Chapter 4

The next night at eight, the Manhattan underground casino.

I slipped into the tight black uniform. The low neckline and ultra-short hemline made my skin crawl.

The pit boss gave me a once-over. "With a face like that, you could easily find some guy to take care of you. Why bust your ass working a shithole job like this?"

I ignored him, grabbed the heavy drink cart, and took a deep breath.

For twenty-five hundred bucks. So that I and my unborn baby could stop taking orders from anyone.

The casino floor was loud and packed with easy money. On my first night, I ran myself ragged.

Sweat soaked through the uniform, and a dull cramp gnawed at my stomach. But I didn't dare stop. Every extra drink I served meant a few more dollars in tips.

Near midnight, the manager handed me a bottle of top-shelf vodka.

"Take this to the biggest VIP suite at the end of the hall. Keep your eyes sharp. The people in there are dangerous."

I pushed the cart toward the heavy carved wooden double doors.

Before I even reached it, a burst of laughter drifted out, followed by a voice I knew too well.

My feet froze.

Marcello.

I instinctively peeked through the crack in the door.

On the leather sofa inside, Marcello sat with the top two buttons of his black shirt unbuttoned, his tie hanging loose around his neck. He looked heavily drunk, his eyes glazed with a tipsy haze as he casually rolled a cigar between his fingers.

"So," he blew a ring of white smoke, his voice laced with annoyance, "I wire half a million dollars to my wife's overseas account every month, and it's still not enough to keep her happy?"

I gripped the metal handle of the drink cart so hard my fingernails nearly snapped.

Half a million dollars?!

Sitting across from him, his second-in-command Enzo nearly jumped out of his seat, slamming his glass down onto the table.

"Half a million?! A month?!" Enzo's eyes bulged. "Boss, is your wife out of her mind? That's more than enough to fund a small army!"

Marcello pinched the bridge of his nose, his voice dropping lower. "Bianca says she hates socializing and refuses to leave the apartment. But every single bill from the black market and luxury auctions keeps piling up."

Enzo sucked in a cold breath, his expression twisting into something ugly.

"Boss... not my place to say," Enzo lowered his voice, testing the waters. "If she never steps outside but burns through a fortune in the shadows... do you think she's hiding some broke-ass gigolo on the side?"

Marcello crushed out his cigar, his face turned to sheer ice.

"She wouldn't. Besides, who else has my kind of money?" He let out a cold laugh mixed with raw fury. "She said she was broke last night, so I had Bianca wire another two hundred grand right away. And you know what she did?"

He sprang to his feet, kicking the coffee table flying. Glass shattered in an ear-splitting crash.

"She had the nerve to text me a threat about widowhood!" Marcello's eyes blazed red. "She actually tried to divorce me! Just because she thinks I'm not giving her enough?!"

Outside the door, I stood frozen solid in an icy grave.

Half a million. Two hundred thousand.

My hands shook as I pulled out my beat-up phone and opened my banking app.

All that stared back at me was a pathetic fifty dollars—not even enough to buy decent prenatal vitamins.

For days, I had been fighting old ladies in the slums for clearance-rack bread, fainting on the street from hunger, and forced to scrub floors at a joint like this...

While he sat here high and mighty, whining with fake generosity about a fortune that never touched my hands.

The pressure inside my chest blew wide open.

I slammed my foot against the heavy suite door.

The room went dead silent.

Enzo instinctively reached for the piece at his waist, but when he saw my face, his entire body locked up.

"Mrs. Vargas?"

Marcello turned his head. When he saw me standing in the doorway in a cheap, revealing casino uniform, my face entirely drained of color, his pupils shrank to pinpricks, flashing with shock and panic.

"Sienna? What the hell are you wearing? What are you doing here?!" He took a long stride toward me.

I grabbed the expensive bottle of vodka off the cart and hurled it straight at the wall with everything I had.

Shattered glass and alcohol sprayed everywhere.

Marcello stopped a step away from me, his brow furrowed hard. "Are you out of your mind?!"

I didn't hesitate. I raised my hand and threw all my weight into a vicious slap across his handsome face.

The sharp slap echoed through the quiet room.

Marcello's head snapped to the side, a red mark instantly blooming across his cheek.

He froze.

"Tell me!" I jabbed a finger in his face, hot tears finally spilling over. "Which whore did you dump all that money on?!"

Marcello didn't snap. He didn't order his enforcers to drag me out.

He just stared at me, his eyes bloodshot with barely suppressed rage.

He caught me by the waist, slammed me hard against the cold wall, and ground out every word through his teeth:

"Sienna, I have only ever spent money on you in this life. And I have never touched another woman."

I froze completely in my tracks.

The white-hot rage felt like ice water dumped over my head, leaving only a bone-chilling frost.

I stared straight into his dark eyes with a dead, frozen gaze.

"If that money was meant for me... why is my monthly allowance only 150 bucks?"