Chapter 1

For one second, Luca Moretti looked at me as if I had spoken in another language. Then his expression settled into the tired patience.

"Aria, I know I was wrong to hide who I am. I know marrying someone else is unforgivable. But this life doesn't run on what-ifs. The only family with enough weight to bargain with the Morettis is the Voss family."

He glanced around the cabin. "You and I have lived here for three years. I know you. You're not the kind of woman who belongs in a Commission ballroom."

He had hidden that he was the heir to the North District, but somehow he was certain I couldn't have hidden anything at all.

I looked around our little home. Outside the window were the herbs and vegetables I had planted with my own hands. On the wooden deck sat the cradle Luca had been sanding for the baby, one side still unfinished. For three years, I had honestly believed this place was my whole world.

"Luca, our baby is about to be born." I gripped his sleeve, trying one last time to pull back the man I used to know. "Can you really let our child come into this world without a father?"

Pain flickered in his eyes, but he crushed it almost instantly. "Bianca is nine months pregnant, too. Her father put arms routes, dock warehouses, and an entire private security team on the table for this marriage. I have to give her a name."

"And what about me? Don't you owe me and our baby anything?"

Luca lifted his hand and brushed away my tears. His touch was still gentle. His words were colder than a blade. "I'm not throwing you away. I'm marrying her first. The North River safe house is ready. You like growing things, so I'll have the balcony turned into a greenhouse. When the baby comes, she'll have the best pediatricians in Chicago. Apart from being public, anything you want, I'll give you."

I stepped back and shook my head. "I don't want to be locked in some guarded apartment. I don't want my baby growing up as the secret child everyone whispers about."

He was quiet for a moment. "I have never thought of you as a mistress. As long as you don't appear in front of Bianca, that place will still be our home."

"No." I held his gaze. "This is my home. I'm not going anywhere."

This cabin held every tender and hopeful version of me. Our child should have been born here, not in a luxury prison with armed men outside the door.

Luca closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the man who loved me was gone.

"There can't be a loose end before the wedding. If the Voss family finds out about you and the baby, you'll be in more danger than you understand. Every trace has to disappear."

He raised one hand. The men behind him moved at once, carrying gas cans toward the cabin.

My stomach dropped. "Luca, no. Don't you dare."

Gasoline splashed over the wooden walls. A match flared. In seconds, fire crawled up the siding and swallowed the kitchen curtains, the half-finished cradle, the fence we had painted together last spring. Orange light devoured three years of my life.

I screamed and tried to rush forward, but Luca caught me and pinned me against his chest. "Be good for me. When the time is right, I'll give our child the Moretti name. I'll bring you back to the main house. We'll have everything we had before, only better."

No, Luca. I was the only daughter of the Chairman of the High Mafia Commission. I was the sole heir of the Castellano family. I could never be your woman in the dark.

Three years ago, I had a vicious fight with my father. He wanted me to marry the heir of an East Coast alliance to keep the Commission votes stable. I was sick of marriages built out of last names, territory, and profit, so I shook off my guards, used a fake name, and ran to the lake.

That was where I met Luca. He wore an old leather jacket, rode a black motorcycle, and stopped on the side of the road to fix my broken pickup. He told me he was only a man who didn't want to go home. When he smiled, he looked like the first warm day after a hard winter.

I hid the name Castellano. He hid the name Moretti. We had no grand wedding, no family blessing, no witnesses except the lake and the wind. We exchanged two plain silver rings, and that night he held me close and said, "When we have a real wedding, I'll put the most diamond tiara in the city on your head."

Now the cabin was ash, and I had been moved to the North River safe house like a problem that needed storage. Guards stood outside my windows. The elevator needed Luca's palmprint. From the glass wall, all I could see was the city glittering far away, close enough to mock me and too distant to reach.

In the hallway, two maids whispered while bringing my dinner.

"Did you hear? Mr. Moretti borrowed something from the Chairman's private collection for Miss Voss."

"The Castellano Star? The diamond crown Vincent Castellano had made for his daughter's wedding? Only a real underworld princess is supposed to wear that."

"If Miss Voss gets it, the Morettis are really moving up."

I leaned against the door and laughed softly. Luca had once promised me a diamond tiara. Now he was laying it at another woman's feet.

But he had forgotten one thing. The Castellano Star had never belonged to the Voss family. It belonged to a Castellano daughter.