Chapter 1

I received the video at one in the morning.

The Morandi family had eyes inside Falcone territory. A bartender at one of their joints had caught it on camera, and the footage made its way to me through Dante’s intelligence network.

It was shot in some dim corner of a party, the lighting low and suggestive. A woman with honey-blonde curls stood on her tiptoes, both hands draped around my husband Dominic’s neck. Dominic tilted his head slightly, and the cufflink on his wrist caught the light. White gold, set with black diamonds. One of a kind—only two in the world. I’d picked them out myself.

He leaned down and kissed her. A deep, lingering kiss that lasted a full minute.

I tossed the phone aside, got up, and walked barefoot into the closet.

Three custom suits had just arrived, still hanging in their garment bags.

I’d hired the designer myself—spent a fortune on him. These were supposed to be Dominic’s birthday present.

Not anymore.

I picked up the scissors and cut them to ribbons.

Not enough.

That wasn’t nearly enough to put out the fire inside me. I dropped the scissors, walked to the bed, and pulled our wedding photo off the wall. In the picture, Dominic wore a black tuxedo. His eyes were soft, the faintest smile on his lips, his head tilted toward me with a tenderness that hardly seemed real. I raised the frame over my head and smashed it against the floor.

Not enough.

I grabbed the antique lamp on the nightstand—the one he’d brought back from Florence—and hurled it across the room.

The ceramic cat, the one he said had a temper just like mine. Smashed.

Still not enough.

I walked into his study.

I knew the combination to the safe. Six digits—our wedding date. The door swung open. Inside lay a family heirloom: a revolver. Silver barrel, engraved with the Falcone eagle crest. His grandfather had supposedly carried it over from Sicily.

I took it out. Above the fireplace hung Dominic’s portrait.

I raised the gun. The first shot hit him dead center in the forehead. The second hit his heart. The third punched through that faint smile at the corner of his mouth.

Three gunshots tore through the dead of night like thunderclaps. The entire building shook.

I heard boots pounding up the stairs. Bodyguards, storming in—one, two, five of them—armed and charging into the study. And then every last one of them froze in the doorway.

I stood barefoot in the wreckage of broken glass and spent casings, the smoking revolver still in my hand, flecks of oil paint still drifting down from the three bullet holes in the portrait.

Not one of them dared take a step closer.

“Out,” I said.

They backed away.

The entire mansion was in ruins.

Everyone in New York’s underworld knew the Morandi family had a “wild daughter.” At ten years old, she’d walked in on her father and his mistress in the study. Without a word, she’d gone to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and slashed all four tires on her father’s vintage Ferrari—one of only two in the city—then jammed the blade into the hood and left a note: “Lock the door next time.”

The story became legend among the Five Families. Whenever her name came up, people shook their heads—“That little hellion from the Morandi house.”

Turns out they were right.

I sat down in the middle of the wreckage, opened a bottle of red, and drank while I waited for him to come home.

Dominic walked in half an hour later.

He paused in the doorway when he saw the state of the study.

“What happened?”

I handed him my phone. The video was still frozen on the frame of him leaning in to kiss that woman.

“How dare you cheat on me?” My voice came out cold and flat.

He set the phone back on the desk, unbuttoned his overcoat, and lowered himself into the armchair across from me. “What I do outside this house is none of your concern.”

His tone was calm to the point of cruelty. “Do what you’re supposed to do—give me an heir. I’ll handle the rest as I see fit.”

He wasn’t negotiating. He was giving an order.

That was the Falcone Godfather’s way.

What? Are you joking, Dominic?

“As you see fit?” I let out a sharp, derisive laugh. “Your idea of ‘seeing fit’ is making out with another woman at a bar on your own turf, with the whole world watching? The news is already making the rounds through all Five Families. Did you know that?”

“Control your temper.” His brow creased. He didn’t care for that reaction.

But he had one thing right: my temper was, in fact, terrible.

On the day of our arranged marriage, the entire underworld had been waiting for the punchline.

“Valentina Morandi? That wild child?”

“She slashed all four tires on her father’s Ferrari when she was ten. You didn’t hear about that?”

“Dominic’s marrying her? I give it three days before he locks her in a room.”

The wives of the Five Families had placed their bets at one charity luncheon after another. The most generous wager gave us three months.

But four years went by, and every last one of them lost.

Dominic was nothing short of devoted. No tabloid scandals. No flirtations. He’d even call to check in when a family council ran late. I thought I’d won.

I remember it vividly—not long after the wedding, I woke in the dead of night from a nightmare, soaked in cold sweat. In the dream it was that day again, the day ten-year-old me walked in on my father and his secretary.

Dominic woke up too. He sat up and pulled me into his arms, his chin resting on the top of my head, his hand patting my back in a slow, steady rhythm. Curled up against his chest, I told another person about the thing that haunted me for the first time in my life. By the time I finished I was sobbing so hard I could barely get the words out.

He kissed my forehead and made me a promise, his voice low and solemn:

“I will be faithful to you and only you for the rest of my life. Whatever hurt you before—I will never let it happen to you again.”

Four years.

It only took four years, Dominic Falcone.

The vow you made with your own mouth had a shelf life of just four years.

“Are you even listening?” Dominic’s voice yanked me back to the present.

He was on his feet now, looking down at me, the last traces of patience scraped clean from his face.

“We’ve been married four years, and you haven’t produced a single heir.” His tone turned to ice. “Have you ever stopped to consider what kind of embarrassment you’ve caused the Falcone name in front of the Five Families?”

The breath caught in my throat.

He snatched his car keys off the table and slammed the door on his way out. The frame rattled; the one photo on the wall that had survived my rampage tilted sideways.

The bedroom was finally quiet.

I looked down at my hands. Two fingernails were snapped off, thin lines of blood traced across my palms where the broken glass had cut me, and a bruise from the revolver’s recoil was already darkening the web between my thumb and forefinger.

For four years, he’d dumped every ounce of pressure about our childlessness squarely on my shoulders.

Every three months, his mother Katarina found some fresh new way to torment me.

Did he have any idea how many tests I’d been through?

Dominic, the problem was you. It was always you.