My husband, Don Axel Thorne, died protecting me in a mob war. I was his widow for six years, until I turned thirty.

The old guard of the Family told me it was time to move on. My friends told me to let him go.

Even in my dreams, his bloody hands would cup my face, begging me to live again.

So I agreed to an arranged marriage.

But first, I went to his grave for one last goodbye.

I’d just left the cemetery when a post appeared in my feed.

[Thanks, hubby, for the six-year anniversary gift! A fifty-million-dollar penthouse in Miami!]

My blood ran cold. My hands shook. The phone nearly slipped from my grip.

In the photo, the man I buried six years ago was slipping a massive diamond onto another woman's finger.

The background was a lavish penthouse. His style.

I put my people on it. We had the location in minutes. Drove straight there. I knocked, the door opened, and I froze.

The woman standing there was Seraphina. His adoptive sister. The one the Family exiled six years ago for her obsession with him.

Six years after my husband died for me, I learned it was all a lie. He faked his own death to run off with his exiled adoptive sister.

The second she saw me at her door, the color drained from Seraphina's face.

"Aria..."

She tried to slam the door in my face.

I jammed my hand in the door. "See a ghost?"

She stumbled back, lips trembling, speechless.

Just then, I heard familiar voices from the hallway. Marco, Axel's right-hand man.

"...her engagement to the Hayes heir. It's about time. Six years is a long time to be a widow..."

"...heard the Boss can finally stop obsessing. Ever since the news broke, he’s been stalking her socials all night..."

"...can’t believe he pulled it off. The yacht explosion, the deal with the Valkovs... all so he could disappear. And he let her think he died for her..."

"...she had a breakdown, man. More than one..."

"...shut up, you want him to hear you?"

They turned the corner and saw me. Their voices died.

Marco couldn't meet my eyes.

"Donna," Marco breathed, his eyes wide. "What are you doing here?"

Then, a voice I knew in my bones came from inside the apartment.

"Honey, are Marco and the guys here?"

The air left my lungs. My heart stopped.

I shoved past Seraphina and stormed into the living room.

Axel. The husband I'd mourned for six years was standing behind the bar.

The moment he saw me, pure shock hit his face. His lips parted, but no sound came out.

My eyes went past him, to the huge wedding photo on the living room wall.

I gestured to the wedding photo. "Happy anniversary. You've done well for yourself these six years, Axel."

Axel moved instantly, pulling a trembling Seraphina behind him. A protective shield. His face was a grim mask.

Everyone else was frozen. The silence was deafening.

"Aria, let me explain—" he said, holding her, his voice shaking as he looked at me.

"Explain what? How you went from a dead man to someone else's husband?" I laughed, a bitter, broken sound.

Six years ago, Axel died protecting me. A yacht explosion during a firefight with a rival family. No body to recover.

By the time I arrived, all I could do was bury an empty casket.

I was drowning in guilt and grief. If only I'd been more careful, he wouldn't have died for me.

The day they buried him, I cried until I passed out on his tombstone.

For years, the thought of him kept me up at night. I'd go to the cemetery and just sit there until dawn.

At my lowest, I tried to cut my wrists at his grave. The groundskeeper found me just in time.

And it was all a goddamn lie. A trick so he could disappear.

My eyes landed on the Fabergé egg on the table. Three million dollars. A gift from him.

My eyes burned, a stabbing pain in my heart.

"You've kept this in good condition. I'm sure Seraphina loves it."

When we were planning our wedding, he always brought his adoptive sister, Seraphina, along.

One day, I joked that I wanted a one-of-a-kind egg. She jumped in.

"I think a Fabergé egg is perfect for Aria," she'd said. "Each one is unique, a symbol of a one and only love."

I thought of her as a sister then. I didn't see the jealousy in her eyes when she looked at me, or the hunger in them when she looked at Axel.

Not until the night before our wedding.

I walked into our new villa to find them tangled up naked.

