But as I slipped into the waiting car, the leather seat cool against my back, I knew the truth. This wasn't about business. It wasn't about territory or power or the greater good.
This was about possession. About claiming what I'd recognized as mine the moment I saw her face. The car's engine hummed beneath me, vibrating through my body like anticipation.
"Drive," I ordered, settling into the leather seat. In my mind, I could still see her—standing amid chaos, blood-spattered and unbroken, staring out into the darkness.
She'd belong to me before the week was out. In every way that mattered.
CHAPTER 2
Julietta
The sound hit me first. A wet, thick slap like a water balloon bursting against concrete. Then came the spray—warm droplets spattering across my face, my neck, my dress.
Miguel's skull bloomed open before my eyes.
I didn't scream. Didn't move. The ballroom erupted into chaos around me—women shrieking, men shouting commands, security guards drawing weapons—but I remained still, an island of calm in a storm of panic.
Blood trickled down my collarbone, soaking into silk. Miguel's blood. The man I was supposed to marry in less than two years. The man whose children I was supposed to bear.
The man who'd grabbed my ass under the dinner table and whispered what he'd do to me on our wedding night.
But before that—before the grabbing, before the whispers—he'd asked me a question.
"Do you ever wonder what we'd be like if we'd met differently?" Miguel had asked suddenly, his wine glass halfway to his lips.
I'd looked at him, surprised. His hand was still on my thigh under the table, possessive, but his eyes looked almost... sad.
"What do you mean?"
"If we'd met at university. Or a party. If your last name wasn't Altieri and mine wasn't Suarez." He took a drink. "If we were just... people."
For a moment, I saw something human in him. Something that might have been kind in a different life.
"We'd probably never have met at all," I said quietly.
He laughed, bitter. "You're right. We're not people. We're alliances. Contracts. Bloodlines." His hand tightened on my leg, fingers digging in. "Might as well enjoy what we're owed."
And just like that, the almost-human moment died.
I looked away, toward the windows, and wondered if anyone ever escaped what they were born into.
Then his skull bloomed open.
His body slumped at my feet, half his head missing, eyes still open in eternal surprise. I should have been horrified. Traumatized. Instead, I felt... nothing. A vast, echoing emptiness where shock should have been.
"Miss Altieri!" Strong hands gripped my upper arms. One of Father's security men—Dominic, I thought his name was. His face swam before mine, features tight with urgency. "We need to move. Now."
My feet remained rooted to the marble floor. Something made me turn, made me look out through the floor-to-ceiling windowstoward the surrounding buildings. The sensation of being watched prickled across my skin—a phantom touch, intimate and invasive.
Someone was out there. Someone had seen me. Seen through me.
"Miss Altieri!" Dominic's voice sharpened. He didn't wait for a response this time, just wrapped an arm around my waist and half-carried me toward the service exit. My heels skidded across polished marble, leaving faint smears of blood in our wake.
"My father—" I managed, voice sounding distant and hollow to my own ears.
"Secure. We're taking you to a secondary location."
Of course he’d worried about himself first.
