He Chose His Secret Wife Over Me

I reached for my fiancé's phone to silence an alarm and found a hidden folder named "The Protocol."

Inside was a spreadsheet that systematically dismantled my entire existence.

Task 399: Buy blue hydrangeas. Note: Her favorite. For Denzel.

Task 400: Schedule anniversary dinner. Note: Make sure she feels special. For Denzel.

In that heartbeat, I realized the man I had loved for three years hadn't looked at me once without seeing a chore list left by his dead brother. I wasn't Elfrieda Stewart, the woman Jaxon Tate loved. I was a legacy project.

The truth turned lethal at our engagement gala. When a massive chandelier detached from the ceiling, Jaxon didn't lunge for me.

He tackled his "ex" Janice-who I later discovered was his secret wife-to safety.

He left me standing in the center of the target to be crushed by shattering glass.

But the cruelty didn't end there. On a "reconciliation" yacht trip, Janice pushed me overboard. Jaxon looked at me struggling in the freezing black water, then threw the life preserver to her.

He saved the shark and left me to drown.

I lost everything in that water, including the unborn child I hadn't even told him about.

He thought I was dead. He thought he was free to play house with Janice.

But my brother pulled me from the darkness.

And when I resurfaced in Norway, wearing the ring of a man far more dangerous than Jaxon could ever dream of being, Jaxon realized too late that he had destroyed the only thing that could have saved him.

Chapter 1

Elfrieda Stewart POV

I was reaching for my fiancé's phone to silence a shrill alarm when my thumb grazed a secure folder named "The Protocol."

In that heartbeat, I realized the man I had loved for three years hadn't looked at me once without seeing a chore list left by his dead brother.

The screen glowed with a spreadsheet that systematically dismantled my life.

Task 399: Buy blue hydrangeas. Note: Her favorite. For Denzel.

Task 400: Schedule anniversary dinner at Le Monde. Note: Make sure she feels special. For Denzel.

Task 401: Renew the lease on her apartment. For Denzel.

My thumb hovered over the glass, trembling slightly.

I wasn't Elfrieda Stewart, the woman Jaxon Tate loved.

I was a legacy project.

I was an administrative duty inherited along with the Tate family's territory in Chicago.

The bathroom door creaked open.

I instantly locked the phone and placed it face down on the marble counter just as Jaxon walked out, a towel slung low on his hips, steam rising from his damp skin.

He looked like a god of the underworld.

He had the chiseled jawline and the cold, predatory eyes that made men in this city cross the street to avoid him.

"Happy anniversary, El," he said.

He leaned in to kiss my cheek.

His lips felt like a brand.

A lie.

"You smell like vanilla," he murmured, reciting a line from a script I hadn't known existed until thirty seconds ago.

My stomach lurched.

I forced a smile that felt like it might crack my face into pieces.

"Three years," I said.

"To Denzel," he whispered, almost to himself, before catching my eye. "To us."

He poured two glasses of champagne.

He was a *Soldato* in the Outfit, a man who broke fingers for late payments, yet here he was, playing house because his dying Capo brother had made him swear an oath.

His phone buzzed on the counter.

The screen lit up.

It wasn't a number.

It was a contact saved simply as "HQ."

Jaxon's face changed.

The charming mask slipped, revealing the frantic edge underneath.

"I have to take this," he said.

He stepped out onto the balcony, sliding the glass door shut behind him.

He didn't realize the wind was blowing the wrong way.

He didn't know I could hear him.

"I can't right now, Janice," he hissed. "I'm with her."

My blood went cold.

Janice.

I knew that name.

She was his college ex, the one he claimed was crazy, the one he said he hadn't spoken to in five years.

"It's the anniversary," Jaxon said, his voice pleading. "I have to finish the checklist. You know the rules. If the Boss finds out I'm neglecting Denzel's girl, I'm dead."

I walked to the glass.

I watched him run a hand through his hair in agitation.

"I love you," he said to the phone. "You know I love you. This is just business. She's just a task."

The champagne glass in my hand didn't break.

I set it down on the table with a soft, deliberate clink.

My hands weren't shaking.

They were perfectly still.

Jaxon hung up and came back inside, composing his features into a look of practiced regret.

"Family emergency," he said. "A shipment at the docks. I have to go."

"On our anniversary?" I asked.

"It's the life, El. You know that. I do this to keep you safe."

He kissed my forehead.

He grabbed his jacket and his gun.

He left me standing in the middle of our penthouse, surrounded by the blue hydrangeas he had bought because a spreadsheet told him to.

I waited until the elevator dinged.

Then I picked up his iPad.