Seraphina was moaning under him, crying. "Can't you just not marry her?" she begged.

He was still buried deep inside her, pounding away. His voice was hard. "This is a one-time thing. After this, you are my sister, and nothing else. You understand?"

I stormed in, demanding to know what the hell was happening.

I couldn't stand her wanting him like that. I couldn't accept that they had crossed that line. Not even once.

I told him the wedding was off.

He cried. He begged me to forgive him. He even put a gun to his own head.

"I love you, Aria. Please, don't leave me."

My heart broke. I gave him one more chance to clean up his mess.

He erased every trace of her. He exiled Seraphina. He did everything he could to make it up to me.

He even "died" for me.

And now here he was, alive and well, with a home and a life with the mess he was supposed to have cleaned up.

Rage and grief twisted inside me.

I snatched the egg and hurled it at the floor with everything I had.

"No!" Axel screamed.

The beautiful piece of art shattered. A shard of porcelain sliced across Seraphina's calf.

She screamed and collapsed, blood instantly staining her expensive white dress.

"Seraphina!" Axel dropped to his knees, his eyes filled with panic. "Does it hurt? I'll call a doctor."

Then he looked up at me, the guilt on his face replaced by fury. "Aria, what the hell is wrong with you!?"

I laughed, my voice raw and hoarse.

"What's wrong with me? Yeah, I'm crazy! I've been living like a crazy person for six years because you were 'dead'!"

Axel's chest heaved, his eyes red with anger. "I did what you asked! I exiled my own sister, the girl I grew up with. But you couldn't let it go! You drove me crazy, making me burn our photos, second-guessing everything. Do you have any idea how exhausting you were?"

I slapped him. Hard. My wrist stung and tears finally broke free.

"You betrayed me, Axel! You lied to me! How dare you say I tortured you? That your life was hard?"

Seraphina knelt in her own blood, sobbing. Her crying had that same pathetic, desperate edge.

"This is my fault, Axel," she sobbed. "I should just disappear. I ruin everything."

"I can give up everything," she choked out, her hand flying to her stomach. "Even our baby. I'll disappear, Axel. Just please... don't hate me."

Axel's expression shifted.

Shock. Conflict. Then, it settled on a flicker of undeniable hope.

His gaze snapped away from me. A slow, stunned smile spread across his face as he held Seraphina closer. "You're... pregnant?"

My heart seized, like someone had reached in and ripped it out.

Six years.

For six years, I was his widow. I turned down every man who came near me.

And he wasn't just alive. He had a baby on the way with another woman.

"A little over a month," Seraphina sobbed. "But we can get rid of it. It won't be a problem. As long as you don't hate me..."

Before she could finish, she shot up and ran for the balcony.

"I shouldn't be alive!" she screamed. "I ruined everything!"

"Seraphina!" Axel's face went white. He scrambled after her.

I grabbed his arm. "You stay right here!"

"Let go of me!" He threw me off, his eyes wild. "Don't provoke her! You know what her anxiety is like!"

The force sent me stumbling backward.

My head slammed into the sharp corner of the bar.

A flash of white-hot pain. Then something warm and wet trickled down my neck.

"Aria!" Axel screamed my name.

But the last thing I saw was him on the balcony, holding Seraphina tight in his arms, whispering gently. "It's okay, I'm here. I'm here..."

Then everything went black.

I woke up in a strange clinic.

The back of my head was wrapped in thick gauze, throbbing.

"You're awake!" a young nurse said, relieved. "That was a deep cut. You have twelve stitches."

"Where's Axel?" my voice was a croak.

The nurse's smile faded. "He looked in on you, yes. After he got his wife settled. But her leg was causing her a lot of pain, so he had to return to her side."

His wife.

So that's what he called her. For how long?

"Where is she?" I asked.

"The VIP suite on the top floor. She has her own medical team," the nurse said carefully. "She's in shock, her emotions are very unstable."

And I was in a regular room with a concussion.

