I was forced to marry the most ruthless Capo in New York to save my family from a blood execution.

For two years, I endured his psychotic jealousy as he paraded a mistress around the city—not because he wanted her, but because he knew she was connected to my past.

When I finally handed him the divorce papers, I discovered a sickening truth.

The mistress was the half-sister of my mob lawyer—the same lawyer who happened to be my first love.

"I stayed close to try to save you both!" Julian confessed, his hands shaking on the steering wheel. "I thought I could pull her out and break your marriage at the same time!"

He claimed his twisted plan was to rescue me.

Instead, it pushed his desperate sister to the brink of madness.

She lunged at me in my own bedroom, driving a six-inch blade into my side.

"You hold the crown and you don't even want it!" she screamed. "I would kill for someone to look at me the way he looks at you!"

As I lay bleeding out on the mattress, my husband and my first love fought over me, both screaming my name.

I had broken my own heart years ago to save Julian from this violent underworld.

I didn't understand why my sacrifice only turned him into a manipulative monster, just like my husband.

Why did their twisted versions of love only bring me scars and blood?

Waking up in the hospital, I looked at the two men desperately offering me blood-soaked thrones.

I calmly signed the dissolution papers, took ten percent of the clean assets, and walked away.

This time, I was done being a queen on any man's board.

Chapter 1

Gianna Moretti POV

Just as my pen hovered over the dissolution papers that would strip the most ruthless Capo in New York of half his empire, I heard my mob lawyer-who also happened to be my first love-speak through the crack of the parlor door.

His voice was a low, tense thread of sound.

"Keep Siena as your official mistress, Lorenzo. But give Gianna back to me, or I'll hand the Boss the ledgers proving you've been skimming millions from the syndicate."

A clammy sweat broke out between my thumb and forefinger; the heavy gold pen slid from my grasp. Its nib scored a sharp line across the mahogany before the pen rolled to a stop, bleeding a dark, intrusive blot of ink onto the edge of the dissolution papers.

I had been installed in a private backroom of the Famiglia's most exclusive gala. Out in the corridor, the air was thick with the scent of expensive cigars and a cold, calculated stillness.

I rose and moved without a sound toward the heavy oak door, which had been left ajar.

Just outside the room, I heard Lorenzo's low scoff-a sound of pure contempt. This was the man who, between sips of espresso, could give a quiet order that would erase an entire bloodline.

He was a top-tier Caporegime in the New York Famiglia, a man who had wiped out a rival Russian syndicate before his twenty-fifth birthday, leaving a trail of bodies that secured his violent reign.

"You think you can threaten me on my own ground, lawyer?" Lorenzo's voice was a low rumble, the sound of gravel shifting deep underground. "You think you can walk in here and buy my wife with a stack of papers?"

"She isn't yours anymore," Julian said.

His voice was smooth, but I could hear the faint vibration of suppressed rage beneath it-the same tremor I remembered from years ago, when he used to argue with professors over a grade, when he still had clean hands and an unbroken spirit.

"You parade Siena around every club in the city. You made your choice. Now sign the papers and let Gianna go."

A cold dampness formed on the nape of my neck. Julian. The boy who once bought me coffee with loose change on a civilian campus now stood in a suit of tailored armor, attempting to barter with a warlord.

And he was doing it to secure the position of Siena, the very woman who had turned my marriage into a quiet hell.

I pushed the heavy door open.

Both men turned their heads toward me.

Julian stepped forward at once. His face softened, the old protective mask of the boy I once loved falling into place.

He reached out as if to shield me from the presence in the room.

Lorenzo's gaze dropped to Julian's outstretched hand. The Capo's jaw locked.

The muscles in his neck strained against the silk of his collar.

His eyes, dark and fixed, then moved to me, and in them I recognized the familiar heat of a possessive, destructive jealousy.

"Look at this," Lorenzo sneered, stepping closer.

He towered over us, his broad chest blocking the dim light from the hallway.

"Does your lawyer provide extra services, Gianna? Is that why you're so eager to bleed my holdings dry?"

Before I could answer, the staccato click of heels echoed on the marble floor.

Siena appeared.

She was draped in a red dress purchased with the blood-tithe of the man standing before me.

She looked at Julian for a split second-a silent exchange passing between them-before she turned her large, innocent eyes to Lorenzo.

