Chapter 3

I pushed the heavy oak door open.

The scene in the living room made my blood run cold.

Ives was on the sofa, with Isabella curled up against him, wearing my silk robe. The one he’d given me for my birthday last year.

But what truly sent a blind rage through me was the sapphire necklace sparkling at her throat.

It was my mother’s.

“Oh, Aurora,” Isabella said when she saw me, standing up with a lazy, casual smile, as if she weren’t my husband’s mistress standing in my home. “You’re finally back. My place is so noisy, so Ives said I could stay here for a bit. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Why haven’t you handled that Irish intel yet?” Ives’s voice was pure ice. “As the Don’s wife, you can’t even handle a small thing like that? Or are you planning to ignore family rules? You know the consequences for that…”

“Rules?” I cut him off, slowly lifting my head. A scornful smile spread across my face. “Ives, you want to talk to me about rules?”

“Last month, Isabella got drunk at a club and told the Russo family the location of our arms warehouse on the East Side. We were ambushed.”

“That was an honest mistake…” Ives started, frowning.

“You took four of your best men and got her out first,” I continued, my voice flat. “You left me behind.”

The room fell silent.

“I took two bullets in the arm, Ives. I was unconscious for three days.” I raised my left arm, showing him the two ugly, puckered scars there. “When I woke up, I asked you why. Do you remember what you said?”

Ives’s jaw tightened.

“You said, ‘Isabella needed protecting. She’s not tough like you,’” I repeated, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “Then you blamed me. Said the Don’s wife shouldn’t be so petty.”

The moment he’d said those words was the moment our marriage died.

“Aurora, don’t drag up the past—”

“Three months, Ives,” I interrupted, my voice shaking with suppressed fury. “You gave me the cold shoulder for three months after that. And now, you let your mistress stand here, in my house, wearing my robe, wearing my dead mother’s necklace, and you have the gall to ask me why I haven’t done my job?”

Isabella bit her lip, her eyes burning with a hatred she didn’t bother to hide.

“Aurora…” Ives took a step forward, about to say something.

“Ives, just let it go,” Isabella said, pulling on his arm, forcing back tears in a pathetic play for sympathy. “I get it, Aurora’s in a bad mood. Why else would she freeze your account…”

Her words seemed to restore his confidence. He became self-righteous again. “Whatever happened in the past, the fact is you froze the account and embarrassed both of us. To make up for it, Isabella will be staying in your room for now…”

“Too bad,” I said with a breezy smile and a shrug. “I already sold the house.”

Both of them stared at me, dumbfounded.

“Sold it?” Ives repeated, then a look of twisted understanding crossed his face. “You mean… to raise the money to fix the mess with the Irish? Aurora, that’s smart. A good move. And to make things right with Isabella, I think you know what to do. You still have your mother’s other jewels.”

Isabella’s eyes lit up. She clutched Ives’s arm excitedly. “You mean those beautiful emeralds? Can I really have them?”

Ives gave a stiff nod. “If you’re willing to give them up, I’ll drop this foolish talk of divorce.”

I looked at the two of them—one smug, the other playing magnanimous—as if they were waiting for me to fall at their feet, grateful for their “forgiveness.”

I pulled a file from my bag.

“I think you misunderstood.”

I held the file out to Ives, and said, slowly and clearly:

“I meant, we are divorced. And I’m the one who filed.”