"I'm apologizing to you, so please, let my family go. You had the Vale tribute choked off, and my father nearly died of a heart attack..."

She wept like a flower drenched in rain, the kind of tears that tugged at anyone's heart.

Around the gathering hall, plenty of made men were already turning accusing looks my way.

Elias was worse. He came charging over, furious, and shoved me aside with one hand.

I lost my footing and hit the marble in an ungainly heap.

"Miles Hale, there's nothing between Theo and me. What gives you the right to bully her like this!"

"No sense of right and wrong, throwing your weight around. Look at yourself. What is there about you for me to love?"

He gathered Theo into his arms, aching with tenderness for her, and the look he turned on me was pure disgust.

He led with accusation, just like he had for the past ten years.

Elias believed everything Theo said, no questions asked, stubbornly convinced I was the one abusing my blood and my standing in the Family.

In my past life, by now I'd probably have been sobbing my heart out, begging him to forgive me.

But now, my heart went cold, one degree at a time.

Theo's eyes were red from crying. "Miss Hale, please, just let my family go. I'm begging you..." Then, for the space of a single breath while Elias's gaze was fixed on me, her face snapped flat and dry, before the tears reassembled.

Cupping the wide bruise blooming on my knee, I pushed myself up off the marble.

"The Vale name will fall within three days. Mark my words."

The color drained from Theo's face in an instant.

Elias, past all restraint, clamped down hard on my arm. "What nonsense are you spouting? Apologize to Theo right now. Look how badly you've frightened her!"

I wrenched my arm free and let out a scornful laugh.

"I never talk nonsense. Burying the Vales is as easy as crushing an ant underfoot."

Elias's face darkened. His thumb slid to his signet ring and traced its underside, slow and deliberate.

"Fine. Very well."

"Miles Hale, this time let's see how many days you can hold out. Don't come crying to me to forgive you again!"

"Theo, we're leaving."

He scooped Theo up sideways into his arms and strode off, past soldiers who stepped aside without being asked.

She lay against his shoulder and, as if in challenge, winked at me.

Something ached low in my chest.

The year I was fifteen, my parents' enemies snatched me off neutral ground and doused me head to toe in gasoline.

I was scared out of consciousness, and when I opened my eyes again, I was already draped across Elias's back.

Alone, he'd hauled me on his back and struggled ten miles through the dark to escape.

In the end, his strength gone, he hid me away and drew off the men hunting us by himself.

Back then, watching his retreating figure through a blur of tears, I handed over every last piece of my heart to him.

But ten years had passed. Everything looked the same and nothing was. Elias was no longer the boy in my memory.

I gave a self-mocking smile and shook my head.

This life, I'd let go. I'd give him and Theo my blessing.

I didn't sob and beg Elias to forgive me the way I had in my past life.

Instead I turned and walked back into the hall, where the bidding was a duel of standing and every Capo in the room watched to see who flinched first.

Once I was seated, the man running the floor called the room to order and brought out the first piece.

A men's obsidian necklace, thirty million in laundered cash, radiating an air of restrained luxury.

I studied it with interest for a few moments and decided it would suit Lucian perfectly.

Fitting, really. He called himself a mad dog, so I'd get him a collar.

I gave my enforcer a small nod, and he raised the paddle at once.

Before he could say a word, Theo's coy voice rang out behind me.

"Thirty-five million."

"Elias, I'll buy this necklace and give it to you, a gift for the day the Commission names you the Family's heir."

I turned to find Elias and Theo seated right behind me.

Seeing me look over, Theo shrank back and nestled into Elias's arms.

Elias frowned, held her close with all his tenderness, and looked at me with eyes full of contempt.

"Miles Hale, what trouble are you looking to start now?"

I smiled at him and raised the paddle with my own hand.

"Fifty million."

For a heartbeat Elias went blank, as if the sight had dazzled him. He had never once seen Miles smile so radiantly.

The next second, Theo's sobbing cut through his thoughts.

"Signorina Hale, I only wanted to buy Elias a gift. Why do you have to fight me for it?"

"I know you can't stand me, but I only ever thought of Elias as a brother……"

Theo wept like a spring shower, her eyes rimmed red. Around the room, the murmur of the gathered families dropped to a hush, every Capo watching to see which way the wind would turn. For half a breath her wet gaze slid flat, reading who was watching, before the tears came again on cue.

Elias's face darkened. He turned to me with arrogance written all over it and gave his order, the way a man does when he's forgotten who holds the ring.

"Miles, you are not to fight Theo for it. Hand that necklace over to her."

"Besides, you're only buying it to apologize to me, aren't you? Fine, I forgive you."

Elias's tone was perfectly casual, and not only had he decided I would be giving the necklace up. He wore that haughty look, as though he were doing me a favor. It nearly made me laugh out of sheer anger.

Watching the two of them wrapped around each other, I spoke without heat.

"First, the bidding goes to the highest standing at the table. I have the tribute, so naturally it's mine."

"Second, who said I was giving this necklace to you?"

"This is a gift for the man who will stand at my side. What does it have to do with you?"

And more than that, the man I'd settled on to inherit the Family was never Elias at all. Theo had no reason to celebrate for him, and even less reason to buy any tribute to a crown he would never wear.

Elias's expression turned contemptuous, as if he'd just heard the biggest joke in the world. His thumb slid once along the underside of his signet ring, slow, smoothing.

"At eighteen, you swore a solemn oath that you would marry no one but me in this life."

"These past ten years, you even went every single year to kneel and pray you'd get to marry me."

"If you're going to lie, at least draft it better. I've already told you I have no wish to marry you."

"Miles, where would you find a man to stand beside you?"

