Chapter 3

Nessa POV

The next morning, the smell of bacon grease clawed me awake.

Usually, it was a comforting scent, rich and grounding. Today, however, paired with Rissa's voice still echoing in the recesses of my mind, it triggered a violent, uncontrollable wave of nausea.

I barely made it to the bathroom before I retched into the porcelain bowl, my knuckles white as I gripped the rim.

My body was rejecting everything. The food, the stress, the suffocating weight of the lie.

"Nessa?"

Xander appeared in the doorway, holding a tray with a bowl of bird's nest soup.

He looked concerned-the very picture of a doting husband. The perfect actor.

"I heard you getting sick," he said softly, setting the tray on the vanity with calculated care. "I made this for you. It's good for the baby."

He reached out, his thumbs beginning to massage my temples.

His fingers were warm.

I flinched violently.

"Don't," I said, pulling away as if burned.

He paused, a flicker of annoyance marring his features before he smoothed it over into a mask of patience.

"You're being hormonal, babe," he said, his tone dripping with condescension. "You need to relax."

He tried to pull me into a hug, forcing an intimacy I no longer wanted.

And then I smelled it on him.

Underneath the sharp tang of his expensive cologne, there was a faint, sweet scent.

Vanilla and jasmine.

Rissa's perfume.

"Did you sleep well?" I asked, my voice tight and brittle.

"Like a log," he lied without skipping a beat. "I was worried about you all night, though."

He hadn't been in bed. I had checked at 3 AM. His side was ice cold.

"Xander," I said, forcing myself to look him in the eye. "Have you ever broken your vows? The Omertà of our marriage?"

He laughed-a nervous, tinny sound that didn't reach his eyes. "What kind of question is that? You're my life, Nessa."

He leaned in to kiss me.

Outside, a sudden clap of thunder shook the house, mirroring the storm breaking inside me.

I jerked back, gasping.

Xander grabbed my shoulders, his grip suddenly painful, holding me too tight. "You're acting hysterical. You need to calm down or you'll hurt the baby."

"Let go of me," I said.

"I'm protecting you!" he snapped, his mask slipping revealing the predator beneath for a fraction of a second.

A knock at the door interrupted us.

It was the maid, Maria. She looked pale, her eyes wide with fright.

"Mr. Vane," she whispered. "Security breach at the perimeter."

Xander's face went white. He released me instantly.

"Stay here," he ordered, his voice hard. "Don't move."

He ran out of the room without a backward glance.

I sat on the edge of the bathtub, trembling in the sudden silence.

My phone buzzed again.

Rissa.

He's not checking security. He's checking on me. I told him I had a cramp.

Then, a photo loaded on the screen.

It was a close-up of Xander's bare back.

Over his heart, where he had once promised to tattoo my name, there was fresh ink.

It wasn't my name.

It was a red heart with a jagged line through it.

And underneath, in elegant, mocking script: R.

A matching photo followed. Rissa's shoulder, with an X tattooed in the same spot.

He hasn't touched you since you got pregnant because he saves himself for me, the text read. He says your skin feels like paper.

I stared at the tattoo in the photo, my vision blurring.

I remembered the night he came home with a bandage on his chest, claiming he got grazed by a bullet during a collection.

I had cried over that bandage. I had tenderly cleaned the wound.

It wasn't a bullet. It was a brand of ownership.

He belonged to her.

I sat there until the sun went down and the room turned gray, shadows swallowing the corners.

I didn't cry. I was done crying.

I picked up my phone and opened an encrypted messaging app.

I typed a message to the contact Carlo had given me. A contact that operated outside the Outfit, in the dark corners where even the Mafia didn't dare to tread.

I'm ready to cooperate.

Name your price.