Chapter 1

Five years after we split, at the worst point of my whole life, I ran into Adrian again.

He was the youngest, most untouchable Don on the East Coast.

It was a social gathering for the East Coast mafia families, and nobody had expected the Vance family's new Don to show up with his fiancée on his arm.

People were whispering. "Adrian came himself? When he shows his face in person, it usually means someone's about to bleed. He doesn't spare anyone."

"They say he can't stand these fake little parties."

"So he came for her?"

"I heard that Ashford girl, Eve, is working here as a waitress. Maybe he came to watch her squirm."

I was in a corner handing out drinks when my back went rigid. I looked up, straight into Adrian's gray-brown eyes.

That look brought a single word to mind: cold.

Everyone in the East Coast underworld knew how much Adrian had loved me once.

I was the last survivor of the Ashford family, a family that had its moment of glory.

Five years ago my family was slaughtered down to the last person. Even our territory and our name were wiped off the map, and I became a stray with nowhere left to go.

He was the only heir to the Vance family, and he'd been hopelessly devoted to me even after I fell into the gutter.

That year, he betrayed his family to protect me. He didn't want the Don's throne, didn't want the money. He was ready to die just to be with me.

We crammed into a run-down apartment, ate cheap pizza, hid from his father's men and from the killers our enemies sent, and even though it was a hard life, it felt like we owned the whole world.

Every night the gunfire went quiet, we'd hold each other on that cramped little couch and swear we'd stay together forever.

Until I got pregnant.

The old Don wrote me a check for a million dollars and begged me to leave Adrian.

He didn't say anything to humiliate me.

He just tapped me once on the shoulder.

"The Ashfords are weak, and so are you. All you'll ever do is drag Adrian down."

"This million, at least it'll give those two beaten strays you call parents a decent old age."

That morning, Adrian and I had cried with joy over the new life coming.

That night, I took the check and went to the hospital.

I said I wanted to get rid of the child that carried Vance blood.

That day, Adrian fought his way through, dropped to his knees outside the Vance family hospital's operating room covered in blood, and pounded on that door.

Again and again, sobbing, he begged me. "Eve, Eve. I don't want to be Don. I don't care about the East Coast, about any of the business. I only want you. I'll take you somewhere no one knows us. I'll work hard, I'll take care of your family, your parents, all right? I'll give you everything. Please?"

"I'm begging you, don't be this cruel. Don't throw me away, don't throw away our baby..."

I lay on the cold table and bit down hard on my lip, nails buried in my palm, refusing to let a single sound out.

The clock ticked forward, second by second.

Through that one small door, Adrian's crying slowly faded.

The doctor came out and reported to the old Don. "Miss Ashford's procedure was a success. You can rest easy."

By then my tears had long since soaked the pillow.

I heard Adrian's hoarse voice say he'd hate me for the rest of his life.