Clark Dixon Immediato

My husband pressed a gun into another woman's hand—on our first anniversary—and told her to shoot me if I ever spoke to her like that again. I stood frozen in our marble foyer, three weeks pregnant with his child he didn't know about, still holding the anniversary cake I'd baked myself. The woman was Bianca. His first love. The capo's daughter who'd vanished four years ago to marry into a rival family, then crawled back to him last month with a bruised cheek and a tragic story. "She's in danger, Aria," Dante had told me the night he moved her into the east wing. "Her husband beats her. I owe her my protection. I'm the reason she left the family in the first place." That was always his answer. He owed her. He'd hurt her. She suffered because of him. What about me? I had married Dante Moretti through a blood alliance between our families—my father's debt paid in my body and my name. No proposal. No love. Just my hand placed in his by a priest who looked terrified of him. But God help me, I had tried. One year of running his estate like a fortress. One year of memorizing the names of every soldier, every enemy, every threat. One year of sleeping beside a man who killed without flinching but had started, somewhere along the way, to hold me at night like I was something worth keeping. I thought we were building something. The way he'd taught me to load a pistol with his hands over mine. The way he left espresso on my nightstand before dawn meetings. The way he'd kissed my shoulder once and called me moglie—wife—like it meant more than ink on a contract. Then Bianca came back, and everything I thought we had turned to ash. Tonight was supposed to be ours. Dante had promised. A private dinner on the terrace, just us, away from the family, away from the war. I had cooked for six hours. New dress. The pearl earrings he gave me at our wedding. When I came downstairs, Dante was already in the foyer—standing close to Bianca, his hand on her waist, the two of them laughing at something I'd never hear. "Dante? The terrace is ready—" "Change of plans." He didn't look at me. "Bianca got a threat from her husband's men today. She's shaken. I'm taking her to the safe house personally." "But tonight was—" "It can wait." He finally glanced at me. Annoyed. "You'll survive one night, Aria. She might not." Bianca peeked from behind his shoulder, her eyes glassy with practiced tears. "I'm so sorry, Aria. I told him not to ruin your evening. I can stay—" "No," Dante said, sharp. "You're coming with me where I can protect you." Then he did it. He pressed his backup pistol into her trembling hand and folded her fingers around it. "Anyone touches you, you pull this trigger. And if she—" his eyes flicked to me, cold "—ever makes you feel unwelcome in my home again, you point it at her instead." The door closed behind them. The house went silent. I stood there in my new dress, anniversary cake melting in my hands, one palm pressed flat against my stomach. I had planned to tell him about the baby tonight. Now I wasn't sure I'd live long enough to.

I woke at 2 AM and reached for him out of habit. His side of the bed was cold. Not empty-cold. Gone-for-hours cold. I lay there staring at the ceiling of our penthouse, listening to rain slap the glass in long, uneven sheets, and I noticed the thing I'd been training myself not to notice. Perfume. Not mine. Something warm and floral, the kind that only sinks into a man's collar after hours of skin against skin. It was woven into the cotton beside me, deep enough that it hadn't faded yet. I didn't cry. I'd stopped crying somewhere around the third month of feeling like a ghost in my own marriage. His phone sat on the nightstand, screen still glowing. Adrian never left it unlocked. He'd left in a hurry, then. One thread sat open at the top. Vanessa Cole. The last message, sent at 11:52 PM: Landed. Terminal B. Come get me. I set the phone down at the exact same angle I'd found it. Then I walked to his study and pulled up the building's garage log on his tablet. Adrian Voss. 11:47 PM. Out — board emergency, Westline office. The airport is east. The Westline office is west. A man cannot be in two directions at once. But a liar can write whichever one he needs. I went back to bed. I lay in the dark with my eyes open and his lie still warm beside me, and I did not sleep. In the morning he was back. Showered, perfect, moving through our bedroom with the ease of a man who has never once been questioned. He kissed the top of my head and told me the board meeting ran late. He told me to take my supplements before breakfast. The ones my new doctor prescribed. The ones Vanessa's clinic compounded special, because my "anxiety" had gotten so bad. "I'll take them in a minute," I said. He nodded and went down to the kitchen. I waited until I heard the espresso machine. Then I opened the supplement case I'd swallowed from every morning for eight months. The powder inside the capsule was pale. White. I twisted one open over the marble counter and stared at it, trying to remember what it used to look like. Faintly gold. There'd been a warm amber tint once. This had no color. Only a chemical bitterness that sat at the back of my throat before I'd even touched it. I sealed the capsule in a plastic bag, tucked it inside the locked jewelry box under the sink, and went downstairs to have breakfast with my husband. He smiled at me over his coffee like I was the most precious thing he owned. I smiled back. And somewhere between 2 AM and the pale powder on the counter, I made my first decision in eight months. I picked up a pen, and I started a list.