I let out a bitter laugh and threw back the covers.

"Ma'am, you need to stay for observation—"

The door was thrown open.

Axel strode in. He had dark circles under his eyes, his face a mess of exhaustion and conflict.

He slammed a file down on the bed in front of me.

"Explain this."

I looked down. It was a printout of an encrypted message.

[Thorne supply line to Kozlov confirmed. Cargo value: 98 million. Handoff at Pier 3, 2300 hours.]

"I don't know what this is," I said, frowning.

"You don't know?" Axel's voice was rough. "We lost almost a hundred million dollars in product because of this message! The Kozlovs set up an ambush at the pier. Thirteen of my men are dead!"

Below that was a long exposé: Axel faking his death, lying to his fiancée, all for his mistress.

The Thorne family name was dragged through the mud.

And the message was sent from a secure channel that belonged to my best friend. A channel she hadn't used in years.

Axel's eyes were cold.

"Still going to deny it? This is your best friend's channel, isn't it? She'd do anything for you, consequences be damned."

I just stared, feeling helpless.

"Emma got out of this life two years ago," I said. "She would never—"

"Enough!" he cut me off. "The proof is right there. Are you going to keep lying?"

I looked at the file. A chill went down my spine.

This was a setup.

Someone was framing me.

"How did you get so cruel?" Axel’s voice was laced with disappointment. "You know, when I saw you lying in that pool of blood, for a second... I thought I was going to lose you..."

His voice trembled.

"But now I see it. The sweet, innocent Aria I knew is dead. You've become a monster, obsessed with driving Seraphina and her baby into the grave!"

His words were like daggers. Tears welled up in my eyes.

"You have no right to say I've changed. Who do you think changed me?"

Axel closed his eyes and took a deep breath, like he was making a final decision.

"Have you forgotten our baby?" His voice dropped, dangerously soft. "We know that pain, Aria. Why would you wish it on another child?"

My head snapped up. I stared him dead in the eyes.

Our baby.

Six years ago, after I found him with Seraphina, I was furious, running down the stairs to get away. I tripped. Fell hard. My stomach hit the banister.

Blood soaked through my dress.

I lost the child I hadn't even had the chance to tell him about.

And now he was using our dead baby to defend Seraphina's.

That miscarriage was the reason the Family ordered him to exile Seraphina.

It was why he knelt before me with a gun to his head, begging me to stay.

I gave a hollow laugh. "You're shameless. She'll always be the home-wrecking whore. The slutty little sister. And that baby will always be a bastard."

Axel's face twisted into a snarl.

"What did you say?"

"I said she's a whore, and her baby is a bastard," I repeated, each word clear and sharp. "She was six years ago, and she is now."

The veins in his fists bulged. He looked like he wanted to hit me.

Just then, his phone rang.

"Axel, I'm scared..." Seraphina's pathetic voice came through the speaker. "I feel like someone's trying to hurt me and the baby..."

Axel's expression softened instantly.

"It's okay, baby. I'm coming right back."

He hung up and looked at me, his eyes now ice-cold.

"I was going to give you a clean break. But you couldn't leave it alone."

He pulled a photo from his jacket and threw it on the bed.

It was my adoptive father. He was tied to a chair, a rag stuffed in his mouth, his eyes wide with terror.

My blood froze.

"I know you've been helping your father all these years. But he still owes the Valkovs five million in gambling debts," Axel said, his voice cold and pained. "And I hear their patience just ran out."

My adoptive father was my only weakness.

In the photo, he was tied to a chair, his white hair a mess, his eyes filled with terror.

My hand trembled violently.

"You can't touch him."

"I don't want to," Axel's voice was tight with a twisted kind of pain. "But you're forcing my hand."

I thought of the old man who waited for me all night outside the orphanage fifteen years ago.

He wasn't my real father, but he gave me a home.

"Papa will give Aria the best life," he'd always say.

To keep that promise, he worked himself to the bone, even borrowed money to send me to the best schools.