Lorenzo did not even look at her.

He just reached out, wrapped a hand around Siena's waist, and pulled her hard against his chest.

He dragged her into his lap as he leaned back against a heavy, ornate console table.

It was a mechanical gesture, devoid of heat. A prop being moved into place.

He was marking territory. Trying to break me.

I saw Julian's fists clench at his sides. His knuckles went bone-white.

I let out a dry, hollow laugh. I looked at Siena, who was clinging to my husband's neck.

"You look exactly like what you are, Siena," I said, my voice as flat and toneless as a contract being read aloud. "A prop he's using until he gets bored."

Lorenzo's eyes flashed with a pure, animal rage.

He shoved Siena aside, his full attention locked onto me.

"You're the one who can't let go, Gianna," Lorenzo fired back, his voice vibrating with a dark current of anger. "You're obsessed with the crown. You don't care about me. You just hate that she has my attention."

I took a step closer to the Capo. I looked him dead in the eye.

"I don't care about your attention, Lorenzo," I said slowly. "And I certainly don't care about her. But since we are laying everything on the table, you should know why Julian is fighting so hard for my exit."

I paused, letting the heavy silence stretch.

"He was my first love," I said clearly.

I saw the air go out of Lorenzo's chest as if from a physical blow. The entire hallway went dead silent.

The Capo's dark eyes widened for an instant, then a dark stillness settled over his features.

He looked at Julian, and I saw the exact moment Lorenzo decided he was going to kill him.

I turned on my heel and walked back into the private parlor.

I picked up the gold pen. I did not hesitate.

I signed my name at the bottom of the dissolution papers.

I threw the pen onto the table. It rolled and struck the edge of the heavy parchment.

"Sign it," I demanded, looking back at Lorenzo, who had followed me into the room. "Keep your dirty secret in the shadows. I am done."

For two years, I had fought this war of attrition. It began not with the diamond necklace in his coat pocket, but with the night he came home with blood on his knuckles and a cloying hospital smell clinging to his clothes. Siena had staged a miscarriage and blamed me. Lorenzo, in his paranoid fury, had grabbed my shoulders and shoved me against the wall, demanding I look at him, demanding I fight for us. I had shoved him back. We had both been bleeding from wounds the other couldn't see.

That night, I lost a pregnancy I hadn't yet known about. The doctors said it was stress, trauma, the toll of living in a pressure cooker. Lorenzo never knew he had lost a child. I never told him. It seemed too cruel-even for him.

But when I discovered Siena's pregnancy was a fabrication, something inside me went cold. I stopped trying to leave quietly. I hired lawyers. I demanded not just my freedom, but half of his holdings-enough to dismantle the foundations of his power.

Now, Siena rushed into the room behind Lorenzo. She grabbed his arm.

"Lorenzo, please," Siena begged, her voice trembling. "Sign it. I'm pregnant again. For real this time. We can be a family."

Lorenzo did not look at her. He did not look at the papers.

His gaze passed over everything else in the room to fasten on me.

He ripped his arm out of Siena's grip.

Then, with a cold efficiency, he took her by the nape of the neck and propelled her from the room, his eyes fixed on mine the entire time.

Gianna Moretti POV

The underground parking garage was damp and cold, the sound of the downpour above echoing off the concrete ramps.

I stood in the shadow of a concrete pillar, drawing my coat around me.

A few yards away, Julian held Siena in his arms. She was sobbing into his chest, her expensive red dress soaked and clinging to her body in the damp air.

"He didn't even look at me," Siena cried, her voice cracking. "He looked at her like he wanted to eat her alive."

Julian stroked her hair. His profile was hard-a stranger to the soft-featured boy I had known in college.

"I told you to be patient," Julian whispered to her. "I'm trying to get you out too. You're not supposed to be in this world, Siena. I never wanted this for you."

My stomach turned. Get you out too. So he was trying to save her. Trying to save me. Trying to be everyone's savior in a world that devoured saviors.

The damp air filled my lungs, a chill that settled deep in my bones.

I turned and walked toward the exit, stepping out into the deluge. The secure mafia district was a ghost town. The rain pasted the thin fabric of my dress to my skin in seconds. I walked through the deserted streets, my mind a blank slate, until the heavy tires of an armored SUV sliced through a puddle beside me, splashing grimy water across the sidewalk.

