Chapter Four

I saw the black SUV’s door kicked open. Someone rushed us with a gun.

Then another set of headlights forced its way into the chaos, hard and fast. Doors flew open. Black-suited bodyguards poured out like a tide—

Lorenzo.

Gunfire exploded around him; he didn’t even flinch. He reached in and yanked Bianca out first, hauled her tight to his side. His arm cut across her like a wall that wouldn’t retreat.

Half sprawled in my seat, vision blurred, I saw him lower his head to her and say something—hard and certain—like a declaration of ownership.

When he lifted his eyes, they finally swept to me.

His gaze paused for less than a second.

Then he shoved Bianca farther behind him, turned, and barked to his men: “Clear the way. Get her out.”

*Her*—in that moment, I couldn’t even tell who he meant.

Another explosion cracked the world open.

I was thrown back. My forehead slammed into metal. Darkness came down like a lid.

My consciousness sank like something underwater, unable to surface.

I heard a doctor’s urgent voice cut through the fog.

“Both need surgery immediately, but we only have one ER bay available right now. Mr. Corleone—who first?”

Lorenzo’s answer was iron-cold.

“Bianca first.”

The doctor tried again. “But Miss Xiao is in greater danger—delay could cause irreversible—”

Lorenzo cut him off. “She can’t have anything happen to her.”

“She’s my wife.”

Then I fell into complete darkness.

When I woke again, only the doctor was there.

“Miss Xiao, during surgery we found an implanted device in your body. To save you, we removed it. Once you’re recovered you can—”

“No.” I interrupted softly, barely more than breath. “It was supposed to come out anyway.”

The door pushed open at once.

Lorenzo walked in. His coat still carried the chill of night wind. His eyes were dark as the sea before a storm.

“Removed what?” he asked, each word slow and sharp.

The doctor and nurse didn’t last two seconds under his gaze before they hurried out.

“Nothing,” I lied weakly. “The doctor said there was a foreign object inside, maybe glass from the blast. They removed it.”

Lorenzo frowned as if he didn’t look too hard. He came to the bed, touched my pallid cheek with his thumb. “Does it hurt?”

I turned my face away. “I’m fine.”

But the words *Bianca first* echoed in my head. My throat tasted raw. I forced it out anyway.

“I won’t die.”

Lorenzo’s eyes sank. “You’re hurt like this—how can you be fine?”

I laughed—thin as paper. “Mr. Corleone prioritized his fiancée. I assumed I wasn’t that serious.”

His body froze for a fraction—he hadn’t expected I’d heard.

After a beat, he finally spoke.

“From the day the agreement activated, Bianca represented DeLuca and the Commission’s ‘front.’” His voice was low, steady. “The wedding isn’t love to the outside world. She has to be standing in that church on time. Nothing can go wrong.”

I listened, unable to tell whether it was explanation or sentence.

In the end I nodded, voice flat as still water. “Then I hope it goes smoothly.”

His brow tightened, like he wanted to say something else.

A nurse rushed in. “Mr. Corleone—Miss DeLuca is awake!”

Lorenzo paused. He only left one line behind: “Rest.”

Then he turned and walked out.

Three days later was Lorenzo’s birthday banquet.

I stood in a corner of the hall with a champagne flute. My knuckles were white around the stem. Lorenzo was surrounded by people. His black formalwear looked like a second skin, sharp-shouldered, narrow-waisted. Bianca held his arm in a silver-gray mermaid gown, her smile perfect. Every so often she leaned in; they murmured together. Diamonds trembled at her ears—bright enough to hurt.

The emcee tapped the glass. Clear clinks pressed down the noise.

Lorenzo raised his drink. His voice covered the room.

“Thank you all. And I’ll take this moment to announce—Bianca and I will marry next month.”

Applause crashed in. Congratulations rose like waves.

My chest went numb.

Then the heavy double oak doors were thrown open.

“Corleone’s throwing a wedding and doesn’t invite old friends?”

Lucas Kane—his blood enemy in the port business—walked in wearing a dark red suit, smiling like he was tasting something sweet.

Lorenzo’s gaze went cold instantly.

“Kane.” He stepped forward half a pace, angling Bianca behind him. The entire hall’s temperature seemed to drop. “I don’t remember sending you an invitation.”

“Big days deserve uninvited sincerity.” Kane looked around, his eyes oily as a brush dipped in grease. Then they stuck to me.

Cold climbed up my spine.

“Since Mr. Corleone is getting married,” Kane drew out, malice thickening, “I’ll share the joy.” He pointed at me, finger almost stinking of blood. “That Miss Xiao—I like the look of her. I’ll marry her. What do you think?”

The air locked solid.

I stood frozen and looked at Lorenzo without meaning to.

He didn’t move. His face was a storm. His eyes were knives dipped in ice, fixed on Kane.

“You,” he said—two syllables wrapped in killing intent, “aren’t worthy.”

“Not worthy?” Kane laughed, sharp and ugly. “Or is *she* not worthy?”

He paced toward the center, words like skinning someone alive in public.

“A feral little stray whose mother crawled into Don Salvatore’s bed just to squeeze into Corleone’s old house—no bloodline, no breeding. If I’ll take her, she should kneel and thank me.”

“And what’s more—”

He dragged out the ending with relish.

“I hear this young lady was ruined before she was even legal. Trash like that—besides me, what respectable man would take her?”

He lifted a hand.

The big screen lit up. A video was thrown onto it.

A swaying car. Dim light. A flushed face distorted in the lens. A woman’s clothes in disarray, pinned beneath a man, forcing out small, stifled whimpers, her body trembling.

The man never turned his face toward the camera, but anyone paying even slight attention could recognize—

The woman, undone and taken at will on that screen—

was me.