His gun-roughened hands burned against my waist, every breath laced with the cold, unyielding possession that had made him the most feared Cosa Nostra Don in all of Sicily.

A shrill ring sliced through the haze.

He answered in guttural Sicilian.

It was the dialect I’d learned years ago to fit into his world, so I caught every word.

His consigliere was screaming down the line at him for filing a valid, legally binding marriage license with Sofia Lombardi, the woman who’d abandoned him when a bomb left him mute for seven years.

Luca’s order was cold as a trigger pull.

“Secure the original license in the family vault. Draw up a forged, null-and-void marriage license for Isa to keep her compliant.”

In the eyes of the law, of his entire crew, I was nothing but his mistress.

After seven years of laying down my life for him, I’d been reduced to nothing but his mistress.

Another call flashed.

Luca turned to me, the lie already shaping his mouth.

“Family matters. The guards will see you home.”

Without a word, I stepped out into the Palermo night, my hands shaking as I dialed his mother, Anna Vitali.

“I’ll take your fifty million euros. I’ll leave Luca. For good.”

Anna once said Luca and I were worlds apart.

I had to admit she was right.

This time, I want to leave with dignity.

Luca Vitali was the sole heir to the Vitali Cosa Nostra Family. And me? Isabella Berti. Just the daughter of the Family’s head steward.

I was twelve when I followed my mother through the gates of the Vitali family’s coastal compound, and first saw Luca in the sun, firing a 9mm at targets down the cliffside.

He turned his head, and his face was that of a fallen angel, straight out of the old Sicilian legends.

In that single glance, the name Luca Vitali was burned into my bones.

I never spoke a word of the love I hid in my chest.

Not just because of the chasm between our stations, but because I knew Luca’s heart already belonged to someone else.

Sofia Lombardi.

His childhood sweetheart, the only daughter of the Lombardi crime family.

He never hid how he doted on her, shielded her from every drop of blood and every bitter feud that came with the life.

When we were eighteen, a rival family set an ambush.

Luca threw himself over Sofia, took the full force of the car bomb blast.

Shrapnel tore through his throat, shredded his vocal cords, left him completely mute.

But in the darkest days of his life, Sofia never set foot in the Vitali estate again.

Instead, she ran off with the heir of the very family that had ordered the hit.

The Vitali family was tearing itself apart then.

Rival capos circled like vultures, waiting for the mute heir to fall.

The Family’s ruling Commission shipped him off to a derelict estate deep in the Sicilian countryside, and left him there to rot.

I begged to be transferred to that estate.

For seven years, I was his shadow, his only protection.

In those seven years, I stopped three hits from his own family, ran the last of his underground casino operations that hadn’t been seized, and chased down every top surgeon across Europe who could fix his throat.

I held him through the night terrors, wiped the blood from his hands, sat with him in silence when the world felt like it was closing in.

With me by his side, Luca crawled out of hell.

His voice came back rough, gravelly, permanently scarred.

And it took him only one year to hunt down every traitor in the family, to take his rightful place as Don of the Vitali Family, the unchallenged Capo dei Capi of the Sicilian underworld.

I was the one he kissed, touched, loved in the dead of night, when the world outside didn’t exist.

But never in my worst nightmares did I imagine that the first thing he’d do, once he held all the power, was sign a legally binding marriage contract with the woman who’d abandoned him.

For years, I’d learned to shoot, to run numbers, to navigate every brutal, unwritten rule of the Cosa Nostra.

All to keep up with him.

But no matter what I did, Anna never thought I was worthy of her son, the Don.

She’d shoved checks in my face a hundred times, told me to take the money and disappear.

Before, Luca would have torn up those checks, would have screamed at his mother for daring to insult me.

I’d always thought, as long as we had each other, we could outrun anything.

But that night, in the back of that Lincoln, I’d heard every word of his plan.

I was done.

Anna’s voice was thick with unmasked contempt when I spoke.

“You finally came to your senses? Good. Get here now. We’ll sign the papers.”

I stared at the address she texted, huffed a bitter, humorless laugh, and hailed a cab.

“Sign it. Half the money will be wired to your account today, the rest the day you leave Italy. You swear to never show your face to Luca again, for the rest of your life. Understand?”

My gaze flicked to the staggering number on the page, my lashes fluttering for just a second. I’d never see Luca Vitali again.

Finally, I picked up the pen, and signed my name in one clean, sharp stroke.

Anna let out a sharp breath of relief, tucking the contract into her bag.

She stood, and tossed one last cold line over her shoulder before she left.

