n's

g, Dante became a

tters. Things a mere fiancée

did-shower, change of clothes, back out the doo

't break the code of si

bed like a widow in waiting. I poured my rage into my design

rst. Stopped asking wher

ried

woke up with a dull ache that took longer and longer to fade. I didn't know what it was yet

l clinging to the wreckage o

hours making

d. I sealed it in a glass container and planned to drop it at his office be

e last attempt to bridge

tic,

d the windows. And something-some stupid, stubborn flicker

his headquar

y always did. I was still the Don's fiancée, after

My pulse hammered against my ribs. Th

ajar. A sliver of golden li

top

ted through the gap.

back the Rossi Es

ntrolled. "Don't overt

d scraped down my spi

ur future m

le

lently. Deny it. Tell her you'

there for n

words that shat

d the d

who were supposedly nothing to each other. Camilla's fingers were r

cold calculation of a woman who saw another obstacle standing b

factured

collision with the side table. A sharp, theatric

single pinprick of blood

e whimpered

he l

ted his teeth against the pain, the man who'd promised me forev

er slammed

a

cracked against the heavy doorframe. The glass contain

d in a grotesque h

-then the re

ack. Not

olded me in half. I slid down the doorframe. My v

. Dabbing her microscopic wound with his monogrammed han

on the floor. Saw the broke

ack around Camilla's wrist. Something-confusion, a dawn

bbed his sleeve.

d back to

at me, crumpled on the floor, white a

ause a scen

scream buildin

But I braced them against the wall and dragge

The words tasted like ash.

as a knife in my abdomen, but

nd ripped from somewhere primal, somewher

was t

iled down my thighs as

ars of

away