Chapter 4

Maya POV:

The first strike was quiet but swift. I didn't just sell the jewelry and designer bags Liam had showered me with. I liquidated every asset he had signed over to me-stocks, a small art collection, the deed to a boutique hotel downtown. They were symbols of my gilded status as the Don's wife-and I was turning them into a weapon.

The money, all seven figures of it, was wired to a new charity I established overnight: The Phoenix Foundation, dedicated to helping women escape powerful and abusive men. It was a declaration of war, waged in the open and aimed squarely at the heart of his world.

Liam's rage, when it came, was not a hurricane but a tide of ice. He stormed into the penthouse, his face a thundercloud of controlled fury. He didn't yell. That wasn't his style. His violence was cold and controlled.

"What have you done?" he asked, his voice a low, lethal rumble that vibrated through the room.

"I'm simplifying," I said, not looking up from my book.

The next day, the "Maya's Dawn" necklace was back in my possession. He'd bought it back at a private auction for triple what I'd sold it for. He didn't give it to me. He cornered me in our bedroom, his body blocking the door, and clasped it around my neck himself. The cold diamonds felt like a brand against my skin.

"This," he hissed, his fingers digging into my shoulders like talons, "stays on you. It is a symbol of my love. You do not sell my love, Maya."

It wasn't love; it was ownership. A brand for his property.

The weekend at the Hamptons estate was his theater, a stage set to reassert control. He gathered his inner circle-his Consigliere, Marc Chen, and his most trusted Capos. They were all there with their wives, a perfect portrait of family and loyalty.

But their eyes told a different story. They all knew about Ava. Marc, who was supposed to be Liam's best friend, clapped him on the back and made a joke about how he kept me on a short leash. The other men laughed. Their complicity was a poison in the air, thick and suffocating. I felt like I was in a den of snakes, and I was the only one without fangs.

I spent the day by the pool, a fixed smile on my face, the heavy weight of the "Maya's Dawn" a constant, chilling reminder around my neck. Liam played the part of the doting husband, bringing me drinks, touching my arm, his actions a performance for his men.

I felt their eyes on me, judging, pitying, amused. I wasn't a person to them. I was a beautiful, fragile object that belonged to the Don. An object that was apparently causing him some trouble.

As the sun bled across the horizon, painting the sky in bruised shades of orange and purple, a familiar wave of exhaustion washed over me. The effort of breathing in that toxic air was too much.

"I have a headache," I murmured to Liam. "I'm going to lie down for a bit."

He barely glanced at me, already deep in conversation with Marc. "Fine," he said, a dismissive wave of his hand.

The relief I felt walking away from them was so profound it almost made me dizzy. I was utterly alone. And for the first time, it didn't feel like a weakness. It felt like a foundation.