Chapter 1

"You want to take her place?"

My father's hand, holding his cigar, froze mid-air. He looked at me as if I were a stranger, a lunatic.

Among all his daughters, my hostility towards Sofia was an open secret.

The old-timers in the family used to joke that if Sofia tripped in front of me, I'd probably step aside just to watch her fall harder.

The idea of me leaving the heart of our territory for Ashpoint, for the den of a man nicknamed the "Lone Wolf," Nikolai Volkov, to be traded to him like a peace offering, was something my father would never have considered.

He knew I would never play a part in his schemes.

"Just last week," my father said, exhaling a plume of smoke, "you were on your knees on this very rug, begging me to let you marry Dante."

My breath caught. Then, in a voice devoid of emotion, I said, "That won't be necessary. Let my sister have our golden boy."

My father said nothing, his eyes searching my face. There was no real confusion in them.

Between Sofia and me, he had always favored his younger daughter. I knew that. She was more delicate, more docile, better at winning the affection of men.

Just like her mother.

In my last life, if I hadn't raised hell and thrown the family into chaos, he would have packed me into a car bound for Ashpoint and served me up to that savage Don without batting an eye.

"Draw up the new contract," he ordered his right-hand man.

When I walked out of the study, a torrential rain was lashing down, hammering mercilessly against the estate's marble steps.

And there, standing in the downpour with his suit soaked through, was Dante.

In my last life, he had stood stubbornly in the rain just like this, refusing to leave until my father rescinded the order to send Sofia to Ashpoint.

I remembered that day. I'd had my bodyguards drag him inside.

Then, I used every trick in the book to force him to exchange rings with me in front of our family's old priest.

This time, I walked to his side and offered him my umbrella. He looked up. Rainwater traced the sharp line of his jaw, disappearing into the collar of his shirt.

Our eyes met for a second before he frowned and turned away, as if my very presence were a cardinal sin.

"Have you thought this through?" I asked, my voice low. "Even if the Don changes his mind, someone still has to go to Ashpoint."

His voice was steady and unyielding.

"I am the Consigliere of the Falcone family," he said coldly. "I will not stand by and watch any woman of this family be traded away for a truce."

I couldn't help the small smile that touched my lips.

"Dante," I said, leaning closer. "It's either Sofia or me. Someone is ending up in a bed in Ashpoint. You can stand here until you freeze to death, and you won't change a thing."

His gaze shot to me, sharp as a knife and ice cold.

"If the Principessa hadn't pulled her usual stunts in front of the Don," he said through clenched teeth, "this deal might never have existed."

He never opened the umbrella. The rain just kept beating down on his broad shoulders.

"Then it seems you're in for a disappointment."

I turned and walked down the steps, not looking back to see the shock on his face.

I wasn't going to tell him the marriage contract sent to Ashpoint already had my name on it.

In my last life, he endured too much humiliation on my account. This time, I'd let him hate me for a few more days.

After all, when the day came and it was me on the tarmac waiting to board the plane, not Sofia, shouldn't he be eternally grateful?

The rain pelted my coat, but my mind was flooded with fragmented images.

Gunfire. Smoke. The smell of blood.

I remembered him tying my wrist to the door handle with his tie, then turning to face the pursuing cars alone, buying me the few minutes I needed to escape.

A sharp pain twisted in my chest. In my last life, I had used every low trick I knew to chain him to my side.

But I had learned that even as he took a bullet for me, his heart had already followed her to the frozen lands of Ashpoint.

Dante De Luca, you paid your debt to me with your life once.

This time, I'll give you a gift in return.