Addison POV

The ride in the armored limousine was a suffocating exercise in silence.

The plush leather seats reeked of Evelin’s cloying perfume, a scent that seemed to choke the air from my lungs.

Bernard sat across from me, a statue carved from ice.

He hadn't uttered a single syllable since his men had shoved me into the back seat outside the clinic.

We weren't heading to the police station.

We were going to La Perle.

It was a French restaurant downtown—the very place Ben used to admire in the dog-eared magazines I kept at the cabin.

"One day," he had promised, his voice warm with a lie I hadn't known was a lie. "One day, Addie, I will take you there."

Now, he was keeping that promise.

But we were not there to dine.

The car rolled to a smooth halt.

Bernard waited, imperious, for his soldier to open the door.

He didn't offer me a hand.

Inside, the restaurant was a cavern of silence.

He had bought out the entire establishment.

He took a seat at a secluded corner table and gestured sharply for me to join him.

I sat.

My hands were trembling, so I hid them beneath the table, gripping my knees.

"You look well, Addison," he said.

He spoke my name as if it were a slur.

"Where is Ben?" I asked, hating the way my voice cracked.

"Ben is dead," he stated flatly. He lifted a crystal glass of water to his lips. "He died the moment I remembered who I was."

"You are married to me," I whispered, desperate to find a crack in his armor.

Bernard laughed.

It was a dry, humorless sound that scraped against my nerves.

"I am the Underboss of the Logan Family," he declared. "I do not have civilian marriages. I have alliances."

He leaned forward, the candlelight dancing in his cold, dark eyes.

"You are a loose end, Addison. And in my world, we tie up loose ends."

I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving me cold.

"Are you going to kill me?" I asked.

He studied me for a long, agonizing moment.

For a split second, I saw a flash of something flicker in his gaze.

Hesitation?

Regret?

No.

It was pure calculation.

"No," he finally said. "You saved my life. I pay my debts."

He slid a sleek black envelope across the pristine tablecloth.

"There is cash inside," he said. "Enough to buy a new life. Far away from here."

"I don't want your money," I said.

I pushed the envelope back toward him.

His jaw tightened, a muscle feathering in his cheek.

"Then what do you want?" he demanded. "To play house in a shack? To pretend I am a lumberjack named Ben?"

"I want a divorce," I said, my voice gaining strength. "If we are not married, then let me go."

"You are not going anywhere," he countered.

He stood abruptly and stalked around the table.

He stopped directly behind my chair, his presence looming over me.

He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, sending a shiver of dread down my spine.

"Evelin needs a therapist," he murmured. "You are hired."

"I won't do it," I said instantly.

"You will," he replied, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Because if you don't, I will find that music box you pawned."

My head snapped up.

He knew about the music box.

"I bought it back," he revealed cruelly. "It sits on my mantle. It is a fragile thing, Addison. One squeeze, and it becomes nothing but splinters."

"You wouldn't," I breathed.

"Try to run," he threatened softly. "And watch what happens to the only memory you have left of your father."

He straightened up, adjusting his cuffs.

His phone buzzed against the wood of the table.

He glanced at the screen.

"Evelin is waiting at the Estate," he said. "Come. You have work to do."

I stared at his hand as he checked his watch.

On his wrist, the crisp cuff of his shirt had pulled back.

I saw the tattoo.

A simple, black letter *E*.

When he had gotten it at the cabin, using ink and a needle in the dim light, he told me it stood for *Eternity*.

For us.

I looked up at him, my heart breaking all over again.

"It stands for Evelin, doesn't it?" I asked.

Bernard didn't look at me.

"It always did," he said.

Addison POV

The Logan Estate was less a home and more a fortress of stone and glass, perched precariously on the edge of a cliff.

It was cold.

Imposing.

Just like the man who owned it.

I was sequestered in the guest quarters, trying to make sense of the medical files Bernard had forced upon me.

Suddenly, the door flew open with a violence that made me jump.

Evelin stood there, framed by the doorway.

She looked deranged, her chest heaving.

"What is she doing here?" she shrieked, her voice cracking.

She spun around to face Bernard, who was lingering in the hallway like a dark shadow.

"You brought the help into our home?" she screamed.

"She is on call," Bernard said, his voice maddeningly calm. "You said you had anxiety. You needed monitoring."

"I don't want her here!" Evelin yelled, pointing a trembling finger at me. "She smells like poverty."

Bernard looked at me.

His face was an impenetrable mask.

"Get out," he said.

Just like that.

"It is freezing outside," I argued, my voice shaking. "It is a five-mile walk to the main road."

"I don't care," Evelin spat.

Bernard didn't even blink. He signaled to two of his guards.

"Escort her off the property," he commanded.

The guards seized my arms.

They weren't gentle.

They dragged me down the polished marble hallway, my heels skidding uselessly against the floor.

I looked back at Bernard one last time.

He was lighting a cigarette, the flame illuminating the sharp angles of his face.

He didn't watch me leave.

They threw me out the front gate like a bag of refuse.

I landed hard on the asphalt.

My knees scraped against the grit, tearing skin.

The cold air bit into my flesh like a thousand needles.

I pushed myself up and started walking.

Every step was a painful reminder.

Ben—the man I thought I knew—would have carried me through the snow.

Bernard threw me into it.

I walked for what felt like an eternity, losing sensation in my toes, before a black SUV pulled up slowly beside me.