The passenger door swung open. Julian leaned over from the driver's seat.

"Get in, Gianna," he ordered. "You'll catch your death."

I did not argue. I was too tired for resistance. I climbed into the leather seat and slammed the heavy door shut, the sound sealing us in a sudden, profound silence.

Julian reached into the back seat, grabbed a dark grey blanket, and tossed it onto my lap.

I looked down at the fabric-a custom cashmere blend. My eye caught a small, discreet logo stitched into one corner, and I recognized it. Lorenzo had purchased this exact blanket for Siena three months ago. It must have been left in Julian's car during one of their clandestine meetings, a glaring piece of evidence he hadn't even noticed.

My hands started to shake. The twisted, sick connections of this life were slowly suffocating me.

"So," I said, my voice barely a whisper over the sound of the rain drumming on the roof. "When did you come back to New York? And when did you start trying to protect my husband's mistress?"

Julian's shoe scraped hard against the brake pedal. The heavy SUV jerked to a stop, and the cabin fell into a sudden, suffocating quiet, broken only by the rhythmic scrape of the wipers on the windscreen.

He turned his head toward me, his eyes wide with a flash of panic.

"I am not sleeping with her," Julian said quickly. "Gianna, you don't understand. It's not what you think."

"Stop talking," I cut him off, at last turning my head to meet his gaze. "My two-year war with Lorenzo wasn't because I wanted to hold onto a man who cheated on me. It was because I wanted to punish Siena for thinking she could break the rules of this life and get away with it."

Julian swallowed hard, his knuckles showing white where his hands gripped the steering wheel.

"I know who she is to you, Julian," I said, my voice completely empty. "I saw the forged syndicate documents. I know you share a father. I know she is your illegitimate half-sister."

The words hung in the air between us. The blood drained from Julian's face, leaving the skin taut and pale over his cheekbones.

"She was a pawn," I continued, staring out at the rain washing down the windshield. "Lorenzo knew exactly who she was. He didn't choose her by accident. He chose her because she was connected to you-to my past. His infidelity wasn't a lapse in his obsession for me. It was his sick, twisted jealousy. He used her to punish me for a history he couldn't control."

I grabbed the door handle and pushed it open. The cold wind and rain blasted into the warm cabin.

"We are done, Julian," I said. "My accountant will wire your laundering fee tomorrow morning."

I stepped one foot out into the rain.

Julian lunged across the center console, grabbing my wrist. His grip was painfully tight.

"Gianna, wait," he demanded. "You cut me off years ago. You walked away from me without a single tear. Why? Why did you really leave me?"

I ripped my hand out of his grasp, my skin stinging where his fingers had been.

"If you have a confession to make, take it to the Famiglia priest," I told him coldly. "Keep the lie. Tell everyone you left me."

Julian seized my shoulders, his voice dropping to a desperate, terrified whisper against the storm outside.

"I tried to save her," he confessed. "Siena. She got involved with Lorenzo on her own-she was young and stupid and wanted the glamour of the mafia life. By the time I found out, she was already in too deep. I stayed close to try to get her out. And when I saw what he was doing to you... I thought I could save you both."

I stopped. The rain ran in cold rivulets down my face as I looked back at him, a figure framed in the warm, dry interior of the vehicle.

"Did she know she was being used?" I asked, my voice cutting through the sound of the rain. "Did your sister actually fall in love with the man you're trying to pull her away from?"

Julian did not answer. He just stared at me, his jaw trembling. His silence was the loudest confession I had ever heard.

I let out a bitter laugh, wiping the rain from my eyes.

"You're a fool, Julian," I warned him softly. "Even if Lorenzo is free, a pawn like Siena will never survive the Boss's approval to marry a Capo. And even if you pull her out, she may not want to be saved."

I slammed the heavy door and walked away into the dark, rain-swept street, leaving the armored car and the man inside it behind me.

Gianna Moretti POV

The security on my penthouse was designed to repel a siege. It took Lorenzo less than three minutes to breach it.

I lay in bed, swallowed by the pitch-black of the room. I had been staring at the ceiling, mourning the boy Julian used to be before the rot of the syndicate had infected him. I had shed a single tear for the quiet, civilian life we could have shared.

The bedroom door splintered open, the sound of its frame cracking echoing in the dark.

