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

For two days, the west wing smelled of antiseptic, copper, and fever.

The syndicate doctor, an elderly, poker-faced man named Dr. Ross who had spent thirty years patching up Chicago’s underworld, managed to extract the hollow-point round from Ethan’s side. The bullet had missed his spleen by millimeters, but a severe infection set in, driving his temperature dangerously high.

Martha and Brian had tried to urge me to rest in my own wing, but I refused. I washed the soot from my skin, changed into a simple cotton sweater and trousers, and pulled an armchair right beside Ethan’s bed.

I sat there through the long, quiet nights, wringing out cool cloths and pressing them to his burning forehead.

Stripped of his tailored suits and his icy authority, Ethan looked shockingly vulnerable. Deep scars crisscrossed his torso—remnants of past betrayals, car bombings, and knife fights. He was a man made of scars, each one a monument to a survival that had cost him his humanity.

On the third night, the storm broke outside. Thunder rumbled over Lake Michigan, rattling the leaded windows of his bedroom.

Ethan began to thrash, his breathing shallow and erratic.

"No," he muttered in the grip of a nightmare, his brow furrowing deeply. "Keep her away. Put her in the east wing. Don't let them... don't let Derek see."

I leaned forward, dipping a cloth into the bowl of ice water and resting it gently against his cheek. "Ethan. Wake up. You're home. You're safe."

At the sound of my voice, his eyes cracked open. They were glassy, unfocused, burning with fever, but when they locked onto mine, a sudden, piercing clarity shot through them.

"Clara?" he croaked, his voice like gravel grinding on stone.

"I'm here," I said softly, smoothing his damp hair away from his forehead. "Drink some water."

I held a glass with a straw to his lips. He swallowed greedily, then sank back into the pillows, his chest heaving with exertion. He didn't look away from me. His hand, heavy and burning hot, reached out across the sheets and found mine, his fingers intertwining with mine with desperate strength.

"Why are you here?" he whispered, searching my face as though expecting a mirage. "You hate me. You looked at me at the altar like I was your executioner."

My throat tightened. The hurt I had carried for three months flared up, bitter and raw. "You told Derek and Brian that you never wanted me. You called me breeding stock. You said I was just an alliance to keep the Russos from taking your south docks."

Ethan shut his eyes tightly, a groan escaping his chest that had nothing to do with his bullet wound.

"You heard," he whispered, the realization hitting him like a blow. "That day... outside the study."

"Every word," I said, a tear slipping down my cheek. "You made sure I knew my place before the priest even finished the vows."

Ethan opened his eyes again. The fever made him raw, stripped of every defense mechanism he had built since childhood.

"Derek was working with Russo even then," Ethan rasped, his grip on my hand tightening until it almost hurt. "I knew there were listening bugs in that room. I knew Derek wanted to see if I had a weakness. If Derek thought I cared for you, Clara... if the Russos thought you meant anything more to me than a political contract, they would have butchered you within twenty-four hours to break me."

I froze, the air leaving my lungs in a stunned gasp. "What?"

"I had to make them believe you were nothing to me," Ethan confessed, his voice breaking with an emotion so deep it terrified me. "I put you in the east wing with double the security guards hidden in plain sight. I stayed away because every time I looked at you... every time I smelled your perfume or heard you laugh in the garden... I wanted to burn Chicago to the ground just to keep you safe."

My breath hitched. The room seemed to tilt on its axis.

"You lied?" I whispered.

"I lied to save your life," Ethan said, his gray eyes shining with unshed tears. "I’ve spent thirty-seven years living in hell, Clara. You were the only clean, pure thing that ever crossed my threshold. But I'm a monster. And I thought... if I kept my distance, I wouldn't poison you."

He reached up with trembling fingers, brushing the tear from my cheek. His touch was reverent, tender, utterly contrary to the feared kingpin of Chicago.

"I wanted you, Clara," he whispered, his voice fading as exhaustion pulled at his consciousness once more. "From the very first moment your father brought you to my office. I wanted you so badly it terrified me."

His hand slipped from my cheek, his eyes fluttering shut as the sedative took over.

I sat there in the dark, my hand pressed against my cheek where his skin had burned mine, my entire world turned inside out. The husband who had broken my heart on my wedding day hadn't discarded me.