Chapter 1

On our fifth anniversary, my husband Dante gave me a unique gift: he burned my business to the ground.

Why? Because a shopkeeper had been rude to Sofia, the fragile ward he swore to protect.

While I waited in our penthouse, he was comforting her in front of the flames.

But that was just the beginning.

When I finally snapped and confronted Sofia for mocking our marriage, she cut her own arm and screamed for help.

Dante didn't hesitate. He shot me.

He put a bullet through my hand to save her.

Then, to "discipline" me, he dragged me to the cellar and waterboarded me-using my deepest trauma against me-until I admitted to a crime I didn't commit.

I endured it all, thinking he still loved me in his twisted way.

Until the day we were ambushed at the docks.

The enemy held a gun to my head and a knife to Sofia's throat.

"Choose," the gunman said. "The Queen or the Ward?"

Dante looked at me. He calculated that I was strong enough to survive, but Sofia would break.

"Let the girl go," he said.

He watched as the gunman pulled the trigger on me.

As I fell backward into the freezing ocean, bleeding from a chest wound, Dante screamed my name.

He thought he had killed me.

He didn't know I was wearing a Kevlar vest.

He didn't know that while he was mourning his dead wife, I was already planning my escape.

Dante Moretti thinks his Queen is dead.

I intend to keep it that way.

Chapter 1

Elena POV

I was applying the final coat of crimson lipstick in the mirror of the penthouse suite when the news alert flashed across my phone screen.

The headline was a blur, but the reality was sharp: My husband had just reduced a city block to ash in my name.

But as the ashes fell, he wasn't thinking of me. He was holding another woman.

Five years ago, Dante Moretti pulled me out of a cage in a humid, reeking basement in Southeast Asia. Back then, I was cattle. A lot number in an auction.

He slaughtered twenty men to get to me, his bespoke suit stained with their blood as he lifted me from the filth. He told me I belonged to him. He promised that no one would ever touch me again.

Today was our fifth anniversary.

Downstairs, three hundred of New York's most dangerous criminals were drinking champagne, waiting to toast the Don and his Queen. But the Don wasn't here.

I looked at the television mounted on the wall. The news chopper footage was shaky, zooming in on the commercial district of Moretti Avenue. It was the only property I owned independently-my sanctuary.

Now, it was an inferno.

The chyron read: GANG WAR ERUPTS IN LOWER MANHATTAN.

But I knew better. I recognized the black armored SUV parked in front of the flames. I recognized the tall, broad-shouldered silhouette of the man standing by the open door.

Dante.

And I recognized the small, trembling figure he was shielding with his own body.

Sofia Russo.

My phone buzzed against the marble vanity. It was Enzo, my bodyguard.

Turn on the audio, he texted.

I tapped the screen. The chopper feed didn't have sound, but Enzo had patched into the security feed from the street.

"She was crying, Dante."

My husband's voice cut through the static, distorted but unmistakable.

"That shop owner disrespected her. He told her to leave. No one disrespects Luca's sister."

A gunshot rang out through the speakers. I watched on the screen as a man on his knees in front of the burning building slumped forward. Executed.

For an insult.

Dante turned to Sofia. The firelight danced on his sharp jawline, casting him in a demonic glow. He looked at her with an intensity that made my stomach turn over.

It was the same look he used to give me when I woke up screaming from nightmares. The look of a savior.

"It's clean now, Sofia," he said. "I burned it clean for you."

He ushered her into the car. He didn't look at the camera. He didn't look at the time. He didn't care that his wife was waiting in a silk gown for a dance that would never happen.

I turned off the TV.

I didn't cry. I think I ran out of tears three years ago when Sofia first showed up, weeping about her dead brother, Luca.

Luca, who took a bullet for Dante. Luca, whose memory was a ghost that haunted the corners of my marriage.

I walked out of the suite. The hallway was empty. I didn't go to the ballroom. Instead, I headed for the family chapel on the east wing of the estate.

It was quiet here. The air smelled of beeswax and old wood. This was where we swore our blood oath. Death before betrayal.

I walked to the altar. There was a heavy silver candelabra standing there, a relic of his ancestors. I picked it up. It was heavy, cold, solid silver.

I swung it.

The sound of the marble altar cracking was louder than a gunshot. The vibration traveled up my arm, jarring my bones.

I swung it again. And again. Stone chipped and flew.

I destroyed the place where I promised to love him.

I went to the utility closet in the vestry and grabbed a canister of kerosene kept for the outdoor torches. I uncapped it and walked down the aisle, splashing the liquid over the pews.

The smell was pungent, chemical. It smelled like the truth.

The heavy oak doors creaked open behind me.

"Elena."

His voice was deep, a rumble that usually vibrated in my chest. Now it just felt like a tremor in the floorboards.

I didn't turn around. I emptied the last of the canister onto the front row.

"You're late," I said.

"I had business," Dante said. He walked closer. I could smell the smoke on him. It wasn't cigarette smoke. It was the scent of my burning sanctuary.

"Business," I repeated. I turned to face him.

He was breathtaking. He always was. Six foot three of lethal muscle in a bespoke Italian suit. His eyes were dark, intelligent, and currently narrowed in confusion.

He looked at the kerosene can in my hand, then at the smashed altar.

"What are you doing, Elena?"

"Celebrating," I said. "You burned my avenue. I'm burning your church."

He took a step forward, his hand reaching out. "That was necessary. The shopkeeper insulted Sofia. I owe Luca a debt. You know this."

"Luca is dead," I said, my voice flat. "Sofia is alive. And she is not your wife."

"She is my ward," Dante snapped. His patience was thinning. "She is fragile. She needs protection. You... you are different. You are strong. You survived hell. She breaks if the wind blows too hard."

"So you burn down my world to keep her warm?"

He closed the distance between us, grabbing my wrist. His grip was iron. "I gave you this empire. I gave you a name. I saved you from a cage, Elena. Do not forget that."

"You took me out of one cage and put me in another," I whispered.

I flicked the lighter in my free hand. The flame jumped to life.

Dante's eyes widened. "Elena, don't."

"Hide her well, Don Moretti," I said, staring into his eyes.

"Because the next time you choose her over me, I won't take it out on the furniture. I will kill her."

I dropped the lighter.

The fire roared to life between us, a wall of heat separating the man who owned me from the woman I was becoming.