Chapter 4

Three days later, my door opened.

Vincenzo walked in, Katerina on his arm.

She wore a white Chanel suit. The family ring on her left hand glittered, stabbing at my eyes.

“Chiara,” Vincenzo’s voice was flat. “How are you feeling?”

“Still breathing,” I said, my voice like gravel. “Disappointed?”

Katerina walked to my bedside, her face a mask of fake concern. “I’ve been wanting to see you. I heard you were badly hurt protecting us. You’re so brave.”

Protecting you.

What a fucking joke.

“Just doing my job.”

“Your loyalty is very touching,” Katerina said. Her gaze dropped to the open collar of my hospital gown, zeroing in on the small phoenix tattoo just below my collarbone.

We got it after our first firefight together. Our first secret.

A flash of jealousy crossed her eyes. She turned to Vincenzo, her voice sickly sweet. “Darling, Chiara’s tattoo is so unique. But… I don’t really like it. It reminds me you have a past I don’t know about. It makes me feel… insecure.”

Vincenzo went still.

He was silent for a few seconds. Then he took out his phone and dialed Marco.

“Get Tony over to the hospital with his kit. Now.”

My blood ran cold. Tony was the family’s tattoo artist.

No. He wouldn’t…

Twenty minutes later, Tony Marcelli walked in, carrying a black case.

He saw me in the bed, then looked at Vincenzo, confused.

“Boss, you sure… you want to do this here?”

I thought he was here to erase mine. To strip me of our last secret. But I was wrong. It was so much worse. Vincenzo took off his own shirt.

The scars on his chest were suddenly blinding.

The ones I traced with my fingers after we made love. The marks of our life together.

The one on his left pec, from three years ago at the docks. I’d shoved him out of the way and took Tony the Butcher’s knife for him. He held me, covered in blood, and lost control for the first time, his eyes shot with red as he screamed my name. He’d said, "Chiara, you're mine. No one touches you."

The bullet graze on the right, from five years ago in Milan. We were cornered. I used a fake ID to talk us past the cops and get us out. He kissed my wounds and called me his goddess of victory.

And now he was going to erase it all.

“Right here,” Vincenzo said, revealing the much more intricate phoenix on his chest.

The one I designed for him when I was nineteen. One of a kind.

He pointed to the phoenix and gave Tony his order.

“Cover it. With the Russian double-headed eagle.”

“Boss!” Tony’s voice was tight. “Are you sure? A cover-up that big... it’s gonna hurt like hell. And it’s going to scar like a motherfucker.”

“Do as I say,” Vincenzo’s tone left no room for argument.

I struggled to sit up. “Vincenzo, you don’t have to—”

“Shut up.” He didn’t even look at me. His eyes were ice. “This has nothing to do with you.”

The buzz of the needle was sharp in the quiet room.

Blood seeped out, mixing with ink, a smear of red before my eyes.

I watched the phoenix I designed, the symbol of our past, get tortured, consumed, and swallowed whole by the eagle that stood for his alliance, his new woman.

Vincenzo gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead, but he didn’t make a sound.

His eyes never left Katerina.

“Does it hurt?” Katerina asked, dabbing his sweat with a handkerchief.

“No,” he gritted out, his voice rough. He never took his eyes off her. “For you, nothing hurts.”

Two hours later, it was done.

Vincenzo’s chest was a mess of blood and raw flesh, but the snarling Russian eagle had completely replaced the phoenix.

My phoenix was gone.

“Perfect,” Katerina purred, kissing his bloody chest. “Now, inside and out, you belong only to me.”

Vincenzo looked at the strange, bloody symbol in the mirror. He gave Katerina a weak but satisfied smile.

“Yes,” he said, but his eyes found mine in the reflection.

“Now, I’m only yours.”