“Keep her.” Those were the two words I heard my mafia husband say about another woman on our fifth wedding anniversary,

The rain had turned into sleet by the time the armored Mercedes tore through the heavy iron gates of the Hudson Valley compound. The estate sat like an ancient, stone beast tucked into thirty acres of dense forest, surrounded by razor wire, thermal cameras, and men with automatic rifles concealed beneath tactical parkas.

I was shoved through the double mahogany doors, shivering in my damp coat. Nora had been sent south with two of Matteo’s most trusted lieutenants to a safehouse in Delaware; Adrien’s men had refused to let her stay with me. *Family liabilities,* Matteo had called it.

The great room was lit only by the violent, crackling glow of a stone hearth. Standing in front of the fire, his back to the entrance, was Adrien.

He had stripped off his suit jacket. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing the dark, intricate ink that ran up his forearms—ancient Sicilian oaths alongside the dates of his family's fallen. In his right hand, he held a crystal tumbler of amber scotch. In his left, rested my silver wedding band.

When the heavy doors clicked shut behind me, Matteo vanished, leaving us suffocated by an agonizing silence.

Adrien didn't turn around immediately. He lifted the glass, took a slow drink, and stared into the flames. When he spoke, his voice was dangerously quiet, vibrating with a restrained fury that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

"Five years, Elena."

I stood my ground near the foyer archway, my fingers curled into tight fists inside my coat pockets. "Don't lecture me about time, Adrien. You don't own the clock."

He turned then. And the breath caught violently in my throat.

Adrien looked like a man who had walked through hell and carried the ash on his skin. His dark hair was disheveled, falling across his forehead in damp strands. Deep, violet bruises of exhaustion hung beneath his amber eyes. There was a faint smear of dried blood near his right temple, and his jaw was shadowed with dark stubble. But worse than his physical state was the look in his eyes—a volatile mixture of wild, feral relief and blinding, agonizing hurt.

He crossed the room in three long, predatory strides. Before I could back away, his hands were on me.

He didn't hit; he didn't shake me. He grabbed my face between his large, calloused palms, his thumbs brushing fiercely across my cheekbones, his fingers tangling into my damp hair. He tilted my head back, searching every inch of my features with an intensity that bordered on madness.

"You left," he rasped, his voice breaking on the edges. "You took off the ring, walked out into the middle of a hot zone, and threw yourself to the wolves."

"You made me believe you replaced me!" I pushed against his chest, but it was like shoving a wall of solid granite. Beneath the fine cotton of his shirt, his heart was hammering at an unnatural, terrified speed. "You locked me out of your life for half a year, Adrien! You stopped looking at me! You stopped touching me! And then I get a picture of you holding another woman, followed by you telling Matteo to *keep* her!"

"I told him to keep her in a cage!" Adrien roared, his control finally fracturing, the roar echoing off the cathedral ceiling. "Because that bitch had a vial of ricin aimed at your morning tea! Because Vance has been watching every breath you take since August!"

"And you thought keeping me ignorant was keeping me safe?!" I screamed back, tears finally spilling over my lashes, hot and angry. "You treated me like a porcelain doll you could lock in a glass case while you played god! I sat at that anniversary table alone for four hours, Adrien! Looking at candles melting into cold plates! Wondering what I did wrong, wondering why the man who used to love me couldn't stand the sight of me anymore!"

Adrien froze. His hands slid from my hair down to my shoulders, his grip so tight it bordered on pain, though I knew he would rather sever his own limbs than intentionally harm me.

"I couldn't look at you," he whispered, his amber eyes shining with unshed moisture, raw and defenseless in a way the kingpin of New York should never be. "Because every time I looked at your face, all I saw was a target. Every time I touched you, I imagined what Vance’s butchers would do to your skin if they found a seam in my armor. I was terrified, Elena. For the first time in my miserable, violent life, I was paralyzed by fear. Because of you."

He stepped closer, pressing his forehead against mine, his breath hot against my lips. "I would burn the world to ash before I ever touched another woman. You are my only life. How could you ever doubt that?"

I leaned into him for one brief, intoxicating second, inhaling his scent—cedar, bergamot, and iron. My heart screamed at me to surrender, to tell him about the baby growing inside me, to let him wrap us both in his dangerous, impenetrable shadow.

Then I remembered the coldness of his study door closing in my face. The months of lies.

I placed both palms flat against his chest and shoved him back with all the strength I had left.

"Because you taught me how to doubt it, Adrien," I said coldly, wiping my tears with the sleeve of my sweater. "You might have saved my life tonight. But you killed my trust months ago. And a safehouse doesn't make a marriage."