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.

"I thought you'd at least have some sympathy for Nina. You both had heart problems. You of all people should understand."

"But instead of cutting her any slack, you go after her just because she has feelings for me?"

I touched my cheek, already swelling. I looked at him.

"When exactly did I go after her?"

There was almost a laugh in my voice. "I came to finish my discharge paperwork. She grabbed me, told me I was a mistress, had a crowd cursing me out, and somehow this is my fault?"

Nina sat in her wheelchair, wiping her eyes. "I never called you a mistress. I would never say something like that."

It was the first time in my life I laughed out of pure bitterness.

Damian's hand had moved before he'd even thought about it. When he actually looked at my face, the swelling already blooming red, something stalled in him.

He hadn't meant to hit me.

But then Nina's crying pulled him back. "Damian — do you really think I'm that kind of person?"

"I know exactly what kind of person you are." Damian smoothed her hair, then turned back to me with a frown. "Quinn. You've really let me down."

I almost laughed again.

I see.

"You know exactly what kind of person she is."

"You've known me for thirty years. And you still don't know what kind of person I am."

I smiled at the irony of it, turned around, and finished my discharge paperwork without another word.

As I walked away, something twisted in Damian's chest that he couldn't explain.

"Excuse me."

A girl who'd been in line behind me spoke up, looking uncomfortable. "I was standing with her the whole time. I don't know what you want to believe, but she didn't do anything. The cameras are right there if you want to check. I'm only saying this because it wasn't right."

She left before anyone could respond.

Damian stood there.

"What's her problem?" Nina muttered, then realized Damian was watching her.

"Brother, you believe me, don't you? Don't listen to strangers—" She pressed a hand to her chest. "My heart again..."

Damian didn't say anything. But something had shifted in him that he couldn't name, something quiet and sour.

He wheeled Nina back to her room, stood to leave, and she grabbed his arm.

"Don't go. Stay with me."

The conflict in his face was visible. In the end he sat back down and touched her hair.

"Get some sleep."

By then I was already out on the street, and I suddenly realized I had nowhere to go.

After the wedding, my old apartment had been reclaimed by the family. We'd been living in a villa in Damian's name, a wedding gift from the Don, title deeds in his name.

Everything I owned?

Nothing.

A mob wife's entire estate was her husband's protection, and that protection had slowly become a blade.

I laughed at myself, quietly.

The sky was getting dark. The rain came back.

There was a bus stop across the street. The light turned green and I ran for it, hand over my head. Then a set of headlights cut through the dark and a horn blared: a black SUV, no plates, windows blacked out.

I turned my head toward it.

Then I was in the air.

Everything went red. The pain from my body was one thing, but the pain in my stomach was something else entirely, something that made me want to scream.

In that one instant I felt like I'd lost something. Something that had just barely been there.

I didn't even get to cry.

The world went dark.

One tear tracked slowly into my hair.