He had synced his photos to the cloud.

I didn't need a password; he thought I was too stupid, too innocent to snoop.

I opened the hidden album.

There were hundreds of photos.

Jaxon and Janice in Cabo.

Jaxon and Janice at a Christmas party I wasn't invited to.

And then, the one that stopped my heart.

A wedding photo.

Dated six months ago.

Jaxon in a tuxedo, Janice in white, holding a marriage license that violated every law of the Outfit.

He wasn't just a liar.

He was a dead man walking.

And I was the fool who had been warming his bed while he played husband to another woman.

I didn't cry.

The tears wouldn't come.

I reached for my phone and dialed the one number I was never supposed to use for personal reasons.

"Jameel," I said when my brother answered.

"Elfrieda? What's wrong? Is it Jaxon?"

"No," I said, my voice sounding like it belonged to a stranger. "It's not Jaxon. It's the Protocol."

Elfrieda Stewart POV

The Tate Family Gala was less a celebration and more an exercise in gluttony.

Crystal chandeliers the size of compact cars loomed overhead, casting prismatic light onto men who had blood under their fingernails and wore tuxedos that cost more than my father's entire house.

I stood by the buffet table, feeling exposed in the red silk dress Jaxon had selected for me.

He was across the room, laughing.

His arm was draped casually over the back of a chair, fingers brushing the shoulder of the blonde woman seated there.

Janice.

She was here.

She sipped her wine, looking at me over the rim of the glass with a smirk that communicated she knew everything.

Jaxon had introduced her as a "consultant" for the family's legitimate real estate holdings.

But looking at them now, I knew the truth. She was his wife.

I watched the magnetic pull between them, a gravity he couldn't control as his body leaned instinctively toward hers.

Then, he checked his watch.

It was time for the performance.

The "Denzel Protocol" required a public display of affection at every major family event, a ritual to sell the lie.

Jaxon strode toward me.

The room quieted down, the murmur of conversation dying out.

The Boss, an old man with eyes like shark glass, watched silently from the head table.

Jaxon took my hand.

He led me to the center of the dance floor, positioning us perfectly under the lights.

"Elfrieda," he announced, his voice booming with practiced sincerity. "You are the light of my life. My brother asked me to protect you, but I found myself loving you."

He dropped to one knee.

He pulled out a velvet box.

A diamond ring glittered under the chandelier. It was huge. It was vulgar.

"Will you marry me?" he asked.

The crowd applauded on cue.

Janice was clapping too, her eyes dead and cold.

I looked down at Jaxon.

I saw the bead of sweat on his upper lip. I saw the terror.

He wasn't proposing to me.

He was proposing to the Boss, proving he was a good soldier, a loyal brother.

I opened my mouth to speak, to play my part.

A groan from above stopped me.

It was a sound like a bone snapping, loud and sharp, echoing through the ballroom.

I looked up.

The massive crystal chandelier directly above us groaned again.

It detached from the ceiling.

Gravity took over.

Time seemed to warp, slowing down into a nightmare crawl.

I saw the shadow of the crystal monster plummeting toward us.

Jaxon saw it too.

He lunged.

But he didn't lunge for me.

He threw himself to the left, tackling Janice, who was standing five feet away and completely out of the impact zone.

He covered her body with his own, shielding her.

I stood alone in the center of the target.

The chandelier crashed.

The sound was deafening, a symphony of shattering glass and twisting metal that vibrated in my teeth.

The force of the impact knocked me backward.

Pain exploded in my arm and shoulder, white-hot and blinding.

Dust filled the air, choking the light.

Silence followed, heavy and thick.

Then the screaming started.

I lay on the floor, dazed, the world spinning.

Warm liquid soaked the red silk of my dress, turning it a deeper, darker shade.

I looked at my arm.

A shard of crystal the size of a butcher knife was embedded in my forearm.

Blood pooled rapidly on the expensive Persian rug.

"Jaxon?" I croaked.

I forced my eyes open.

Jaxon was scrambling up, frantically checking Janice for scratches.

"Are you okay? Did it hit you?" he was yelling, his hands roaming over her face, desperate.

Janice didn't have a scratch on her.

She looked at me, then pointed.

Jaxon turned.

He saw me lying in a pool of my own blood.

He didn't run to me.

He looked annoyed.

He glanced at the Boss, then back at me with a sneer.

"Jesus, Elfrieda," he snapped, his voice carrying across the silent room. "Stop bleeding on the carpet. You're making a scene."

The words hit me harder than the glass.

He wasn't worried.

He was inconvenienced.

A shadow fell over me.