“I give you two weeks. Vanish. Change your name, leave the country, I don’t care. You make sure Luca never finds you. Ever.”

“I understand, Mrs. Vitali. You have my word.”

Getting Luca to never see me again was easy.

After the ambush all those years ago, Interpol and Europol had put him on a permanent watchlist, a lifetime ban from leaving the European Union.

If I got on a plane to Argentina, to Buenos Aires, the Vitali family’s reach could never stretch that far.

He’d never find me.

Suddenly, an Instagram notification popped up.

From Sofia.

I tapped it open.

There were photos of her and Luca’s stamped, signed marriage certificate and shots of their hands intertwined, the Vitali family crest glinting on a ring on her finger.

They had already married, and I had become the other woman.....

I was in excruciating pain.

But it was also good this way.

My leaving would give them exactly what they wanted.

I knew Luca better than anyone.

He’d never let her post this, not if he wanted to keep it from me.

She was rubbing it in my face, plain and simple.

The second I backed out of Instagram, a text from Luca popped up.

Isa.

Isa. Heading to Naples on family business, won’t be back for a few days. Watch yourself.

I replied with a single Okay, set the phone down.

The next morning, I was up before the sun, at the consulate to file for an expedited immigration visa.

The clerk promised it would be processed in two weeks, and for the first time since that night in the Lincoln, the tight knot in my chest loosened a little.

In the cab on the way back, I saw another post from Sofia.

This time, half of Luca’s broad frame was in the shot, their hands laced together, the geotag pinned to a cliffside villa on the Amalfi Coast.

On the third day, I walked into the Vitali family’s underground casino headquarters, and handed in my resignation.

This was the operation I’d run for five years, the one that had made him over a hundred million euros. I didn’t want a single thing to do with it anymore.

I carried my box of things back to the estate, and opened Instagram again.

Sofia’s new post was up: her in a custom couture wedding gown, the Vitali family heirloom diamond ring on her finger. The same ring Luca had promised me, a hundred times, said he’d put it on my finger the second he’d wiped out all his enemies.

I let my silent tears soak the bedsheets beneath me.

On the fourth day, I woke up to another post.

This time, it was a full wedding portrait, Sofia curled into Luca’s chest, smiling like she’d won the world.

I stared at the wedding photo for a long time, and then my phone received an encrypted message.

How’s it feel seeing the wedding license? You’d look pretty in this dress, too. Shame the other woman always stays the other woman.

I didn't reply, because I knew it was Sofia’s blatant provocation.

But she was right, I was just a third party.

All I could do was leave, leave forever.

That evening, I cleared every last thing of Luca’s from my room.

The custom crest bracelet he’d had made for me, the 9mm with my name engraved on the grip he’d given me for protection, the matching leather wallets we’d bought together.

I left nothing.

It was well past midnight by the time I finished.

I was just about to turn off the lights when the front door clicked open.

Luca was home.

He froze the second he stepped into the room.

“Where did all your things go?”

“I didn’t like them anymore. Threw them out. I’ll buy new ones.”

He nodded, but his gaze locked on the resignation papers sitting on the desk.

“You quit the casino?”

“I’m tired. Wanted to take a break.” I spoke calmly, tucking the immigration paperwork peeking out from under the file into my bag.

He didn’t push it. He just stepped forward, wrapped his arms around me, and pressed his chin to the top of my head.

“I’m sorry I was gone. It’s your birthday in two days. Tomorrow I’m taking you to closed-door private auction house in Palermo. Anything you like, it’s yours.”

I didn’t say no.

I knew he had another reason for taking me to the auction.

He’d never let Sofia come to harm, and he’d be there to buy whatever she took a liking to.

The next night, we’d just sat down in the auction hall’s private box when Sofia sauntered in, and dropped herself into the seat right next to Luca.

Just as I’d suspected, Sofia showed up.

All night, Luca kept his head turned to me, didn’t glance at Sofia once.

The second the auction ended, he took my hand and led me quickly toward the stairs.

Before we could leave, I ducked into the ladies’ room.

When I walked out, I found Sofia cornered by three young men, heirs to a rival family that had hated the Vitalis for generations.

“Well, look who it is. The Lombardi princess. You ran off and left Luca for dead when he couldn’t speak, and now your family’s broke, you’re gonna get sold to a don old enough to be your grandfather. Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

One of them stepped closer, grabbing her wrist.

“You’re still pretty. Why don’t you come with us? We’ll treat you better than that old fuck.”

He never finished the sentence.

A single, deafening gunshot rang out.