Lorenzo stumbled over the threshold. The acrid stench of expensive bourbon and the metallic tang of fresh blood hit my senses immediately.

He dragged himself to the side of my bed and collapsed onto his knees. The most terrifying Capo in New York dropped his heavy head against my mattress, his massive shoulders shaking in the dark.

"Gianna," he whispered, his voice a fractured rasp. "Gianna, please. The child. I am sorry about the child."

My chest seized. A sharp, physical pain shot through my ribs as the memory resurfaced.

Not Siena's fabricated stunt. He knew. Somehow, after all this time, he had found out about the pregnancy I lost.

"Marco-my medic-he told me tonight," Lorenzo said, his voice breaking. "He said there was a miscarriage. Two years ago. After that night we fought. I didn't know you were pregnant. You never told me. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it wouldn't have changed anything," I said, my voice cold and flat. "You would have found another way to punish me for not loving you the way you wanted."

Lorenzo lifted his head to look at me. His eyes were webbed with red veins, the skin beneath them bruised with exhaustion.

"I don't know how to love you without breaking things," Lorenzo confessed, reaching out to grasp my hand. His fingers were rough, calloused, but his grip was strangely gentle, as if he was afraid of crushing something fragile. "I tried to make you care. I thought if I made you jealous enough, angry enough, you would finally look at me. Fight for us. But all I did was push you further away."

I coldly pulled my hand from his grip and sat up against the headboard.

"Siena was never anything to me," Lorenzo said, his voice raw, scraped clean of its usual arrogance. "She was a mirror. A tool I held up to make you see me. But you never did."

"What about her new pregnancy?" I asked, my voice completely flat.

Lorenzo's expression hardened into a mask of unforgiving stone.

"There is no pregnancy," Lorenzo said. "There never was-not the first time, not now. She's been lying to keep me tethered."

A sharp gasp came from the doorway.

Siena stood there, mascara making black rivulets down her pale cheeks. She must have slipped through the security gate Lorenzo had left broken in his wake.

"You used me!" Siena screamed at him, stepping into the room with violently shaking hands. "For three years, you used me as a shield! You let the entire city call me a whore just to make her jealous!"

Lorenzo stood up with a slow, deliberate grace. He turned his dead, empty Capo eyes upon her.

"I knew who you were from the beginning," Lorenzo said coldly. "I knew you were a rat trying to infiltrate my world. You were convenient. A pawn I could use until I figured out what to do with you."

A wave of bile rose in my throat. The suffocating sickness of their world was too much to bear.

"Take your violence out of my house," I commanded them both, pulling the heavy duvet up to my chest. I was unbelievably tired.

Lorenzo ignored me. He took a slow, menacing step toward Siena.

"I will never break my vows to my wife," Lorenzo declared. Reaching into his tailored jacket, he withdrew a thick envelope of cash and tossed it at Siena's feet. "Take the money. Disappear. This is your last chance."

Siena stared down at the stacks of bills, then back up at the man who had ruined her. In that fraction of a second, something inside her fractured.

She let out a guttural sound that was barely human-a shriek of pure madness. Instead of attacking the man who had broken her, she pivoted, aiming her rage directly at me.

"You!" Siena shrieked, her face contorted. "You hold the crown and you don't even want it! I would kill for someone to look at me the way he looks at you!"

She collapsed to her knees in a show of utter brokenness, but in one terrifying, fluid motion, she lunged toward the bed. A stiletto blade appeared in her hand, its silver edge catching the dim light. Lorenzo moved, his own hand closing on empty air an instant too late as Siena drove the six inches of steel into my side.

A sharp, clean fire tore through my side. The breath went out of my lungs and I fell back against the mattress, watching as a dark bloom of crimson spread across the white sheets.

Siena dropped the knife and stumbled backward, staring at her crimson-stained hands. Her face crumpled-not with satisfaction, but with horror at what she had become.

"I just wanted someone to love me," she whispered, her voice small and broken. "That's all I wanted. Someone to choose me."

With a roar, Lorenzo was on her, and the sound of bone giving way echoed in the sudden quiet.

My vision started to blur, the edges of the room bleeding into black. As my heavy eyelids fluttered shut, the last thing I heard was the frantic thud of heavy footsteps sprinting down the hall, and Julian's desperate voice screaming my name.