Chapter 3

The moment I said that, the whole chapel fell dead silent.

Bruno's hand jerked in my blond hair, and he let go at once, as if he'd touched a branding iron.

On the screen, Marcus leaped off the sofa, knocking over the champagne tower in front of him.

"Claire! What the hell are you saying, you crazy woman?!"

Everyone in the European underworld knew that the shipwreck ten years ago was the one subject no one dared raise around Valentino.

Anyone who said a word about it would be torn to pieces.

Valentino didn't move from the carved armchair.

But the air around him changed instantly.

It was like watching a dormant volcano erupt.

He slowly set the bear aside, stood up, and walked down from the altar one step at a time.

His custom black combat boots hit the marble with dull, echoing thuds.

With every step he took, the suffocating fear in the chapel doubled.

He stopped at the edge of the thorns and glass and looked down at me.

"What did you just say?"

His voice was barely a whisper, yet it promised bloodshed.

I kept my head up as blood flowed from my knees, staining the tiles beneath me red.

"Am I wrong?"

Pain had drained the color from my lips, but I refused to look away.

"A dead woman who's been rotting at the bottom of the sea for ten years? What's left of her but a few bones?"

Valentino bent down and clamped one hand around my throat.

His hand was large and strong, and he lifted me off the floor effortlessly.

The moment my toes left the ground, I grabbed his wrist on instinct.

The muscles beneath his black shirt felt as hard and cold as stone.

"Who gave you the nerve to talk about her?"

He brought his face close to mine. The murderous rage in his gray-green eyes was so fierce it felt like it could flay me alive.

"Who the hell are you to speak of her with that filthy mouth?"

The air was squeezed from my chest, and my vision darkened.

I opened my mouth, but only a faint rasp came out.

Ten years had passed. The calluses between his thumb and forefinger were much harder now.

Ten years ago, these hands had clumsily woven grass crowns for me and tucked my frozen feet against his chest to warm them.

Now those same hands were around my neck, about to snap it.

On the yacht, Marcus was scared out of his mind.

He burst in from outside the estate with a few bodyguards, not even stopping for his coat, and flung open the chapel doors.

"Don! Don, please calm down!"

Marcus rushed over without so much as a glance at me, though I was nearly dead, and dropped to his knees beside Valentino's boots.

"This tramp is mentally ill. Please don't dirty your hands on her!"

He turned and screamed at the bodyguards behind him.

"Bring the solid-gold cigar cutter! I'll cut out her tongue myself to make it up to you!"

Valentino's grip loosened slightly.

Cold air rushed into my lungs. I collapsed among the shell casings, clutching my throat and retching.

Involuntary tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision.

Marcus took a cold, gleaming gold cigar cutter from a bodyguard.

He grabbed my hair and forced my mouth open.

"Claire, you brought this on yourself!"

There wasn't the slightest bit of pity in his eyes, only the frenzy of a man saving his own skin.

"You enjoyed every luxury at my side. Today's the day you pay me back."

Olivia hurried in too, holding up the hem of her gown, and stood behind Marcus.

She looked down at me, gloating.

"Mr. Sartori, this woman has always been calculating.

"She must have found out about your past somewhere and said those things on purpose to hurt you.

"Leaving a schemer like her alive is just asking for trouble."

Marcus pinned me to the floor with his foot. The cold metal ring of the cigar cutter pressed against my lips.

One look at Marcus's ugly, eager-to-please face, and my stomach turned.

He'd bought me at a human traffickers' auction aboard a ship. To repay him for saving me, I'd handled his dirty books.

While Olivia shone in European society, I cleaned up her messes in the shadows and took the blame for her mistakes.

In the end, I was just something he could throw away to appease Valentino.

Valentino stepped back half a pace onto the stairs and watched the scene at his feet without a flicker of emotion.

He even slowly peeled off the black leather glove on his right hand and dropped it on the floor.

As if touching my neck had left a stain he couldn't wash off.

"Marcus, you really are ruthless."

Valentino looked down at him, his voice full of mockery.

"Your own mistress, and you'll cut out her tongue just like that."

Marcus's hand froze on the cigar cutter for a second. Then he gave Valentino an even more servile smile.

"As long as it makes the Don happy, cutting out her tongue is nothing. I'll chop her up and feed her to the dogs if you want."

He squeezed my jaw hard.

"Open your mouth!"

I clenched my teeth desperately. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.

Ten years ago, in that storm, it had been the same.

The hold was filling with freezing seawater, and the captain stood there with a harpoon, forcing us to jump.

I tied the last life jacket around him and bit his wrist hard to make him let go.

He swam toward me through the churning waves with all his strength, screaming, "Claire! Grab my hand! I'm not leaving!"

I choked on seawater and shouted with the last of my strength, "Swim! Don't look back!"

He really had survived.

He'd become the Sicilian Don, a man who could make or ruin anyone with a wave of his hand.

And I was about to have my tongue cut out by another man, right in front of him.

It was the height of irony.