Chapter 2

Colter slammed the door and didn't come back.

It was his usual punishment.

He thought one night of the silent treatment and I'd come crawling back, apologizing.

He didn't understand. I wasn't hurt. I was done.

The charity gala the next day was my final performance in New York.

I wore a silk gown with a neckline that plunged to my breastbone.

One of Colter's rules: what was under my clothes was his property.

Tonight, I was putting it all on display.

"Three million, sold!"

I smiled under the spotlights, soaking in the applause.

The Da Vinci manuscript I'd restored had just sold for ten times its value.

Here, I was a queen in the art world.

Just not in his world.

My phone vibrated in my clutch. A storm of encrypted messages from Colter.

He was watching me from a casino surveillance room three kilometers away. Like a warden watching a prisoner.

My outburst last night had rattled him. This was his way of reasserting his ownership.

Message 1: Cover your chest, Zora.

Message 2: That senator can't take his eyes off you. Stay away from him.

Message 3: I'm ordering you. Put on your shawl. Now.

I glanced at the screen, a cold smile on my lips, and turned the phone off.

Then I took my champagne and deliberately walked toward the handsome young French painter on the terrace.

I raised my glass in his direction, making sure I was in view of the security camera.

Surprise flashed in the painter's eyes. He joined me immediately.

"Madame Rossi," he said, his French accent smooth as velvet. "Your skill with a brush is divine."

"Call me Zora." I leaned against the railing, the night wind catching my hair. "I have a great appreciation for all things... old. Like... the Falcone family in Sicily. Have you heard of them?"

The painter's smile faltered for a second. He was the Falcone's man in New York.

"I've heard rumors. They say their Don, Lorenzo, is a passionate collector. And there is one piece he's wanted for a very long time."

"Oh?" I took a sip of champagne. "Tell him the 'piece' has chosen a new owner. I'll see you in Sicily."

We smiled at each other. Nothing more needed to be said.

Confirming my deal with the Falcones was the real reason I came tonight.

Betraying Colter right under his nose... the rush was better than any drug.

The car pulled up to the villa. Colter's rage was a fire about to burn the house down.

I'd just kicked off my heels when he stormed out of the living room like a cornered animal.

He grabbed my wrist and slammed me against the cold wall.

"Who the hell was that pretty boy?!" The reek of whiskey hit me. His eyes were bloodshot with jealousy. "You were on that terrace with him for five minutes and forty-seven seconds! You want to climb into his bed, don't you?!"

"He's a painter. We were talking about art," I said, my voice dangerously calm.

"Art? Looked to me like he was studying how to get you out of that dress!" He gripped my jaw, hard enough to crack bone. "You are mine, Zora! Your body, your smile, every goddamn hair on your head belongs to the Giordano family! You are my property, and nobody touches what's mine!"

That word again.

Not his love, not his fiancée.

Property.

Nausea rose in my throat.

Just as he leaned in, about to defile me with the mouth that had kissed someone else—

Click.

The cold, hard barrel of a gun pressed into his gut.

Colter froze.

He looked down in disbelief. I had already flicked off the safety with my thumb.

"Let go of me," I said, my voice colder than the gun.

The lust in his eyes turned to shock and humiliation. He slowly released me. "Are you crazy? You're pointing a gun at me?"

I calmly adjusted the strap of my dress he'd torn. I moved the barrel of the gun slowly upward, aiming for his heart.

"You taught me this, Colter," I said, mimicking his own tone. "Never let your dick do the thinking. Right now, you're acting like a dog in heat. You've lost your goddamn mind."

His face flushed a deep red.

To be held at gunpoint by his caged bird... it was the ultimate insult.

"Put the gun down, Zora," he ordered through clenched teeth.

"An asset that thinks, an asset that fights back... makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it?" I gave a small laugh and put the gun back in my clutch. "Colter, you were the worst investment I ever made. A complete write-off."

I walked past him, toward the stairs.

"Where are you going?!" he roared behind me. "Get back in the room! And do your duty as my fiancée!"

I stopped but didn't turn around.

"You can get Mia to perform your 'duties.' As for me," I said flatly, "I'm sleeping in the master room tonight."

The sound of a vase shattering echoed behind me.

I walked into the master bedroom and locked the door from the inside.

I wasn't going to the guest room.

Every brick in this house was paid for with money I had cleaned.

If anyone should get out, it was him.

I pressed a switch behind the bookshelf. A safe clicked open.

No jewelry inside. Just a brand new Italian passport.

The name on the cover: Ariana Rossi.

The woman in the photo had short, sharp hair. Her eyes were piercing, without a trace of Zora's softness.

This was my "Plan B."

A back road to hell, and a new path to freedom.

My phone lit up. A message from the French painter.

[Flight booked. Sicily. In three days. Mr. Lorenzo Falcone will greet you personally.]