Chapter 2

Elena Vitello POV

The apartment was too quiet.

I stood in the living room, surrounded by brown cardboard boxes stacked like a fortress. I told myself I was packing for the move to our new house-a wedding gift from my father.

But the truth clawed at my throat. I wasn't packing. I was extracting myself from a corpse.

The click of the lock shattered the silence.

Luca walked in, a bouquet of red roses in his hand. The kind you grab from a gas station bucket.

"Hey, baby," he said, the smile easy. "Sorry I'm late. Business with the boss."

Liar.

Papa had been at the estate all day, glued to the secure phone, waiting for my call. There was no business.

I took the flowers. They were already wilting, heads bowed in shame.

"Thank you," I said.

He came closer, loosening his tie. He looked tired, but there was a flush on his cheeks. The heat of a man who had just fucked.

There was a smear on his collar.

Bright cherry red lipstick.

I never wore red.

Luca followed my gaze. Froze.

"Ah, damn cocktail waitress," he said quickly, the laugh too loud. "She tripped. Spilled her drink on me. I tried to catch her."

"What a hero you are, Luca," I said. "Always saving people."

He didn't hear the irony.

He leaned in to kiss me.

"Shower," I said, pushing gently at his chest. "You smell like old whiskey."

He grinned, pinching my waist.

"Only for you."

The bathroom door clicked shut. Water started running.

I picked up his shirt from where he'd dropped it on the floor.

I walked to the laundry room. I didn't put it in the hamper.

I turned on the faucet. Hot. Scalding.

I took a rough bar of soap and began to scrub at the collar. I scrubbed at the red stain.

I wasn't washing a shirt. I was scrubbing five years off my life.

I was scrubbing away the eighteen-year-old girl who looked at a low-level soldier with stars in her eyes because he held a door open for her.

I was scrubbing away the stupid hope that loyalty meant something in this world.

The fabric tore. A wet, ripping sound.

I stopped. I threw the rag in the trash.

I walked back to the living room and sat on the couch, staring at the wall.

I thought about the blood oath Luca had taken when he got his button. Family first. Honor above all.

He had broken that code.

In our world, the penalty for betrayal was death.

Too easy. Too kind.

I wanted him to live. I wanted him to watch while I burned his carefully constructed life to ash.