Chapter 1

"So who exactly did you just call your husband?"

Nora lowered her camera. Her expression was appraising, and there was an edge of hostility under it.

For a moment I could only stare at her. Something in my chest cracked apart, like ice giving way underfoot.

Nora laughed softly, and the laugh never reached her eyes.

"I've seen women like you before. Before treatment they chase the doctors for a phone number. Once they're well, they cling to Vito and say they only want to thank him for saving their lives.

"But you should go look in a mirror. Seven years asleep. Your muscles have wasted down to nothing, and you're paler than a body in the morgue. Looking like that, who exactly do you think you're going to seduce?"

My mouth opened. Something heavy sat in my throat, and nothing came out.

A nurse pushed the door open, took one look at the scene, and hurried to smooth it over.

"Miss Bellini, the patient only just woke up. Her neurological function hasn't fully recovered yet, and she'll say confused things sometimes. Please don't hold it against her."

Nora glanced at her and lifted her chin.

"Fine. She's a patient. I won't hold it against her."

I lowered my head and let my hair hide the tears rising in my eyes. My voice came out dry.

"I'm sorry. My head hurts. I wasn't making any sense.

"I followed Mr. Ranieri's work before I entered the cryonics trial. I've admired his research for years, so seeing him on television got me worked up."

Only then did Nora's expression ease. She raised the camera again.

"You look like you're doing well. Your file says you were frozen for seven years. Have you managed to reach your family yet?"

The second the question landed, I felt like someone had pulled the bones out of my spine. I sagged back against the headboard.

Seven years had passed and my body hadn't changed at all. Even my skin still belonged to a woman in her twenties.

But traffic streamed across the overpass outside my window. New towers had gone up in the financial district. Even the little pothos on my windowsill had gone from a cutting to long trailing vines.

Everyone else had kept living, right on schedule.

Only I hadn't changed. A ghost the years had ground to pieces.

To the public, the institute was a charitable medical organization, founded with money raised by the Lucchese family's financial group. Nearly all of that funding came out of the family's underground businesses, which meant every major decision still went up to the family's leadership for approval.

So alongside the research it announced to the world, the institute also developed drugs for the family and provided private treatment to its members.

The year Vito and I married, he was already the youngest researcher there. At twenty-six, the Don had personally authorized him to run his own biological laboratory.

I was a racer with a bit of a name on the West Coast. I'd won plenty of underground meets.

The first time we met, his car broke down on the way to a family council session and his driver was sweating through his shirt. I put Vito on the back of my motorcycle and carried him across three bridges to get him there. Watching him hold the room and talk about his work, I fell without meaning to.

When we first got together, everyone said we didn't match.

His mother, Giulia, even asked to speak with me alone, and made it clear between the lines that a woman like me shouldn't imagine she could hitch herself to a man with Vito's future.

I came home crushed. Vito took both my hands and held them tight, and his eyes didn't waver.

"Lina, don't listen to any of them.

"In this life, you're the only one I'll ever choose."

After we married, he said a serious researcher had to stay focused, and that going public with a marriage too soon would only create noise.

So we kept it a secret for three full years.

Back then I thought it was romantic. A private contract that belonged to the two of us and nobody else.