Then he got set up, and ended up with a massive gambling debt.

I was still in college. To save him, I learned everything I could.

Painting, sculpting, antique appraisal...

I became the best art forger in the underworld.

And in that world, I met Axel, who was still fighting to become the head of his family.

"Launder my family's art collection for me," he'd said the first time we met, "and I'll give your father the best medical care money can buy."

I helped him turn his dirty collection into a legitimate one, and it helped him win his family war.

And he kept his promise.

My father was moved into the best care facility, with a dedicated medical team.

"I'll treat him like my own father," Axel had once whispered in my ear.

And for the five years we were in love, he did.

When he proposed, he rented out all of Central Park and filled it with a hundred thousand black roses. It was the talk of the city. He made me the envy of everyone.

He bought a penthouse overlooking all of Manhattan and put it in my name. He invested millions in my father's clinic and covered every expense.

All the people who used to look down on me were suddenly congratulating me, sucking up.

Back then, they'd whisper behind my back, wondering what terrible thing Axel must have done to be that good to me.

I was so deep in it, I thought our love was unbreakable.

Then Seraphina shattered the dream.

But I never, ever thought he would use my father's life to threaten me.

Using my only weakness to buy his whore some peace of mind.

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms. The pain was nothing compared to the agony in my chest.

I couldn't breathe. I closed my eyes, and silent tears rolled down my cheeks.

When I opened them again, my gaze was empty. Dead.

"Fine," I whispered. "I give up. What do you want?"

Axel looked away, pulling a document from his jacket.

"Sign this. End it. It's better for everyone."

I took the document with a shaking hand.

The document twisted the truth into an unrecognizable knot.

[I, Aria Sterling, admit that driven by jealousy, I conspired with outside forces to leak Family secrets, causing significant losses. Furthermore, due to an unstable mental state, I suffered from the delusion that Mr. Axel Thorne was not dead, and based on this delusion, I made malicious and false accusations against innocent people. I hereby clarify: Mr. Axel Thorne did in fact die six years ago, and all of my previous allegations were the result of paranoid delusions.]

A tear hit the paper, smudging the ink.

"Axel, are you really going to do this to me?"

He stood with his back to me, his shoulders tense.

He said, his back still to me. "Sign it."

I closed my eyes and shakily wrote my name. Every stroke of the pen was a knife in my heart.

When I was done, Axel placed a Swiss bank check on my bedside table.

"Ten million dollars," he said, placing a Swiss bank check on the table. "It'll cover your father's debt and set you up for life."

He let out a long, tired sigh.

"Leave this place. Go live a good life."

There was a hint of guilt in his voice, but mostly relief.

He turned to leave.

"Axel," I called out.

He stopped but didn't turn around.

"I hate you."

His back flinched, just for a second. Then he walked out and shut the door.

The moment it closed, my phone rang.

It was one of the Family elders.

"Miss Sterling, based on the statement you just signed, the Family is revoking all of your titles and privileges. You are no longer recognized as our Donna, and you no longer have the Family's protection."

A cold, formal execution.

I had been erased.

I hung up, and my phone immediately buzzed with a text. And a photo.

From Seraphina.

[Brother said it's time to completely forget the past. A is gone. Now there's only S.]

[And just so you know, the night he decided to exile me? He was in my bed. He fucked me seven times. He could never let me go.]

The photo was of Axel's bare back.

The "A" that used to be tattooed on his left shoulder blade was now completely covered by a massive black rose.

The rose looked so real, like it was mocking me.

I deleted the photo, but I couldn't stop the tears.

It started to rain outside.

I dragged my exhausted body out of the clinic. The cold wind bit at my face.

The ten-million-dollar check felt heavy in my hand.

Severance pay. For five years of my life.

Just then, my phone rang again.

An urgent call from my father's doctor.

"Miss Sterling, your father had a massive heart attack!" the doctor's voice was frantic. "It's critical. You need to get to the hospital now!"