Chapter 2

The next morning, I called the inner council.

Marcello sat at my right hand, still pretending to be my loyal brother while running half the Family for me.

He’d just proposed giving the Hudson Casino security contract to one of his loyalists. I tossed the file back across the table.

“The budget is forty percent too high, and three people on this roster were expelled from the Family.”

Marcello flipped through the file. His smile disappeared.

“It’s a first draft. I’ll review it again.”

“If you’re bringing work this sloppy into my council chamber, your mind must be somewhere else.”

Several capos around the long table turned to look at him.

Marcello lowered his head. “It was my oversight, Don.”

“Redo it by tonight.”

“Yes, Don.”

When the meeting ended, he walked past me with the same respectful expression, but the tension in his shoulders gave him away.

I knew exactly what he resented.

For the past six months, I’d left New York in his hands while I expanded the Family’s business in Miami.

He’d grown used to running meetings for me, throwing around his title as underboss, and entering my home whenever I was away.

I’d never minded sharing power with him before.

Marcello was six years older than me. When our father was alive, he’d taken a bullet for me. Later, when everyone questioned whether I was too young to lead, Marcello was the first to accept me as Don.

I’d believed that even though there could only be one Don, we could still share everything the way we had as kids.

Apparently, Marcello felt the same way. He’d just decided my wife was included.

I didn’t expose him yet.

Marcello had always been proud. Every time I reminded him who was Don, he’d need Elena even more to prove he wasn’t beneath me.

At two in the afternoon, Elena left the foundation.

After she’d fallen asleep the night before, I’d slipped a tracker into her favorite lipstick. Now I watched the red dot travel three streets before stopping at the Ashton Hotel.

It was the same hotel where we’d held our wedding reception seven years ago.

That night, Elena had stood before me in her white wedding gown and slipped her hand into mine. Then she’d quietly asked if she was worthy of becoming the Donna.

I pinned the Black Eagle on her and told her that as long as I was alive, no one would ever make her bow.

Now she was using my name to meet my brother at the very same hotel.

The Ashton belonged to me, too.

I called the hotel manager.

“Upgrade her room to the penthouse suite.”

The manager didn’t pry. He only asked, “Do you want the security cameras activated?”

“All of them.”

Twenty minutes later, he called back.

“Mrs. Vitale is very pleased. We mentioned her wedding here seven years ago, and she said the dress was outdated.”

I held the phone in silence.

Seven years of marriage, and that was what our wedding meant to her now: an outdated dress.

But I still remembered every detail.

She’d been so nervous walking down the aisle that she nearly tripped on her train. After the vows, she’d curled against me and whispered, asking whether I would be good to her for the rest of our lives.

I told her I would.

Only now did I understand that I’d been the only one who treated that wedding as a once-in-a-lifetime promise.

Some part of me had still been waiting for a single second of hesitation from her.

I wasn’t waiting anymore.

At three o’clock, I deliberately told my secretary Nick that I was heading to the North Dock for an audit and wouldn’t be back for at least four hours.

Nick was Elena’s distant cousin. For the past six months, whenever my schedule changed at the last minute, Marcello somehow found out.

I’d barely stepped into the elevator when Nick’s voice came through the wiretap.

“He’s headed to the North Dock. Won’t be back before tonight.”

From now on, the eyes planted at my side would see only what I wanted them to see.

At three forty, my car pulled up outside the Ashton.

I didn’t go in right away.

On the penthouse camera feed, Elena sat on Marcello’s lap, smiling as she loosened his tie.

I turned off the screen and waited in the car until my hands stopped shaking.

A Don couldn’t walk into that lobby carrying a husband’s rage.

When I stepped out of the car, Marcello was slipping away through a side corridor. Elena walked toward the main entrance alone, fixing her hair and adjusting her collar.

She spotted me. Her steps froze for half a second. Then she smiled and slipped her arm through mine.

“Leon? What are you doing here?

“The foundation set up a meeting with a donor, but they canceled at the last minute. I was just about to head back.”

She said it without a single pause.

I caught the scent of Marcello’s cologne on her, and my stomach turned.

Elena went on complaining about the donor’s last-minute cancellation.

I looked over her shoulder at the man about to slip out the side door.

“Marcello.”