Chapter 3

For one suspended moment, it felt as though the entire ballroom had ceased to exist.

Lucian stared at me in stunned silence. The arrogant Don who had always carried himself as though nothing in the world could touch him had disappeared, leaving behind a man whose pride had just been brutally wounded.

His hand tightened around my arm until his fingers began to leave painful marks against my skin.

“Repeat that,” he said, his voice dropping into a trembling whisper. The amusement was gone, replaced by something far more dangerous. “Who was he, Alessia? Tell me who you were with.”

Arabella immediately sensed that something had gone terribly wrong.

Lucian was supposed to make me feel small. He was supposed to expose me as the pathetic ex-wife who had supposedly come crawling back for attention. Instead, he was staring at me as though the thought of another man touching me had driven him completely out of his mind.

Fear flickered across Arabella's face.

This wasn't how she had imagined tonight unfolding.

“Lucian, enough!” she protested, hurrying toward him and grabbing the sleeve of his tuxedo. “She's only saying that because she wants to provoke you. You know she's unstable. Please, don't let her ruin this evening. Everyone is watching us.”

“Get your hands off me, Arabella.”

Lucian jerked his arm away so violently that she stumbled backward.

For the first time all evening, he didn't even seem to remember that his pregnant wife was standing beside him.

His attention remained fixed entirely on me.

“Tell me who he is,” he demanded, closing the distance between us until I could feel the heat coming from his body. “Who did you let touch you?”

His expression was furious, almost frantic, yet I felt no fear as I looked into his eyes.

Instead, something about his desperation dragged an old memory from the deepest corner of my mind.

Once, I had been terrified of seeing anger in those eyes.

I had loved Lucian with the kind of devotion that made a woman blind to everything she should have noticed. During our first year of marriage, I had believed every affectionate gesture and every whispered promise.

I could still remember those nights when he would pull me onto his lap inside his dimly lit study, burying his face against my neck as though my presence was the only thing capable of bringing him peace.

“You're the one good thing in a life surrounded by darkness,” he had murmured against my skin. “You're the woman who stands beside me as Queen of the Syndicate. No one will ever lay a hand on you. I'll destroy anyone who dares hurt you, because you're mine, Alessia. You always will be.”

I had been foolish enough to believe him.

I had treated his love like something sacred, convinced that I was different from everyone else who feared him. I thought I had somehow reached the humanity buried beneath the ruthless Don's reputation.

What a cruel joke that had been.

His tenderness had never been love. It had simply been another chain, carefully disguised so the woman traded away to settle her family's debt would remain obedient.

That memory slowly gave way to another, far more painful one.

The night I walked out of the hospital three years ago.

I had nothing left by then. My body was weak from blood loss, my heart had been destroyed, and the divorce papers were already signed. I had surrendered the mansion, the money, and whatever remained of the family I thought I had built with Lucian.

Even the child I had carried had become nothing more than another wound he had refused to acknowledge.

Outside the hospital, freezing rain poured from the sky.

I remember standing there without knowing where to go.

I had been so empty that I considered simply lying down on the pavement and allowing the cold to take me.

Then a black Maybach stopped in front of me.

The vehicle was heavily armored, its dark windows reflecting the storm. A moment later, the rear door opened, and a man stepped into the rain beneath a large black umbrella.

I knew who he was.

Everyone in our world did.

He was another Don, but unlike Lucian, his name was spoken in hushed voices even by men who feared nothing. He controlled an empire built in the shadows and was the one rival the Syndicate had never managed to eliminate.

Lucian's greatest enemy.

The man everyone whispered about as though he were something less than human.

Yet when he saw me standing there soaked and shivering, he didn't offer me pity.

He studied me.

His gaze moved over my bruised arms, my ruined clothes, and my exhausted face with the cold precision of a man assessing a situation rather than comforting a victim.

“You've been stripped of everything,” he said, his deep voice almost swallowed by the rain.

Then he extended his gloved hand.

“Come with me. I'll give you a new identity, a place no one can reach, and enough power to make the people who destroyed you regret ever crossing your path. In return, you give me your loyalty and become part of my family.”

I looked down at my battered hands.

Then I looked at the man standing before me—the one person Lucian had spent years trying to defeat.

When I finally placed my hand in his, I wasn't simply accepting his protection.

I was choosing a side.

I was walking away from the Syndicate, severing Lucian's hold over my life, and placing my future in the hands of the one man he feared most.

That was the betrayal Lucian was so desperate to know about.

And choosing that man had been the best decision I had ever made.

The memory dissolved, and suddenly I was back beneath the dazzling chandeliers, staring into my ex-husband's furious face.

Lucian's breathing had become heavy.

He shook my arm again, his patience completely gone.

“Give me his name!” he snarled. “Tell me who he is, and I'll find him myself. I'll make certain he regrets ever coming near you.”

Then he snapped his fingers.

Almost immediately, four heavily armed Syndicate enforcers emerged from different corners of the ballroom.

A nervous murmur swept through the guests.

Lucian's eyes never left mine.

“You're not going anywhere,” he said, his voice turning frighteningly calm. “Not until you tell me which man you gave yourself to.”

I glanced down at his hand around my arm before meeting his gaze again.

“You lost the right to control me the moment you divorced me.”

My voice remained remarkably steady despite the chaos unfolding around us.

“So take your hand off me, Lucian. Because if you don't, my husband will make you regret it.”

For a second, Lucian simply stared.

Then a harsh laugh escaped him.

“Your husband?” His expression twisted with contempt. “You expect me to believe some nobody outside our world can protect you from me?”

His fingers tightened around my arm.

“I am the Don of the Syndicate. If this imaginary husband of yours thinks he can stand against me, I'll put a bullet through him right in front of you. Then I'll take you back myself, whether you want to return or not.”