. I'm at the apartment." Her voice dropped. "Breathe. Slow down. Whatever it is, drive safe. I'm waiting."

Ten minutes later, I stumbled into Chiara's secure penthouse at the Tribune Tower.

She poured me a large glass of straight whiskey.

The liquor burned my throat, but it didn't kill the nausea.

The alcohol just made the images sharper.

The man's heavy breaths. The woman's giggles. The shameless plotting. All of it branded onto my brain.

Shaking, I spilled everything. The sapphire ring. The two years of lies. The "fake divorce."

Chiara’s face grew colder and colder.

Her fingers flew across her tablet.

A few minutes later, she slammed it down on the table.

"Alessia, you are a complete and utter idiot." She looked at me, her teeth clenched. "You walked away with nothing."

My head spun.

"He didn't just take all your marital assets." Chiara swiped through the clauses on the screen. "He buried traps in the agreement. Your four pre-nup trust funds, your three prime real estate properties—he washed them all into his personal assets. Labeled them 'collateral against joint debt.' The clean-up job is professional. Sicilian-level."

"And what did you get?" She sneered. "A piece-of-shit apartment worth less than a hundred grand in a South Side gang warzone. And a 'compensation' payment that's an insult."

Five years ago, I played the Rinaldi family's trump card to save him from a life sentence.

Now, to him, I was worth less than the Patek Philippe on his wrist.

A sharp cramp seized my stomach.

The crystal tumbler fell from my hand. Expensive whiskey soaked into the rug.

Just then, my phone rang.

The name flashing on the screen made me want to vomit: Alaric.

Chiara stared at the screen, then at me. A silent order. Answer it.

I dug my nails into my palm. Forced my breathing to steady. I swiped to accept the call.

"Alessia! Thank God you answered!"

Alaric's voice was hoarse. Fraying at the edges with a panic he couldn't hide. "I'm in deep trouble."

"What is it?" I asked, my voice flat.

"Something happened at the strip club. One of the dancers was shot. In my office. Took a bullet to the chest." He was rambling, his voice shaking. "She's at Mount Sinai now—the hospital we control. She's bleeding out! The blood bank is out of AB-negative. Your health records are on file. You're the best match in all of Chicago!"

"Me?"

"You were flagged from your physical in March. The hospital has your records. Baby, please. I know we've been... I know we need to talk. But this girl is only twenty-six. If you don't come, she's going to die on that table."

A girl. Not a woman. A girl.

"What's her name?"

A pause. Half a second. Long enough to say everything.

"Bianca. Her name is Bianca. Alessia, I'm begging you."

I looked at Chiara.

She was watching my face.

She heard the "begging." In the five years she's known Alaric Gallo, she'd never heard that word from him.

"I'm on my way."

I hung up.

"You can't—"

"Chiara. AB-negative. If I don't go, she'll die."

"Then let her die."

Her flat tone stunned me.

Chiara met my gaze. She didn't even blink.

"We both know you can't just let someone die," she said. "That's why he made the call."

She grabbed her car keys from the tray by the door.

"I'm driving."

It took us ninety seconds to get from her apartment to the Mount Sinai ER.

Chiara gripped my elbow as we crossed the lobby. The air was thick with the smell of antiseptic and blood.

I didn't even have to finish saying Alaric's name. The triage nurse pointed us down the hall.

He was standing outside Trauma Room 3.

His Versace shirt was untucked and wrinkled. A large, dark brown stain of dried blood caked one cuff. The smell of gunpowder clung to him.

When he saw me, his face changed. A look I'd never seen in five years of marriage.

Total collapse.

Then, just as fast, he pulled himself together. In the half-second it took to cross the hall and grab my shoulders.

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

"Where do I sign?"

"The consent forms are at the nurse's station. The blood tech is—Alessia, look at me. Thank you."

I didn't look at him.

I looked past him. Through the narrow window in the trauma room door.

She was on a gurney. An oxygen tube in her nose.

Her hair was plastered to her cheeks, revealing a face as white as milk.

Her head was turned toward the glass. Her lips were parted. Her half-open eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.

I knew that face.

Three hours ago, she was in my bed. Giggling about how she'd waited two years. Asking my husband for my mother's cornflower blue sapphire ring.