Chapter 1

One night a month ago, the familiar scent was gone.

In its place was something fresh and wild.

I froze. Thinking my nose was playing tricks on me, I leaned closer to the pillow and breathed in.

But there was no mistaking it. Daisies.

"Why did you change the scent?"

I turned my head, my voice barely above a whisper.

Vincenzo laughed softly and kept massaging me, pressing his palm hard into the small of my back.

"After all these years of white rose, a little change now and then is nice."

I said nothing and buried my face in the pillow.

He was so busy, yet he still made time to take care of me. I didn't want to bother him over something so small.

But that night, I could feel his gaze lingering on my lower back, hot and heavy.

The next day, he took me to a Moretti family celebration.

The hall rang with the clink of glasses, and a few of the elders cornered Vincenzo to talk business.

I stood off to the side with a glass of champagne, my eyes drifting over the crowd.

Julia Conti, Vincenzo's new assistant, hovered at his elbow, refilling his glass.

Her hair was cut short, and her silk top left her lower back bare. In the dip just to the left of her spine was a tiny tattoo.

A daisy.

My nails bit into my palm.

A waiter came over to refill the champagne tower, and I looked away.

Late that night, I helped a very drunk Vincenzo home.

I was wringing out a warm towel to wipe his face when he caught my hand and mumbled something.

"Julia..."

The towel slipped from my fingers and hit the floor.

He opened his bleary eyes and looked through me, as though he were seeing someone else.

"Vivian's suffocating me. It gets worse every day. Every time I see the scars on her back, I feel sick...

"You're the only one who makes me feel free..."

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

I knew exactly what was suffocating him.

Seven years ago, at our wedding, my parents stormed up to the altar.

Their eyes were red.

"Have you lost your mind? You married into a world where people live and die by the gun, and you hid it from us! What about your life? What about your dream of dancing?"

Vincenzo, already tense, went rigid. For a moment he looked more lost and alone than I'd ever seen him.

In that moment, I felt brave enough to take on the whole world.

"The only way anyone takes me from him," I said, staring my parents down, "is over my dead body."

Heartbroken, my parents rushed forward to drag me away.

Bang!

A deafening crack cut everything short.

At first I thought it was fireworks.

Then Vincenzo, who'd been standing in front of me, let out a grunt and collapsed at my feet.

People screamed and scattered.

When his enemies saw Vincenzo go down, they closed in.

Before I could even shield him, two more shots rang out, and my parents fell in front of me.

One second they'd been fighting to pull me away.

The next, they'd thrown themselves between me and the gun.

My eyes burned, but I couldn't get a single word out.

Moretti reinforcements arrived soon after.

The attackers started to retreat, but on their way out, they hurled several Molotov cocktails at the altar.

Flames shot up at once.

When the fire licked at my back, I stayed where I was, covering Vincenzo with my body.

Then everything went black.

When I woke up, I was lying in a hospital bed.

Vincenzo sat beside the bed, his eyes bloodshot and rimmed with red.

"Vivian, I'm sorry...

"I'll spend the rest of my life... making it up to you."

...

I snapped back to the present.

My eyes settled on the bottle of daisy-scented massage oil on the desk.

My parents' urn stood right behind it.

I looked away, opened my email, and wrote to a ballet academy in Spain to confirm the substitute-instructor position my friend had arranged months earlier.

My parents had sacrificed so much for my dancing. I couldn't let it all be for nothing.

Just as the "Message sent" notice appeared, I heard the front door click softly.

Vincenzo was home.