In the world of crime family, Don Damian and I were known for two things: him for running wild, me for standing by him.

Everyone knew I was crazy about Damian.

It started when we were kids. I was born with a congenital heart defect. My parents couldn't afford the surgery and chose to walk away.

Back then, Damian was just a street-level errand boy whose father had gambling debts. He had no standing, no money, nothing.

But to raise cash for my surgery, he volunteered for the most dangerous work the Coronelli family had, the kind where each job was a gamble with his life and every payday came in blood.

He clawed his way up. The Don eventually took him in as an adopted son, and I became his wife, just like I'd always hoped.

But ten years into our marriage, Damian stopped coming home.

I'd sit alone at a table of cold food, calling him over and over. Sometimes a woman's voice would answer in the background. He had a private lounge at the family's club, and there was never a shortage of company.

My best friend Vincent couldn't understand it. "Is it worth it? He doesn't love you anymore."

I just smiled. "He gave me my life. I know he still loves me."

Then Vincent forwarded me an encrypted video.

A girl in a hospital gown sat on a hospital bed. At the edge of the frame, a hand with sharp-knuckled fingers reached into the shot, a hand wearing the family crest watch. Their fingers were intertwined.

The caption read: [My hero promised to marry me once I'm better!! yay!!]

I stared at the screen for a long time.

That watch. I knew it cold. It was the one I'd fastened it onto his wrist myself more times than I could count, and there was no way I was wrong.

I knew that watch. It was the one Damian never missed a family meeting without. I couldn't be mistaken.

Vincent's next message came through: "That's Damian, right?"

"He's out here planning to marry someone else and you're still playing the loyal wife he doesn't deserve."

Vincent never softened his words. But I knew he meant well.

And honestly, I already knew.

Damian had gone five years barely sleeping to pay for my surgery. Days collecting debts for the family. Nights doing wet work. Early mornings at my hospital bedside. All of it for me.

Back then I'd made myself a promise: this man bought my life with his blood, and no matter what happened, whether he wanted me or not, I'd never let go.

I looked down at the photo on my phone.

The girl was maybe eighteen, nineteen. Pretty face, pale enough to look fragile. Honestly, she reminded me a little of my younger self.

I closed my eyes, then opened the messaging app. Damian's thread.

Three hours ago I'd sent him a dozen messages: was he coming home tonight, should I keep dinner, was something going on with the family.

He'd just replied. Two words:

"Business."

I looked at that word for a moment, let out a small laugh, checked the hospital location Vincent had sent me, and walked out the door.

I took a cab over. The moment I stepped out, the sky opened up, heavy rain with no warning. My hair was soaked through before I could do anything about it.

I didn't care. I stopped at a vendor on the street and picked something up, an expensive bouquet arrangement, then headed into the hospital, checked in at the front desk, and made my way to the VIP ward. I knocked.

"Who is it?"

A girl's voice from inside. I didn't answer.

Then another voice, one I knew by heart.

"Stay there, I'll get it."

Damian.

So this was what handling family business looked like these days.

The door opened. Damian's face carried a softness I hadn't seen in years.

The moment he saw me, it vanished.

"You? How did you even find—" His voice dropped, and he shifted in the doorway, blocking the gap like he was shielding whoever was inside. "What are you doing here? You're not going to make a scene, are you? This is a hospital."

"Nina just had surgery. She can't handle stress. If you have something to say, say it out here."

I hadn't said a word.

I laughed quietly, to myself.

"Handle? I thought you were handling family business."

"Do you have to do this right now?" Damian's jaw tightened, knuckles rapping impatiently on the metal door frame. "I don't get a single moment to myself anymore? Everything has to go through you? I run this family's operations. I'm not your errand boy."

I didn't answer. I just tried to step inside with the flowers, and he grabbed my wrist. "What do you think you're doing?"

The sound that came from my wrist wasn't good. His grip was too hard. I actually heard my own bone pop. The bouquet hit the floor, flowers scattering.

Damian realized he'd gripped too hard. He let go fast.

The pain hit sharp through my whole wrist. I looked down at the bruise already spreading across my skin, deep purple forming fast.

The dirty work of the Coronelli family had always been Damian's specialty: tracking down debtors, clearing out traitors, the kind of work that built strength and paid well.

After years of it, he was stronger than almost anyone, the kind of man who could snap a neck barehanded if he had to.

I'd asked him once: was it worth it, nearly dying for me over and over?

He'd grinned like he had no doubts at all. "Every time."

"Besides, these hands I've built up. They can kill. But they'll protect you, too."

The hands built to protect me had just become the thing hurting me.

"...Did that hurt?"

Damian looked at me, standing there not saying a word, and his voice went quieter than I expected.

