Three hours before my wedding, I heard the man I was about to marry say, “I don’t want her. I never did.”

The Carter estate sat on thirty secluded acres north of Lake Forest, surrounded by wrought-iron gates, security outposts, and ancient oak trees that looked like skeletal sentinels against the autumn mist.

Two days after the gallery opening, I sat in the east wing conservatory, surrounded by sprawling ferns and half-finished oil portraits. I was painting the lake under a bruised twilight sky, trying to purge the ghost of Ethan’s touch from my skin. Ever since the gallery, the distance between us felt less like peace and more like the stillness before an artillery barrage.

The heavy mahogany double doors creaked open.

I didn't turn, expecting Martha with my afternoon tea. "Just set it on the marble table, Martha, thank you."

"Martha had duties elsewhere, little cousin-in-law," a mocking voice purred.

I stiffened, setting my palette knife down with deliberate calm.

Derek Carter leaned against the doorway, wearing an unbuttoned designer shirt and a smirk that made my skin crawl. Derek was Ethan’s first cousin—two years Ethan’s junior, but lacking every shred of Ethan’s discipline. Where Ethan was a tiger, silent and lethal, Derek was a hyena, surviving on scraps and waiting for the alpha to bleed.

"You aren't permitted in the east wing, Derek," I said, wiping blue paint from my fingers onto a rag. "Ethan made that clear the day we moved in."

"Ethan isn't here, is he?" Derek chuckled, strolling into the room with infuriating insolence, his boots clicking sharply against the herringbone parquet floor. "He's downtown, negotiating with the Russo captains. Or maybe cleaning up another mess your dear father left at the docks."

My eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"Come now, Clara. You can't be that naive," Derek said, coming to a halt just inches from my easel. He reached out to touch the wet canvas, and I slapped his hand away with the wooden palette.

Derek’s smirk tightened into a dangerous line, but his amusement didn't entirely fade. "Feisty. I like that. Ethan certainly doesn't appreciate it. You know, when he agreed to marry you, he laughed behind closed doors. Said marrying Vincent Moretti's daughter was like buying a dead horse just for the saddle. Did you know your father is drowning in debt? He didn't give Ethan routes; he gave him a target on his back."

The revelation struck like a blow to the solar plexus. My father had told me this union was an honorable alliance, a merging of strengths. Had my father lied to me? Had he sacrificed me to save his own sinking ship?

"Get out," I said, my voice shaking despite my best efforts.

"Why so cold, Clara?" Derek leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Ethan doesn't touch you. Everyone knows it. A gorgeous girl like you, rotting away in this mausoleum. Ethan is sterile, cold, dead inside. But I'm not. You align with me, give me the access to your father’s contacts that Ethan is hiding, and I’ll treat you like the queen you ought to be."

He reached out, his hand sliding toward the curve of my waist.

"Touch her, Derek, and your life ends where you stand."

The voice sounded like thunder rattling across a graveyard.

Derek snapped his head around. Ethan stood framed in the conservatory entrance. He wore no jacket; his white shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, the sleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms laced with veins and dark tattoos. In his right hand, held casually against his thigh, was a semi-automatic Kimber 1911.

His face was an unreadable mask of absolute fury.

Derek took two hasty steps back, raising his hands, his previous bravado evaporating like morning dew. "Easy, Ethan. I was just... checking in on Clara. Making sure our new bride was settling in."

"I told you," Ethan said, taking a single, measured step into the room, "never to cross the threshold into her wing. I told you that once. In this family, you do not get a second warning."

"We're blood, Ethan!" Derek protested, sweat glistening on his upper lip. "You’d threaten your own blood over Moretti’s brat?"

Ethan didn't shout. He moved with an explosive, terrifying speed that took my breath away. In a fraction of a second, Ethan crossed the room, grabbed Derek by the throat, and slammed him against the brick pillar supporting the conservatory arch. The sound of Derek’s skull hitting the stone echoed sickeningly.

The barrel of Ethan’s gun pressed deep under Derek’s jaw, forcing his head back.

"She is my wife," Ethan whispered, each syllable sharp as broken glass. "Her name is Carter. And if you speak to her, look at her, or breathe the same air she breathes without my permission, I will forget who your father was and leave you in pieces at the Russo border. Get out of my sight."

Ethan shoved Derek toward the doorway. Derek gasped for air, coughing, clutching his bruised throat. He shot a venomous glance between Ethan and me before scurrying out like a beaten dog.

Silence descended upon the conservatory, thick, heavy, and suffocating.

Ethan stood breathing heavily, his back turned to me, his shoulders rigid. Slowly, he holstered the weapon behind his back and turned around.

"Did he touch you?" Ethan asked, his voice harsh.

"No," I managed, though my knees felt hollow. "Why do you care, Ethan? If I'm just a dead horse with a saddle, why bother keeping the flies away?"

Ethan froze. The color in his gray eyes shifted, darkening to charcoal. He stepped toward me, closing the distance until I could smell the dark cedar, leather, and faint hint of rain clinging to his skin.

"Is that what he told you?" Ethan murmured, his gaze dropping to my lips before rising to pin my eyes.

"Isn't it true?" I challenged, my chin trembling. "You told Derek on our wedding day that I was breeding stock. You told Brian you never wanted me. And now you play the jealous husband? Pick a role, Ethan. Because I am sick of living in your cage."

For three agonizing seconds, Ethan said nothing. He looked at me as though he wanted to tear the world apart with his bare hands—or pull me against him until neither of us could breathe.

"You have no idea what kind of cage you're in, Clara," he said softly, a dark, tragic edge in his voice. "And you have no idea what I'm keeping outside of it."

Before I could demand an explanation, Brian’s urgent voice crackled over the radio clipped to Ethan’s belt.

*"Boss. We have a situation at the southern gate. Vehicles approaching. Not ours."*