Chapter 2

Three years ago, Adrian was the first face I saw when I woke up with no memory.

He told me we'd grown up together on the block, that we'd promised ourselves to each other long ago, that I'd taken a bullet protecting him and cracked my head, and that was how I'd lost it all.

The Vance name was old money, but Adrian was a servant's bastard, low on the ladder, the kind anyone in that house could step on.

He refused to stay down. He took every opening he got, until finally the Don of the Vance family looked at him straight, just once.

And I stayed at his side, handling the ugly business under the table, keeping him whole through every flash of gunfire and steel.

I always thought we were lovers who'd been through hell together, comrades who held each other up. Then yesterday I learned the truth. The childhood sweethearts, the falling for each other young, none of it was real.

My name is Hale. An old Sicilian family, generations deep, every last one of us hard as nails. My Family and the Marlowe outfit Adrian had thrown in with had been blood enemies for decades.

My father held our territory, and he died in a shootout. I took his place, brought our people in, and clawed back every inch of lost ground, until I'd lost count of the wars I ran.

Until three years ago, when I walked into an ambush, went over a cliff, and washed up on the streets after weeks of drifting. That was when Adrian picked me up.

He couldn't have known who I really was. A man who climbs by stepping on others would have handed me to Marlowe for the bounty in a heartbeat.

So from the very start, we were always supposed to be enemies.

I nodded, looking around the little room, and for a moment my head swam.

This was where Adrian had brought me, back when he saved me. He'd had almost nothing then, and he even sold off the old jewelry his mother left him to buy my medicine.

After that he came by three times a day, careful with me, missing nothing. That was exactly why I never once doubted a word he said.

Outside the window, a couple of guards kept their voices low, talking about Adrian and the princess and the wedding.

"You hear about it? Don gave his word himself, promised Miss Camilla to the Vance boy. Spent a fortune to bring a princess into the house."

"Red silk strung up the whole street, a few bands hired, even booked out the church. The Vance family's laying on an open table, half the block invited to celebrate."

"Some spread, all right. Real class."

Flower up and down the street, a bride carried in to all that glory. That was the picture Adrian once painted for me, and now he'd actually pulled it off. He'd just swapped out the bride.

I pressed a hand to my chest, and something rose up in me.

By the fourth day they had me shut in there, Adrian came with a box of pistachio shortbread in his hand, my favorite.

He crossed the room, set the sweets on the table, and spoke slowly. "Eat something. Whatever you want to ask, I'll tell you in time."

I picked up a piece and put it in my mouth. The taste was the same as always. He'd made it himself.

In their world men mostly stayed out of the kitchen, so few people knew Adrian was good with his hands.

Every time I got hurt, he was the one cooking the broth, feeding me the medicine, seeing to every meal.

I really had believed he cared for me. So when my memory came back, I really did lose my footing for a while. I really did agonize over it.

But now, when I looked at him, all I felt was a stranger looking back.

"You never once thought about marrying me, did you. From the start, you were just using me to bleed for you. Wasn't it?"

"That's it, isn't it, Adrian?" I held his gaze and pushed for an answer.

Adrian went still. A long beat passed before he said it, flat. "Yes."

I'd seen it coming, and hearing the word out loud still cut, just for a second. So it really had all been a con.

He'd never meant a thing.

I laughed, swallowing the sting climbing into my eyes, and asked him coldly, "Then what are you here for?"

Adrian said nothing. His black eyes stayed on me, and after a long while his voice came out rough. "Camilla knows about you, Vera."

"She's not a small-minded woman. She says that as long as we ruin these hands of yours, the ones that hold a gun, and turn you into an ordinary woman, she doesn't mind taking you into the house."

He drew a knife and pointed it at me, his face gone white, his lips bloodless.

"Most women never touch a gun anyway. Better these hands are finished. You'll settle in at home from now on, no more living on the edge of a blade."

"Anything you want, I'll give you. Isn't that better?"

I stared at the knife, and I couldn't believe it. It was the one I'd given him for his birthday last year, with my own hands.

For that blade I'd spent a full day and night in the betting room at an underground fight, put up everything I had, and won it off an old collector, a real piece forged by a master.

I still remembered putting it in his hand. He'd held me, cuts all over me, and said he'd protect me forever, that he'd never let me get hurt again.

I'd never have guessed that the man who once swore, eyes red, to keep me safe would one day turn that same point on me without a flicker of doubt.