Chapter 1

I was naked in the bed of the most dangerous Capo in New York when I heard his mind whisper the name of the woman he actually wanted.

It wasn't me.

My husband, Dante, moved over me with cold precision, but his thoughts were screaming for Sofia, a soldier's widow he claimed to protect out of "honor."

I possess a secret that makes me a freak: I can hear the thoughts of men.

And Dante's mind was a torture chamber of devotion to another woman.

I found the deed to a luxury penthouse he bought for her.

I watched her parade around in a dress he bought for me, hearing her mental triumph as she thought about rubbing her scent all over it.

Refusing to be a placeholder in my own marriage, I left my wedding ring on his desk and fled to Las Vegas to build my own empire.

I thought I had escaped.

Until the divorce papers arrived in the mail, signed by him.

I stood in my shop, heartbroken, believing he had finally discarded me to be with his true love.

But then the phone rang.

"Dante didn't sign those papers, Elena. He's in the ICU."

My blood ran cold.

"He took two bullets to the chest. He started a war to distract the enemy from finding you."

He hadn't chosen her. He was dying for me.

I tore up the papers and booked a private jet.

If the Grim Reaper wanted my husband, he would have to get through me first.

Chapter 1

I was naked in the bed of the most dangerous Capo in New York when I heard his mind whisper the name of the woman he actually wanted, and it wasn't me.

The realization hit me harder than the physical thrust of his hips against mine.

Dante Cavallaro, known to the underworld as The Silencer, moved over me with the cold precision of a machine.

His body was a weapon I was bound to by law and blood, a wall of muscle and scars that the Vitiello family had sold me to in exchange for a truce.

He gripped my wrists, pinning them to the silk sheets above my head.

His eyes were closed.

That was the only mercy he granted me.

If he had opened them, he would have seen the tears leaking from the corners of mine.

But he didn't look.

He just took.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the sensation of his skin on mine, but I couldn't block out the voice.

The curse.

The ability that had made me a pariah in my own father's house and a freak to anyone who got too close.

I could hear the thoughts of men.

Not all of them, and not always clearly. But in moments of high adrenaline, or lust, or violence, their minds cracked open like eggshells, spilling their secrets.

Sofia.

The name echoed in my head, projected from his.

I should have been there earlier. She's alone.

My breath hitched.

Dante mistook it for pleasure.

He groaned, a low, guttural sound that vibrated against my chest, and finished with a harsh, biting rhythm.

He collapsed onto me for a heartbeat, heavy and suffocating, before rolling away.

The cold air of the bedroom rushed in to replace his heat.

It felt like a judgment.

Dante sat up, running a hand through his dark, sweat-dampened hair. His back was a landscape of violence, covered in tattoos and old knife wounds.

He didn't say a word.

He didn't ask if I was okay.

He stood up and walked to the bathroom.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling, the name Sofia still ringing in my ears like tinnitus.

Sofia.

The widow of a low-level soldier who had bled out six months ago.

A woman who had no status, no power, and nothing to offer a man like Dante.

Except, apparently, the one thing I couldn't give him.

His guilt.

And his heart.

The water in the shower turned on.

I sat up, wrapping the sheet around my body. My hands were shaking, but I forced them to still.

I wasn't just a wife.

I was a Vitiello.

We didn't share.

And we certainly didn't lose to rats.

Dante walked out of the bathroom ten minutes later, a towel slung low on his hips.

Water dripped from his chest. He looked like a god of war, sculpted and terrifying.

He began to dress, pulling on a black dress shirt that cost more than most people's cars.

"I have business," he said.

His voice was gravel, rough from disuse. He barely spoke to me unless it was an order.

"At midnight?" I asked.

My voice was steady, betraying none of the chaos inside me.

He paused, buttoning his cuffs.

"The train station," he said. "A shipment."

He was lying.

I didn't need to read his mind to know that. I could see it in the way he wouldn't meet my eyes.

But I heard the thought anyway.

She's waiting on the platform. Shivering. I can't leave her in the cold.

"I'm coming with you," I said.

Dante stopped.

He turned slowly, his grey eyes finally locking onto mine.

They were cold, devoid of any warmth he might have felt ten minutes ago.

"No," he said.

"I am your wife, Dante," I said, standing up and letting the sheet pool at my feet. "If you have business at the station, I should be there. Unless it's not family business."

His jaw tightened.

She knows something. How does she always know?

"Get dressed," he snapped. "But you stay in the car."

The drive to Grand Central was a study in silence.

The rain lashed against the windows of the armored SUV.

Dante drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the gun holstered beneath his jacket.

His mind was a storm of irritation and duty.

He viewed me as a burden.

A shiny object he had to protect but didn't want to polish.

When we pulled up to the curb, I didn't wait for his permission.

I opened the door and stepped out into the rain.

"Elena!" he barked.

I ignored him.

I walked toward the entrance, my heels clicking ominously on the wet pavement.

Dante was beside me in a second, his hand gripping my elbow.

"I told you to stay in the car."

"And I told you I'm your wife," I hissed.

We walked into the station.

It was late, and the grand hall was mostly empty.

Except for her.

Sofia stood near the information booth, clutching a small, battered suitcase.

She looked fragile.

She was wearing a coat that was too thin for the weather, shivering slightly. Her dark hair was plastered to her face.

She looked like a tragedy waiting to be saved.

Dante's grip on my arm loosened.

I felt the shift in him.

The protective instinct.

The debt.

Sofia saw us.

Her eyes widened, filling with tears. She looked at Dante like he was her savior.

Then her gaze flicked to me.

For a split second, the mask slipped.

I heard it, loud and clear, a screech in the silence of my mind.

I will displace this Princess. I will take everything she has, piece by piece.

She smiled, a weak, trembling thing.

"Dante," she whispered. "I didn't know who else to call."

Dante stepped forward, effectively putting himself between us.

Shielding her from me.

"You're safe now, Sofia," he said.

His voice was gentle.

A tone he had never, not once, used with me.

I stood there, the rain dripping from my hair, watching my husband comfort the woman who planned to destroy me.

And I realized then that the war hadn't just started.

I was already losing.