Chapter 1

An officer asked who could take me home.

The only number I knew by heart belonged to the man who had been punishing me with silence for a week.

I borrowed the officer’s phone. As expected, Alessandro answered when he saw an unfamiliar number.

“Alessandro, I was attacked—”

“Enough, Eva. Stop putting on this ridiculous act.” Music and laughter filled the background. “It’s Lucia’s birthday. Come apologize, and I’ll forgive you.”

He hung up.

By the time I emptied half of the tissue box, the tears finally stopped.

The muggers had taken everything—my wallet, my ID, and the keys to my apartment.

The last person I wanted to see was Alessandro, but he had the keys. If I wanted to get home tonight, I had no choice.

One officer pressed forty dollars into my hand and called me a cab.

Belladonna was a private club owned by the Moretti family. Music and laughter spilled from the private dining room upstairs.

When I opened the door, Lucia was holding Alessandro’s phone.

She sat beside him beneath the amber lights, wearing a red silk dress. Alessandro’s arm rested along the back of her chair, making it look as though he had her tucked against his side.

The room went quiet.

A dozen members of Alessandro’s inner circle stared at me. Some were made men. Others were sons of families allied with the Morettis.

Lucia spoke first.

“Eva.” Her smile was sweet. “You finally made it.”

One of Alessandro’s cousins leaned toward another.

“Guess the attack story didn’t work.”

The other man laughed. “Still, that’s loyalty. The Boss calls, and she comes running.”

“You want a woman like that?”

“Sure. A woman who does what she’s told and never talks back? That’s the dream.”

Low laughter rolled around the table.

Each laugh landed like a needle beneath my skin.

But they weren’t entirely wrong.

For three years, I had fought, cried, apologized, and returned.

Alessandro never raised his voice. He simply waited until I exhausted myself.

“You’re allowed to dislike my decisions,” he would say. “You are not allowed to believe your feelings can dictate them.”

Then he would withdraw everything—his calls, his touch, his presence—until I came back and admitted I had challenged him.

Only then would he hold me again.

He called it teaching me how to stand beside a Don. His friends apparently called it training.

Alessandro watched me from the head of the table, a cigar resting between his fingers. He didn’t tell the men to stop laughing.

A faint, satisfied gleam appeared in his dark eyes.

“I thought you were attacked,” he said. “Yet here you are.”

“My purse was stolen. My apartment keys were inside.”

His mouth curved slightly.

He didn’t believe me. He thought I had invented the attack to force him away from Lucia’s birthday, then come here when the lie failed.

Lucia suddenly gasped.

“Eva, your knee is bleeding.”

Alessandro’s gaze dropped and his expression changed instantly.

He stubbed out his cigar, stood, and pulled me toward an empty chair. His hands were firm but careful as he lifted the torn edge of my dress.

The skin across my knee was split and swollen, with dried blood streaking down my shin.

“What the hell happened to you?”

He ordered one of the staff to bring a first-aid kit.

“I can do it,” Lucia offered.

“No.” Alessandro knelt in front of me. “Eva has always been sensitive to pain. You have to be gentle with her. I’ll do it.”

The way he said it made the dead thing inside my chest stir.

He remembered.

Of course he remembered.

Alessandro knew how I took my coffee, which side of the bed I slept on, and that thunderstorms kept me awake.

He loved me.

That was what made it so difficult to understand why his love always had to hurt.

He cleaned the cut with antiseptic. When I flinched, his free hand closed around my ankle.

“Easy, tesoro.”

Then Alessandro looked up.

“You hurt yourself this badly just to frighten me?”

The warmth inside me vanished.

“You’ve made your point,” he continued. “I’ll end the punishment. But this is the last time you create a scene because of Lucia.”

There was no concern in his eyes now, only the calm satisfaction of a man who believed his lesson had finally worked.

He thought I had injured myself rather than submit.

And by coming when he ordered, I had finally proven that I understood who held the power.

“I didn’t do this on purpose,” I said. “I was attacked.”

His jaw tightened at what he heard as one final act of defiance.

He finished bandaging my knee with painstaking care, then tossed the bloodied gauze aside.

“You’re here now. Sit down, behave, and don’t ruin Lucia’s birthday.”

“Eva, I have to admit, I’m impressed,” Lucia said, sliding closer.

She still had Alessandro’s phone.

“You write the most beautiful apologies. I don’t know how Alessandro manages not to answer them.”

I stared at her.

“You were reading my messages?”

One of Alessandro’s oldest friends, Nico DeLuca, grinned.

“Don’t be embarrassed, future Mrs. Moretti. They’re practically poetry.”

He pressed a hand dramatically to his chest.

I was wrong to question you, Alessandro. Please come home. I can’t bear it when you shut me out.

Laughter erupted around the room.

Nico continued in a trembling imitation of my voice.

I know you love me. I just need to feel that you choose me.

My gaze moved to Alessandro.

He took the phone from Lucia’s hand, but he didn’t tell Nico to stop.

He looked completely unbothered, as though having my private messages read aloud for everyone’s amusement was hardly worth making a fuss over.

“Enough,” Lucia said, amusement still bright in her voice. “Don’t embarrass her any more than you already have. Keep this up and she’ll pick another fight with Alessandro.”

“All right,” Alessandro said at last. “ Drop it.”

The laughter died instantly.

Alessandro reached for my hand.

“They’re only joking. Don’t take it personally.”

I looked down and I smiled.

“It’s fine. Keep reading.”

Lucia blinked. She must have expected me to do what I always did—cry, beg, and make a scene.

But not this time.I glanced around the table at the people who had watched me surrender to this man again and again.

“They’re right,” I said. “It is humiliating.”

Alessandro’s expression sharpened, but I no longer cared what lesson he thought he was teaching me.

I had already accepted the position in Zurich.

In seven days, I would be gone.