Chapter 2

“Mrs. Russo. Are you sure about this?”

My attorney paused.

“Once I set this in motion, neither Don Moretti nor Don Russo will be able to trace you.”

“But those men control half the East Coast. Once they realize you’re gone, they’ll tear New York apart looking for you.”

He paused again.

“Dante will lose his mind.”

I stared at Dante’s signature on the divorce agreement.

“Make the arrangements.”

A few minutes later, an encrypted message appeared on my phone.

A new name. A clean passport. A one-way flight seven days from now.

In seven days, Elena Moretti would disappear.

Once, leaving Father and Dante would have been unbelievable.

They were the two men who had held me together after Mother died.

I still remembered how Father had collapsed to his knees at Mother’s funeral, sobbing so hard he could barely breathe.

He swore Bianca’s mother, Sofia, had drugged him during a party and that he remembered nothing from that night.

By the time he learned the truth, Sofia was already pregnant.

Mother had already been battling advanced heart disease for years. Learning that Sofia was carrying Father’s child triggered the heart attack that killed her.

The morning after the funeral, Father banished Bianca and her mother from New York.

After that, he devoted himself to me, giving me anything I wanted as if he could somehow make up for the mother I had lost.

But none of that brought Mother back.

For weeks, I locked myself in my bedroom and refused to eat.

Dante sat beside my bed night after night, coaxing spoonfuls of soup between my lips.

“Your mother would want you to live, Elena,” he whispered. “She would want you to be happy.”

Those words saved me.

They were also the reason I eventually trusted him with everything I had left.

Dante returned sometime before dawn.

I woke with his arm around my waist, as if he had not spent the night somewhere else.

He smelled freshly showered, with no trace of another woman left on his skin.

He was getting dressed in the adjoining closet when my phone began to vibrate.

Bianca.

Photographs filled the screen one after another.

Dante kissing her aboard the yacht where we had spent our honeymoon.

Their hands linked outside the chalet in St. Moritz where he had taught me to ski.

Bianca lying across the bed in the same hotel suite where Dante had promised to love me until death.

Dante had taken Bianca on our honeymoon all over again—and I had never known.

Suddenly, all those business trips earlier that year made sense.

A voice message followed.

“Remember this suite, Elena? The sheets have been changed, but I’m sure the staff still remembers the sounds Dante made with me.”

Another arrived.

“Dante promised he couldn’t sleep unless you were in his arms, didn’t he? Want to see how quickly I can make him leave you tonight?”

Nausea rolled through me.

I barely reached the bathroom before I vomited.

The bedroom door flew open.

“Elena?”

Dante was beside me in seconds, gathering my hair away from my face.

“Morning sickness again?”

He helped me back into bed and gently pulled the covers over me.

“You need to eat something,” he said softly. “Give me a minute.”

Twenty minutes later, he returned with a bowl of ginger chicken soup. He had learned the recipe from a Michelin-starred chef after my morning sickness began.

He watched me take one bite, waiting for the smile that used to follow every tender thing he did.

I gave him nothing.

His expression tightened.

“Tomorrow is our anniversary,” he said carefully. “I can’t get away until late, but I reserved the yacht for ten. We’ll have the harbor to ourselves.”

I remained silent.

Dante set the bowl aside and began massaging my temples.

“Is that why you’re upset?” he asked. “Because I can’t spend the whole day with you?”

“It’s not that,” I said. “Something happened to a friend of mine. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“What happened?”

“A Don claimed to love his Donna more than his own life.” I looked directly into his eyes. “Then he slept with another woman and hid it from her for years.”

Dante’s hands went still.

“What do you think she should do?”

“Leave him.”

His answer came without hesitation.

“A man who betrays his Donna doesn’t deserve her.”

“And if it were you?”

His gaze hardened with absolute certainty.

“It never would be.”

He cupped my face.

“I love you, Elena. If you left me, there would be nothing left worth living for.”

He meant it.

That was the cruelest part.

Dante had betrayed me, lied to me, and gotten Bianca pregnant.

Yet in that moment, the love he showed me was completely sincere.

His eyes searched mine.

“I only want you,” he said. “Whatever is going on in that beautiful head of yours, believe that.”

He leaned closer.

Thunder cracked outside.

I flinched away.

Dante pulled me against his chest.

“Easy, tesoro. I’ve got you.”

Once, his arms had been the safest place in the world.

Now I could not stop shivering inside them.

A soldato appeared in the doorway and bent to whisper in Dante’s ear.

Dante’s face changed, then held me closer and continued soothing me to sleep.

“Don't worry,” he murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Dante stroked my hair, but his gaze kept drifting toward the door.

I closed my eyes.

The moment my breathing evened out, he slipped from the bed.

I had been awake the entire time, but I didn’t follow him. I had no desire to prove what I already knew.

My phone lit up less than an hour later.

Bianca had sent more photographs.

Rumpled sheets. Her hands against Dante’s bare back. A scrap of black lace caught beneath his hand.

Her voice message played softly in the dark.

“He hasn’t touched you since you got pregnant, has he? He couldn’t keep his hands off me tonight.”

In the final photo, Bianca lay sprawled across Dante’s bare chest.

His hand rested on her waist, our wedding band still on his finger.

The ring was supposed to mean he belonged to me.

Now it only proved he knew exactly who he was betraying.

One final message appeared.

Aren’t you curious where your husband will be during your anniversary tomorrow?

Six o’clock. The Belladonna Hotel. Come alone if you want to know the truth.

I stared at the message until dawn.

Then I saved the address.

I had five days left in New York.

Before I disappeared, I deserved to know the whole truth.