Iris Vale
Four years ago, I took three bullets for my husband, Marcus DeLuca, heir to New York's most powerful mafia family.
It cost me three years in a rival family's flooded cell.
They interrogated me, drugged me with hallucinogens, and starved me, trying to make me reveal the DeLuca family's accounts, warehouses, and shipping routes.
Three years later, I finally escaped.
At the DeLuca Foundation's charity gala, everyone was talking about Rachel Bellini.
The same woman I'd slapped in public years ago after she drunkenly draped herself over my husband's shoulder.
"God only knows how much Marcus has spent on Rachel over the years. Now she's even got a Golden Globe nomination."
"After Sarah disappeared, she moved into the DeLuca estate."
"That's not all she got. She gave Marcus two kids."
"But Sarah is Marcus's wife. The DeLuca family threw the biggest wedding this city had ever seen."
"Oh, come on. She was abused for three years. She can't have kids anymore. Look at her."
For more than 1,000 days and nights in that flooded cell, I'd believed he was tearing the city apart to find me. It turned out he'd had other things to do.
Pathetic.
In the middle of the ballroom, Marcus and Rachel gazed into each other's eyes.
Someone shouted, "Make it official, Marcus!"
Just then, the spotlight swept across me.
Everyone turned to look at me, waiting for me to slap her a second time.
I just raised my champagne glass and smiled.
"Don't stop on my account."
Then I turned and walked out of the ballroom before they could see my red, swollen eyes.
I called Lily.
"Last time, you said your jewelry studio in Sydney still needs a partner. I've thought it over. I'm in."