Chapter 1

On the way back from the precinct, after Dante Moretti’s lawyers posted my bail, I told him I wanted a divorce.

“Elara, there’s a limit to how childish you can be.”

I looked at Dante, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as he focused on the road, and I had to laugh.

“I’ve thought this through.”

“Dante,” I said, turning to face him, my gaze hard as steel, “let’s just let each other go.”

…

The Maserati sat idling on the shoulder of the highway.

The temperature inside the car had dropped to absolute zero.

“The reason.”

Dante’s voice was as cold as the glint of a knife.

“Give me a reason. What kind of tantrum are you throwing this time?”

I looked at him and felt the utter pointlessness of it all. I rolled down the window, gestured with my chin to the Porsche that had been tailing us, and said:

“I bet, in less than ten seconds, someone is going to come knocking.”

I started a confident countdown.

“Ten.”

“Nine.”

“Eight.”

Before I even hit seven, a slender figure was already out of the Porsche. The girl walked up to my window, her eyes red-rimmed and brimming with tears.

“Elara, I swear this wasn't supposed to happen,” she choked out. Her name was Isabella, Dante’s personal aide. “I only suggested getting his suit because he had to go to the fundraising gala with the mayor. I swear, I didn’t know you were back at the estate, sleeping. I especially didn’t know you’d mistake me for an intruder and call the cops.”

“This is all my fault. Please, don’t fight with Dante because of me. I’m begging you.”

“If you’re really that unhappy,” Isabella grabbed my hand and started to raise it toward her own face, “just hit me.”

“Hit me, and let it all out.”

My hand was being pulled forward.

It was about to make contact.

Dante’s voice cut through the air, sharp as a gunshot. “Elara. Where the hell is your class?”

“Have you lost your goddamn mind?”

I found it all so laughable.

See?

I didn’t have to do a thing. I could just sit here, and it would still somehow be my fault.

I yanked my hand back and turned to face Dante.

“Do you get it now?”

“Dante,” I felt a cold numbness spread through me, the pain so deep it was beyond tears, “this is the reason.” I unbuckled my seatbelt.

“Dante, let’s get a divorce.”

I opened the car door. Under the shocked, yet secretly delighted, gaze of Isabella, I looked at her and smiled.

“Congratulations. After all these years of worming your way into every corner of my life with Dante, you’re finally about to get what you want.”

“I don’t want him anymore.”

I turned to walk away.

Dante scrambled out of the car, his hand locking around my wrist like a vise.

“Elara, what the fuck is wrong with you? Do you have any idea that because you called the cops, I missed the sit-down with the O’Connors? A deal worth a hundred million just went up in smoke! Just because you said you were scared, I dropped everything and raced to that precinct like a madman, only to find out you had my own goddamn aide arrested!”

“I have been putting up with your shit for a long time.”

“You pick on Izzy for every little thing, and she’s always defending you, telling me not to be angry, telling me we need to be a family! Don’t be so fucking ungrateful!”

His grip was painfully tight, digging into the old, faint scar on my wrist, making it burn. I winced, looking at the angry red marks forming on my skin.

“Let go!”

I ripped my hand away and rubbed my aching wrist. Then, I raised my hand and slapped Dante across the face.

“Dante Moretti!”

“I’ve been putting up with your shit for a long time, too!”

Dante and I had been together for ten years.

We had fought, we had argued, we had given each other the silent treatment, but I had never, ever humiliated the Don of the Moretti family in front of his people like this. But I was done. I looked him straight in the eye and let it all out.

“Let me tell you something. When I was in the hospital with a fever that could have killed me, you were with your aide, brokering a deal down at the docks. When my car was run off the road, you were with your aide at the safe house in the mountains ‘clearing your head.’ Every single time I needed you, you chose her! And today!”

I stared at him, my voice shaking with rage.

“You gave your aide the security codes to our home! While I was sleeping off my medication, you let her walk into our bedroom to get your things! And after I called the police, you didn’t give a damn about me. All you cared about was getting her out of that holding cell!”

“Dante Moretti!”

“We are completely and totally over!”