Chapter 3

On the third day, Julian arranged for me to meet the Volkov envoy at the neutral meeting house, under the pretext of reviewing the marriage terms.

Matteo couldn't openly refuse a mediation sanctioned by the council, so he sent four cars to escort me. Lucia was kept at the estate. Before I left, she rang the bell once through the window.

As the convoy crossed the old port overpass, a truck veered out of control from a side road. The driver swerved hard. Our car smashed through the guardrail and flipped into an abandoned loading yard below.

After the sound of shattering glass died away, I smelled gasoline. My right hand was pinned beneath the twisted car door. It felt like every bone in my wrist had been crushed. The slightest movement sent pain shooting from my fingertips to my shoulder.

Another car in the convoy had also flipped. Viola hadn't been on the passenger list, but she'd insisted on coming at the last minute, claiming she needed to apologize to the Volkov envoy in person. A shard of metal had sliced her calf open. Blood soaked through the hem of her skirt as she screamed by the side of the road.

Matteo rushed over from the car behind us. His first look was for Viola, and he never broke stride.

"Matteo." I called out to him, my voice shaking from the pain. "Get this door off me first. My hand is trapped."

He paused for a split second. Then Viola screamed, "I can't feel my leg! What if they come back for us?"

Matteo turned, lifted her in his arms, and said to me, "Your guards are right behind you. It's just a fracture. You won't die. She's lost too much blood. I need to get her to a clinic first."

He carried Viola to the car. He never once looked down at my hand.

Minutes later, Julian arrived with help. He had them pry the door open with a hydraulic spreader. He knelt in the broken glass and cradled my wrist. "Sera, don't look. The bone is dislocated, but the doctor can save your hand."

I didn't cry. I just stared in the direction Matteo's car had vanished. In six years, every time he'd had to choose, he'd always had a noble-sounding excuse. Viola's injuries were worse. Viola was in more danger. Viola's father had saved him. Viola was owed a debt.

And I was always the one who wouldn't die, who could endure, who could wait a little longer.

At the private clinic, the doctor reset my wrist. After the anesthesia wore off, the pain in my arm felt like the bone was being broken over and over. Matteo didn't come until well past midnight, Viola's blood still on his coat.

"The doctor says your hand will heal." He stood at the foot of the bed. "Viola needed seventeen stitches. The cut barely missed an artery."

I stared at the brace on my hand. I didn't ask why he'd come so late. "Matteo, I'm not saying I wanted her to die. I just wanted to be, for once, more important to you than she is."

He was quiet for a moment, as though he genuinely couldn't understand why such a simple wish was worth arguing over. "You're my wife. No one can change that. I'm all she has left, and I owe her father a debt."

"So you'll always choose her first."

"That's not the same thing."

"To me, it's always been exactly the same thing." I raised my uninjured left hand, slipped off my wedding ring, and set it on the bedside table. "Get out. I don't want to see you right now."

He didn't take the ring. He didn't apologize. Before the door closed, all he said was, "After Lucia's wedding, we'll talk."

That was when I finally stopped waiting for him.