Luca stepped out from the stairwell, his gun still smoking in his hand, his face black with rage.

“Fuck off.” The word was ripped from his throat, rough and gravelly, his gun aimed straight at the men’s heads.

“You so much as breathe the same air as her again, you’re dead.”

The men scattered, tripping over themselves to run.

The stairwell was packed with onlookers.

Luca turned to Sofia.

“Are you hurt?”

Sofia threw herself into his arms.

“My ankle. It hurts so bad, Luca.”

Without a word, he lifted her into his arms, and pushed through the crowd toward the exit.

To keep Sofia shielded, he threw his elbow out, and it slammed hard into my chest.

I lost my balance, and tumbled backward down the marble stairs.

My forehead cracked against the edge of a step.

White-hot pain exploded through my skull, and warm blood poured down my face, blurring my vision.

The crowd gasped.

Someone yelled for a doctor.

I lay there, cold sweat breaking out across my skin, my fingers brushing the blood on my forehead. I looked up.

All I saw was Luca’s back, carrying Sofia away, without a single glance back.

He vanished around the corner, and the bitter taste in my mouth was worse than the pain in my head.

Once, when I’d taken a bullet for him, a graze along my arm, he’d panicked so bad he’d carried me through every clinic in Palermo, screaming for the best doctor in Sicily.

He’d refused to leave my side for a week, even when the doctors said I was fine.

Now I lay there, blood pouring down my face, and he didn’t even glance back.

The ring he’d promised me was glinting on Sofia’s finger.

An ambulance took me to a private clinic.

I sat there alone, getting stitches in my forehead, until well past midnight.

When I got back to the estate, it was empty.

Luca never came home that night.

The next morning, I picked up my phone, and the first thing I saw was Sofia’s latest post.

A video.

Luca was on one knee, his head bowed, carefully dabbing ointment on her ankle.

I watched the video on loop, over and over, until my eyes burned.

Eventually, I passed out, slumped against the pillows.

When I woke up, it was dark outside.

My phone was buzzing nonstop on the pillow beside me.

I picked it up, and heard Luca’s familiar gravelly voice on the line.

He gave me an address, and nothing else. “Marina Club. Get here now.”

I got up, washed my face, changed my clothes, and headed over.

The second I pushed open the private booth door, my eyes locked on Sofia.

She sat on the couch, her eyes red and puffy.

Luca was sitting across from her, his gaze fixed on the white bandage wrapped around my forehead.

He said nothing.

The silence stretched on, thick and suffocating.

Finally, I spoke first.

“You called me here. What do you want?”

Luca’s voice was cold, sharp.

“The men who cornered Sofia in the stairwell. You hired them, didn’t you?”

I froze.

My gaze flicked to Sofia, and I caught the flash of triumph in her eyes, gone as quickly as it came.

In that second, I understood everything.

The whole thing had been a setup, from start to finish.

I huffed a bitter laugh, and looked back at Luca.

“No. I didn’t. I don’t know those men.”

But Luca’s face didn’t soften.

“You’ve been with me for seven years. You know who’s in my heart. The Lombardi family is broken, and everyone’s lining up to kick Sofia while she’s down. But it shouldn’t be you. You don’t need to stoop to this, not for me.”

It felt like a hand had closed around my heart, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe.

I thought of those seven years in the countryside.

Of holding him while he screamed into his pillow, unable to make a sound.

Of the nights I’d stayed up, poring over the family’s ledgers, finding the evidence that took down the traitors who’d tried to kill him.

Of the bullets I’d taken, the blood I’d spilled, the life I’d given him.

All of it, every single second, wiped away with one careless sentence.

Finally, I thought of that marriage contract, stamped and signed, and the tears spilled over.

“Seven years, Luca. And I’m only just now finding out who’s really in your heart.”

Luca’s eyes went wide.

His voice cracked, rough and broken.

“What… what did you just say?”

I shook my head, a bitter smile on my face.

“I’m just a servant’s daughter, Luca. What power, what connections, would I have to hire rival family soldiers to go after the Lombardi princess?”

It didn’t matter. He didn’t believe me.

I was tired. I took a deep breath, and let go of every last bit of hope I’d been clinging to.

“If you’re so sure I did it, then tell me. What do you want me to do? What will make this right?”

“Apologize.”

The voice came from Sofia, who’d been sitting quiet, playing the victim, this whole time.

She looked at me, a smug, victorious smile on her face.

“Well, an apology isn’t enough. If you’re really sorry, you’ll drink every bottle of whiskey on that table. All of them.”