The window rolled down with a soft hum.

"Get in," Bernard said.

I kept walking, staring straight ahead.

"Get in, Addison, or I drag you in."

I stopped.

I got in.

I had no fight left in me.

"We are going to the St. Regis," he announced, staring at the road. "Evelin has a gala tonight. She needs you to calm her nerves."

"I am not her servant," I whispered.

"You are whatever I say you are," he replied coldly.

At the hotel, he left me in the hallway outside the master suite.

The heavy door hadn't latched completely; it stood slightly ajar.

I heard voices drifting out.

"Bernard," Evelin said. Her voice was low, laced with suspicion. "Why is she really here? Did you sleep with her?"

I held my breath, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Bernard laughed.

It was a cruel, hollow sound.

"She was a nurse, Evelin," he said dismissively. "I was high on painkillers for two years. I don't even remember her face half the time."

"But you were intimate?" Evelin pressed.

I heard the sharp clink of ice hitting a glass.

"I was drugged," Bernard said effortlessly. "It was a mistake. A hallucination. It meant nothing to my honor. And it meant nothing to me."

My heart shattered into dust.

He was rewriting our history.

He was turning our love into a drug-induced error just to save face with a mafia princess.

"You can punish her if you want," Bernard added, his tone bored. "As long as she stays close. I need to keep an eye on her."

"Why?" Evelin asked.

"Because she knows too much," he said.

I slid down the wall, unable to stand.

I buried my face in my hands to stifle a sob.

I had to get the music box.

I had to get it and run.

If I stayed, he would destroy me.

Addison POV

The ballroom was a suffocating ocean of black tuxedos and crimson gowns.

The air reeked of old money, expensive cologne, and the metallic tang of blood.

I stood invisible near the arched entrance, clutching Evelin’s emergency kit to my chest like a lifeline.

In the center of the room, Bernard held court.

He looked every inch the king of this underworld—tall, imposing, and utterly untouchable.

Evelin hung on his arm, glowing with the radiance of a woman who knows she has won.

Then, she saw me.

The moment her eyes found mine, her porcelain smile curdled into a sneer.

She leaned in and whispered something to Bernard.

He nodded once, sharp and precise.

He didn’t look at me.

Evelin detached herself from him and glided over to where I stood.

The music cut out.

A hush fell over the crowd as heads turned, sensing the spectacle.

"You," she said, her voice dripping with disdain.

I straightened my spine, refusing to cower.

"Yes, Miss Bennett?"

Her hand struck my face.

The sharp *crack* ricocheted through the silent room.

My cheek exploded with heat.

My head snapped to the side from the force of the blow.

"You are staring at my fiancé," she hissed, leaning close so only I could smell the champagne on her breath. "You dirty little whore."

I touched my stinging cheek, my fingers coming away trembling.

I looked at Bernard.

He was watching.

His face was hewn from stone, unreadable and cold.

He did nothing.

"My shoe is dirty," Evelin announced, her voice carrying to the onlookers.

She pointed a manicured finger at her stiletto.

"Clean it."

I stared at her, the request hanging in the air like a guillotine blade.

"No," I said.

Bernard snapped his fingers.

Two guards materialized from the shadows.

They seized my shoulders and forced me down.

My knees hit the marble floor with a bone-jarring thud.

"Clean it," Bernard ordered.

His voice was a low rumble—dangerous and devoid of mercy.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked him, searching his eyes for the man I thought I knew.

"Because you need to learn your place," he said.

Evelin laughed, a high, cruel sound.

She kicked me in the chest.

I toppled backward, gasping for air.

She reached into her purse and pulled out something small and wooden.

It was the music box.

My father's music box.

"Bernard gave it to me," she said, tossing it lightly in her hand. "He said it was trash."

She walked over to an exotic display of cacti near the wall—a centerpiece of long, serrated needles.

She hurled the box into the center of the thorns.

"Oops," she deadpanned.

"Five thousand dollars to anyone who smashes it!" she yelled to the crowd.

The mobsters laughed, the sound ugly and raucous.

One of them stepped forward, lifting a heavy, polished boot.

"No!" I screamed.

I scrambled across the floor.

I didn't care about the humiliation.

I didn't care about the guards.

I lunged at the display.

I plunged my bare hands into the cactus.

The thorns were long.

Razor-sharp.

They tore into my flesh, piercing deep into my palms.

I grabbed the box.

Blood ran down my wrists, staining the pristine white floor crimson.

I curled my body around the small wooden box, shielding it with my own skin.

The mobster didn't stop.

He kicked me in the ribs.

I gasped, the air leaving my lungs in a pained wheeze.

The box flew out of my blood-slicked hands.

It hit the marble floor.

It shattered.

The tiny brass gears spilled out like guts.

The melody died before it could even begin.

I stared at the broken pieces, my heart fracturing along with the wood.

The silence in the room was deafening.

I looked up at Bernard.

He was standing over me.

He looked at my bleeding, mangled hands.

He looked at the ruins of the wood.

For a split second, the mask slipped. He looked like he was going to be sick.

But then he stepped back, the ice returning to his eyes.

He took Evelin's hand.

"Let's go," he said.

I lay on the floor among the thorns and the wreckage of my father's memory.

I watched Bernard's back as he walked away.

"I hope you die," I whispered into the cold stone.

"I hope you die screaming."