Chapter 3

The address was the top floor of the Aurelia — the tallest tower on the waterfront, owned by the one man my father never said out loud at his own table.

Dante Moretti.

The man who took a slaughtered father's collapsing crew at twenty-four and built something the Table didn't vote on so much as survive. Thirty-three years old. Never photographed smiling. Never photographed with a woman. The Ferrantes had been begging him for a sit-down for two years and he hadn't given them ten minutes.

He was standing at the window when the elevator opened, the whole burning city laid out beneath him like it was his.

Maybe it was.

"You came," he said, without turning.

"You know about my baby." My voice was steadier than I was. "So before anything else — how?"

He turned.

I'd seen one photo of him, grainy, from a courthouse step. Photos lie. Photos don't catch the stillness, or the way his dark eyes moved over my wrecked face — not with pity.

With something that looked, insanely, like fury on my behalf.

"I know everything about everyone I intend to do business with," he said. "Sit down, Miss Vitale."

"I'll stand."

Something flickered at the corner of his mouth. Almost approval.

"Then I'll be fast. In fifty-four minutes, you turn twenty-eight." He lifted a single folded document off the desk. "Happy birthday. Here's my offer. Marry me. Tonight. Before midnight. There's a priest downstairs and a judge in the car."

I laughed. It came out jagged, scraping.

"I was sold at my own wedding twelve hours ago. Is this a sport to you people? Is ruining me a hobby?"

"I don't joke." He said it flatly, and God help me, I believed him. "One year. On paper. You'll want for nothing. Your child is born a Moretti — which means untouchable, in every room that matters. In exchange, I get something I need."

"Why me?" I hated how small it sounded. "You could have anyone. Why me, why tonight, why—"

"Because you're the only woman alive," he said quietly, "that this marriage saves."

The clock on the wall said 11:26.

"What happened to you today wasn't a love triangle, Serafina." My name in his mouth did something electric to my spine. "It wasn't your sister's passion or Rafe's weakness. It was a transaction. Priced months ago. Timed to the hour."

He stepped closer. Close enough that I saw he hadn't slept either.

"Someone paid to have you humiliated in front of every family in this city. Paid to guarantee that at 12:00 tonight, you would be publicly ruined, legally single, and worth exactly nothing. Rafe was the instrument. Your sister was a bonus — she volunteered."

My heart slammed against my ribs. "Who?"

"Marry me and I'll tell you."

"Tell me and I'll consider marrying you!"

"No." He didn't blink. "Because when you hear the name, you're going to come apart. And I need you to come apart after you sign. We have twenty-nine minutes."

"You're insane—"

"Serafina." He held out a pen, and his voice dropped, almost gentle, which was somehow more terrifying than everything else that had happened to me today. "Everything they took from you — the vows, the name, your family, your dignity — none of it was about a man wanting your sister."

"It was about making certain that at midnight, you owned nothing. There's a number attached to your heartbreak. It has nine zeroes."

He paused.

"And the person who set the price has known you since the day you were born."

The pen hovered between us. The clock ticked to 11:31.

"Who?" I whispered. "Who did this to me?"

"Sign," said Dante Moretti, "and I'll say the name."