Every line of Elias's face was certain, convinced I was hopelessly in love with him and would never belong to anyone else.

For a moment I was flooded with a bleak, wistful ache. At eighteen I swore that oath, and I had already repaid it with the wretched death of my last life. Now, I would never have the faintest thing to do with Elias again.

Seeing me stay silent, Elias's face filled with even more mockery, sure he'd hit the mark. He raised his paddle. "Eighty million. I'll buy Theo everything she wants."

Theo gasped and threw herself into Elias's arms, her face flushed with bashful delight.

"Elias, you're so good to me."

The whole hall had gone silent, every eye turning to me. Back when I'd made my earlier bid, no one at the gathering had dared to match it. Even the auctioneer, a man who ran his numbers through a legitimate front, hesitated over the hammer, glancing toward my table the way men glance toward a loaded gun.

"Eighty million, going once."

"Eighty million, going twice."

"Eighty million, going……"

The hammer was about to fall.

I turned, lounging back against my seat, and said in a low, even voice.

"One hundred million."

"This necklace, I, Miles Hale, am taking it."

"Anyone who isn't afraid to die is welcome to bid."

The words settled over the room like a hand laid flat on the table. No paddle rose. Not one. Somewhere near the front an old Capo set his glass down without a sound and folded his hands. In the Hale name there was a weight even the oldest men at those tables knew better than to test, and for a long moment no one so much as breathed. The power had settled, and no one had needed to say whose.

Elias, made to lose face before the whole Family, flushed red with fury and walked out on the spot, taking Theo with him. His thumb worked hard along the ring now, faster, the crack beneath the polish showing at last. As he left, he flung a cold line behind him.

"Miles, you really have been spoiled rotten."

"This time, no matter how you cry and beg, I won't forgive you so easily."

He vanished for two whole months.

The next time I saw him was at the Hale gathering. Elias's face was grim, though he was still turned out in a sharp suit. The instant our eyes met, he coldly looked away.

The hall was a churn of noise, made men and their wives murmuring under their breath.

"I wonder who Signorina Hale ended up naming to inherit the Family."

"Do you even have to ask? It's got to be Elias. Signorina Hale's been devoted to him, fawning over him for ten whole years, all but handing him her life……"

"But I heard Elias's got a childhood sweetheart he's soft on. And word is he doesn't even want the Hale girl, does he?"

Someone nearby scoffed, ice clinking in his glass. "She's the only blood the old Don's got left. If he won't have her, there's a line of made men who'd kill for the chance."

"That Elena Everett from the Five Families is no small thing either. And they say Nora Vale's been carrying a torch for her for years now."

The murmuring swelled around me, low and constant beneath the chandeliers, until someone leaned in and said quickly,

"No telling who she names in the end. But one thing's certain. It won't be Lucian Ashford."

"Right. Heard he went dark for years. Comes off unhinged. Creepy. The kind of quiet that puts a chill in the room."

...

The talk drifted to Elias's ears, and his expression darkened by the second. One hand rose, slow, his thumb dragging along the underside of his signet ring before he smoothed the lapel of his jacket flat.

Meanwhile Elena and Nora stood at my side, helping me receive the Family heads as they crossed the threshold. Elena straightened his pocket square each time another name of standing entered the hall. Nora said little, only pressed his lips flat and turned his gaze toward the tall windows whenever the conversation drifted toward the man I would marry.

What I hadn't expected was to spot Theo Vale in a corner of the banquet hall.

She stood tucked away there in a cocktail dress, her makeup flawless. A gift box cradled in her hands like tribute laid at an altar.

A few minutes earlier, she'd posted a new update.

"Booked the whole place tonight, gift's ready, celebrating the man I love most on his rise~"

I smiled and gave the post a like.

Too bad the one rising tonight wasn't Elias at all.

The gathering began. My father rose at the head of the room and spoke slowly, and the whole hall went quiet the way a room goes quiet only for a dying Don.

"Tonight, I have a matter to settle on behalf of the Hale Family."

Every gaze in the room swung toward me.

They all knew what this was. The naming of the heir. And with it, my marriage. More fawning looks slid, deliberately or not, toward Elias. Men who wanted to be standing close to the winner when the crown came down.

I even shot Elias a shy, bashful glance on purpose.

The knot in his chest finally loosened. He looked perfectly composed, certain the whole of the Hale name was about to be laid at his feet.

Every eye fixed on my father's face, waiting for him to name exactly who would sit at the right hand of the Family.

My father spoke slowly.

"The one who will take over as head of the Hale Family is a man I watched grow up. Upright in character. Without equal in ability."

At that, Elias drew his shoulders back, higher and higher.

After all, the only two my father had watched grow up were him and Lucian Ashford. And Lucian, silent and brooding by nature, had never once been a man my father took seriously.

"What's more, he and my only daughter, Miles, are deeply in love, their bond profound."

"So, along with taking his place at the head of the Family, he has also entered into a blood oath of marriage with Miles."

Elias was already rising slowly to his feet, his face flush with triumph.

My father swept a mocking glance over him and spoke slowly.

"That man is the heir of the Ashford Family. Lucian Ashford."

The room did not breathe. No glass moved. The fawning men who had drifted toward Elias found, all at once, that they were standing a step away from him, though not one of them could have said when they stepped back.

"Next month, you are all welcome at the wedding of my daughter and Lucian Ashford."

Fingers laced with Lucian's, sharp in his tailored suit, I walked slowly up onto the stage. He had gone utterly, unnaturally still at my side, that half-second stillness of a man about to move, and the whole room seemed to feel it, the way you feel the air change before a storm breaks.