My brother, Jameel, slid across the floor on his knees, crashing to a halt beside me.

His face was a mask of pure terror.

"El!" he screamed.

He ripped off his tuxedo jacket and pressed it against my arm, trying to staunch the flow.

"I've got you," he choked out. "I've got you."

He looked up at Jaxon.

The look on Jameel's face promised murder.

Jaxon took a step back, realizing his mistake too late.

"I... I was just making sure the guest was safe," Jaxon stammered, the confidence draining from him.

I looked at the ring box lying open amidst the shattered glass.

The diamond was fake.

I could see the lack of fire in the stone, the dullness of a prop.

Even the ring was a lie.

"Get her to the car!" Jameel barked at two other soldiers.

He lifted me up.

The pain was blinding, threatening to pull me under, but my mind was crystal clear.

I looked at Jaxon one last time.

He was still holding Janice's hand.

I closed my eyes.

The naive girl who played the violin and believed in fairy tales died on that rug.

Elfrieda Stewart POV

The hospital lights were unforgivingly bright.

They hummed with a sterile frequency that drilled straight into my skull.

Forty stitches.

That was the cost of Jaxon's reflex.

Jaxon had graced the emergency room with his presence for exactly ten minutes.

He stood by the door, checking his phone, looking like a man waiting for a bus rather than a fiancé waiting for a prognosis.

"It was an accident, El," he said, his gaze fixed on the linoleum. "I just reacted. Janice was closer."

She wasn't closer.

She was five feet away.

I had been standing right next to him.

"Go," I said.

"I can't just leave you," he said, shifting his weight uncomfortably.

Then, his phone buzzed.

He looked at it, and naked relief washed over his face.

"Janice thinks she might have a concussion from the fall," he lied. "She's at the other hospital. I have to go handle the insurance."

"Go," I repeated.

He was gone before the second syllable cleared my lips.

I waited until the nurse changed my IV bag and left the room.

Then, I yanked the needle out of my arm.

Warmth trickled down my skin, but I didn't care.

I grabbed my coat.

I knew exactly where he was going.

I had tracked his car's GPS.

It was another "safety measure" he had installed for me, one which I had quietly mirrored to my own phone months ago. Just in case he got kidnapped. Or, as it turned out, just in case he strayed.

I took a cab to the address.

It wasn't a hospital.

It was the Meridian Tower.

The most expensive residential building in the city.

The Outfit used it for two things: high-level mistresses and money laundering.

I walked past the doorman, flashing the Tate family crest on my keychain.

He nodded stiffly and let me pass.

I took the elevator straight to the penthouse.

I didn't knock.

I stood outside the heavy oak door.

I could hear them.

"Look at this place, baby," Janice's voice was shrill with excitement. "The view is amazing."

"It's yours," Jaxon said. "Everything I have is yours."

"What about the Violist?" she asked.

I held my breath.

"Elfrieda?" Jaxon laughed. It was a cruel, hollow sound. "She's a burden. A civilian. She doesn't know how this world works. She thinks I saved Janice because of instinct? I saved Janice because Janice is the only thing that matters."

"She's pretty, though," Janice teased.

"She's a doll," Jaxon spat. "A fragile, porcelain doll. Boring. I have to wind her up every morning just to get her through the day."

I leaned my forehead against the cool wood of the door.

My arm throbbed.

My heart was a stone in my chest.

The door opened suddenly.

I didn't have time to hide.

Janice stood there, wearing nothing but one of Jaxon's shirts.

She didn't look surprised.

She looked delighted.

She smiled, a slow, predatory curving of her lips.

"Jaxon," she called out, not taking her eyes off me. "Your charity case is here."

Jaxon appeared behind her.

His face went dead pale.

"Elfrieda," he stammered. "What are you doing here? You should be in the hospital."

I looked at him.

Really looked at him.

I saw the weakness in the set of his chin.

The fear in his eyes.

He wasn't a monster.

He was a coward.

And cowards were dangerous because they had no code.

"I just came to return this," I said.

I reached into my pocket with my good hand.

I pulled out the engagement ring I had salvaged from the floor of the gala.

I tossed it.

It hit Jaxon in the chest and bounced onto the floor with a dull clink.

Janice laughed.

She stepped forward and kissed Jaxon, hard, on the mouth.

She marked him.

She looked dead at me while she did it.

Jaxon didn't push her away.

He let her claim him right in front of me.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pulled it out.

A notification from Instagram.

*Janice_Tate has requested to follow you.*

She was declaring war.

I looked at the two of them, framed in the doorway of their stolen paradise.

I accepted the request.