Chapter 1 1

Isabella POV

The cold steel of the Italian stiletto sliding into my abdomen didn't hurt nearly as much as the look in my husband's eyes.

Alistair Marshall, the man I had bled for, the man who was to be officially crowned Don of the Chicago outfit by The Commission tomorrow, twisted the blade.

"Why?" I choked out, tasting copper as I stared up at him in our master suite.

"Because a Don needs a true Mafia Queen," Alistair whispered, his handsome face a mask of cruel indifference. "And that was always meant to be Kylie."

Kylie Townsend. The woman he had always claimed was just a fragile friend in need of protection.

"The war..." I gasped, my blood soaking into the Persian rug. "I bought you those Thompson submachine guns. I laundered the money through my trusts. I won you this city!"

"And Kylie gave me the inspiration to use them," he sneered, pushing the stiletto deeper, pinning me to the floor. "The men think she's my lucky charm. They respect her. You? You're just a merchant's daughter with a fat bank account. An account I finally control."

My vision blurred, but his next words pierced deeper than the blade.

"You thought I was your savior two years ago? When you woke up in the Irishman's bed?" He let out a dark, humorless laugh. "My mother and Adina orchestrated that little frame-up, Isabella. But I gave the order. I needed you terrified. I needed you to sign over your assets to prove your loyalty after 'betraying' me with Hoy Casey."

Every sacrifice, every lie I had told to protect him, turned to ash. Five years of marriage, built entirely on a foundation of my stolen wealth and his fabricated glory.

He leaned in closer to watch the life leave my eyes. That was his fatal mistake.

My trembling fingers found the six-inch steel hatpin securing my updo. With a final, guttural scream fueled by pure *Vendetta*, I drove the pin upward, burying it deep into his carotid artery.

Alistair's eyes widened in absolute shock. Hot blood sprayed across my face as he collapsed beside me, clutching his throat, choking on his own betrayal.

I didn't have long. The darkness was pulling me under. But I would be damned if I left my empire for Kylie to inherit. Dragging my heavy, bleeding body toward the nightstand, I shoved the ornate kerosene lamp.

It shattered. The flames eagerly devoured the spilled fuel, racing across the rug and climbing the velvet curtains. I lay in the pooling blood, smiling as the fire consumed the master suite, consuming the monster I had loved.

The roaring flames swallowed me whole. The blistering heat seared my skin, melting away the pain, the betrayal, the life I had known.

Then, the burning stopped.

The suffocating smoke vanished, replaced by the cloying scent of lavender and the bitter aftertaste of chloral hydrate on my tongue.

I gasped, my eyes snapping open.

I wasn't in the burning master suite. I was lying on a plush mattress, staring up at a familiar, vaulted ceiling. The heat wasn't from an inferno; it was from a crackling fire in the hearth of the Marshall Estate's secluded guest suite.

My stomach was intact. No blood. No stiletto.

My head spun with a heavy, drug-induced lethargy. I knew this feeling. I knew this room.

Outside the heavy oak door, a hushed, irritated voice broke the silence.

"Why isn't that damn Irishman, Casey, here yet?"

Adina.

My heart slammed against my ribs. The frame-up. The night that ruined my standing in the family and handed Alistair the chains to bind me. I hadn't just survived the fire. I had been thrown back into the very flames that started it all.