"If you weren't trying to push past me, I wouldn't have—"

He reached out gently, fingers wrapping around my wrist, expression unreadable. "Let me take you to—"

"Damian, are you done? My heart's feeling bad—"

Nina's voice came through from inside the room, thick with held-back crying. Damian dropped my wrist immediately, half-turning back toward the room. Then he stopped.

He glanced down at my wrist. His voice came out rough.

"Go find a nurse. Get it looked at. Nina needs me right now."

The door closed.

I don't know how long I stood in that hallway.

Through the door I could hear Damian's voice going soft and patient as he calmed her down, and Nina's voice carrying over his, tearful and upset: "Is that woman trying to take you from me? I don't want you to go..."

I turned and walked away.

The wall sconce at the end of the corridor flickered once, like something being extinguished.

I got home and treated the bruise myself, still wearing the rain-soaked clothes. I sat down on the couch and stared at nothing until I didn't know anything anymore.

I came back to myself in the ICU.

"I cannot believe you. Skipped dinner, ran a fever you didn't notice, thought you were made of iron?"

Vincent's voice, beside me. His eyes were red.

I looked at him, and for some reason the tears came immediately.

"...I'm sorry."

My heart had been damaged since childhood. The surgery hadn't fixed everything.

The doctors said I needed at least a week.

The next day, the door to my room slammed open, not like a nurse but like someone arriving angry. I thought it was Vincent. It was Damian.

He was across the room in two strides, dropping to his knees beside my bed, grabbing my hand. "Why didn't you tell me you were hospitalized? Why didn't you say anything?"

I didn't speak. I didn't look at him.

Damian exhaled. He tucked my cold hand under the blanket, then finally said: "I know I handled things wrong the other night. I shouldn't have let you go home alone."

"But you've had heart problems yourself. You know how bad it can get. Nina's just my associate's little sister, and that man took a bullet for me. I couldn't turn my back on that."

I turned my head and looked at him.

"Just your associate's little sister?"

I said it quietly. "The kind of friend’s little sister you promised to marry?"

"What are you talking about—"

Damian's brow furrowed. "Would you stop making things up? I'm never going to marry Nina. I'm looking after her for a few days and you're this jealous? Do you know who her brother is? He saved my life."

I smiled slightly and held up my phone, the screenshot I'd saved.

Damian glanced at it and dismissed it. "She's nineteen. Girls that age make jokes like this all the time. Half the young women in the family say stuff like that. It doesn't mean anything. When did you get so sensitive?"

I didn't say anything.

He sighed, patience wearing thin. "Okay, okay. I know I've been making you unhappy lately. But I'm not interested in Nina. Not like that."

He found a way around my IV line and pulled me against him the same way he used to, chin resting against the top of my head.

His voice dropped low. "You're the one I love. Stop overthinking it."

I hesitated. Then I put my arms around him.

His jacket smelled like perfume, not mine, not his, something young and sweet, the kind of scent that belonged on a teenager.

A flicker crossed his face. Relief.

"Alright," he said, patting my back. "What do you want to eat? You're in recovery, you need to eat properly."

I named something. He stood up to go, and right before he walked out his phone rang.

He lowered his voice to take it, said "I'll be there soon, don't be scared," in the same voice he used to use with me, when things were different.

On the day I was discharged, I ran into Nina in the corridor. She was wandering in her hospital gown. I tried to walk past her without acknowledging her.

She grabbed my hand.

"Oh my god, are you Quinn? I always see your name on his phone! You're even his wallpaper!"

She stared at me like she'd spotted someone famous, holding on and not letting go. "Who are you to him? Why is he keeping your picture like that?"

I looked at her calmly. "Damian never told you who I am?"

She shook her head.

I smiled.

"Then I'll tell you."

"I'm his wife."

Nina's face went white. She let go of my hand and stumbled backward.

"No, that can't be right. He's supposed to marry me. He said so. Who are you, showing up like this?"

"I've been married to him for eleven years," I said, without raising my voice.

Nina dropped to the floor crying, hyperventilating. I stood there feeling mostly confused.

The noise drew a crowd, people waiting to pay their bills, strangers who didn't know anything about any of it, who started pointing fingers at me.

"Look at her. A grown woman going after a girl like that?"

"That poor thing is sobbing and she just stands there?"

I looked at them.

"Did anyone here see me say a single word to her? Did anyone see me touch her?"

They glanced at each other.

Then came the sound of dress shoes on marble, the rhythm I knew from every family meeting where Damian walked in.

He came through the crowd at a near-run, face tight with fury, jacket flaring at the hem, the holster at his hip half-visible beneath it.

He dropped to one knee beside Nina, voice soft: "Easy. Breathe. In, out. You're okay, I'm here."

"You finally came..." She let out a sob.

He got her settled in a wheelchair, then turned and looked at me. He crossed the distance.

Crack.

The slap knocked everything out of my head for a moment. My lip split and I tasted blood.

That was the first time Damian had ever hit me.

For another woman. For something I never did.