Chapter 2

Dante POV:

"You're being dramatic, Elena. It's unbecoming."

I didn't bother to look up from my tablet. The shipment from the docks was overdue, Arturo was breathing down my neck about the feds, and now my wife was standing in front of my desk, vibrating with a frenetic, nervous energy I simply didn't have the patience to decode.

"Dramatic?" Her voice was low, stripped of its usual softness. "Is that what you call it when your husband gives family heirlooms to his secretary?"

My head snapped up.

Elena was standing there, pale and rigid. She wasn't crying. That was wrong. Elena always cried when she was upset. It was one of the things I liked about her; she was soft. Pliable. Easy to mold. But today, her eyes were arid deserts, dry and hard.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, keeping my voice dead even. The first rule of power: never admit fault.

"The shark tooth, Dante. Jade sent me a photo."

I cursed silently. Jade was reckless. She was useful, and the sex was aggressive in a way Elena's never was, but she was becoming a liability. I needed to leash her.

"It's a fake," I lied, the falsehood sliding out smooth as silk. "She probably bought a replica. She's obsessed with the lifestyle, Elena. You know how these women are. They want what you have."

"She says she's pregnant."

The air left the room as if sucked out by a vacuum.

I stood up, rounding the mahogany desk to loom over her. Usually, this worked. My physical presence alone was enough to make grown men back down.

"That is a matter I am handling," I said, my voice dropping an octave into a dangerous register. "It has nothing to do with us. It has nothing to do with my position as Don, and it certainly has nothing to do with your duties as my wife."

"Duties," she repeated, the word tasting like ash in her mouth. "Is that all I am? A duty? A placeholder until she gives you a son?"

"You are my wife," I snapped, losing patience. "You carry the Paletti name. That comes with privileges, Elena. Look around you." I gestured to the penthouse, the sprawling view of the Chicago skyline glittering behind the glass. "You want for nothing. I protect you. I provide for you. All I ask is that you don't ask questions you don't want the answers to."

"I want a divorce."

The words hung in the air between us, absurd and impossible.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. It was a dark, humorless sound. "A divorce? People like us don't get divorced, Elena. You leave when I say you leave. And I'm not done with you."

I pulled out my wallet and tossed a black Amex card onto the desk. It slid across the mahogany surface with a sharp hiss and stopped at her fingertips.

"Go to Paris. Go to Milan. Buy out the season's collection. Take a week to cool off. When you come back, we will never speak of Jade again."

Elena looked at the card. Then she looked at me. For a second, I saw something in her eyes I had never seen before. It wasn't fear. It wasn't love. It was pity.

"Keep your money, Dante," she said. "It's got blood on it."

She turned and walked out of the office. I didn't stop her. She would go to her room, cry it out, and by tomorrow morning, she'd be wearing the card out. She had nowhere else to go. She was a canary-bred for captivity. She wouldn't survive five minutes outside the cage I built for her.

Elena POV:

He thought I was going to shop. He thought a piece of plastic could buy my dignity.

I walked out of the penthouse and straight into the waiting car of the only lawyer in the city brave enough-or crazy enough-to go against the Paletti family. Lucia was waiting for me, a grim expression on her face.

"Are you sure about this, Elena?" Lucia asked as I buckled in, her fingers tight on the steering wheel. "Once we start this, there is no going back. Dante will scorch the earth."

"Let him burn it," I said, staring straight ahead. "I'm already ash."

"We need to move the assets fast. Before he locks the accounts."

"I don't want his money," I said. "I only want what I came in with. My grandmother's inheritance. The clean money. And I need a new name."

Lucia handed me a manila envelope from the passenger seat. "It's done. The judge owed me a favor. A big one."

I opened the envelope. A new passport stared back at me. The photo was me, but the eyes looked different. Less afraid.

Hope Veretti.

Veretti was my grandmother's maiden name. Hope was what I had lost, and what I was determined to find.

My phone buzzed in my lap. It was a notification from Instagram. Jade had posted a photo. She was on a private jet-Dante's jet. The caption read: *Flying to the summit with the King. Future looks bright.*

She was going to the family summit. The one wives were usually invited to, to show unity. He was taking her.

That was the final severing.

"Take me to the jewelry district," I told Lucia.

"We need to get you to the airport," she argued, glancing at the dashboard clock.

"No," I said, clutching my left hand. "I have one errand to run. I'm not leaving this city with this ring on my finger. And I'm certainly not leaving it for him to give to her."

I wasn't just leaving a marriage. I was declaring war.