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PROLOGUE

IRIS

Stone bites through the thin white cotton of my sundress and into my spine. The Mediterranean slams the rocks hundreds of feet below. That roar should scare me. It doesn't. It is the only thing loud enough to drown out my pulse.

Wife.

The word slams around inside my skull like a cracked bell.

Wife. Wife. Wife.

I keep waiting for the word to turn into something I can hold, a date I remember, a dress I chose, or a priest I can hate to his face, and instead it just keeps ringing. Three years of thinking I was healing in the dark, and the whole time I was already signed, sealed, and sitting in someone else's last name. The sea does not care. The stone does not care. My pulse cares too much, slamming so hard I can feel it in my teeth, and I cannot tell if I want to scream or laugh or walk off this cliff just to prove I still belong to myself.

My nails scrape the villa mortar until my fingertips sting. The world is still smoke and ash, the same murky shadows. I have lived in for nearly three years, swimming now with sick gray dots. Cold sweat soaks the back of my neck and the scarlet silk ribbon tied tight across the bridge of my nose, hiding the scarred corners of my eyes.

"Watch your mouth, cousin. That's my wife you're talking about."

Romeo's voice is still in my head, low and certain. He growled it. That dark purr that makes my traitorous body tighten even when I want to rip his throat out.

What the actual fuck?

When do the lies stop? When will people stop playing me like a puppet they can control?

A ragged gasp tears out of me. Panic claws my throat. When did I get married? How do you marry a woman without her goddamn consent?

My mind claws back through the last three years.

After that bloody night in the church, after the stained glass of the Archangel Gabriel shattered and rained down into my open eyes, I woke up in a sterile hospital room smelling of bleach, iodine, and burning skin. My face had been wrapped in thick gauze. The pain had been an endless white-hot flare behind my sockets. I remember Danny sitting beside my bed, weeping into his thick red beard, reeking of stale whiskey. I remember signing medical consent forms with trembling hands, blindly pressing a pen against documents Inga and my father placed beneath my palms while nurses changed my bandages.

Did he slip a marriage license into that stack of paperwork? Did Danny sign me over on the dotted line like a piece of livestock to pay off the debt he owed the Sicilians?

Or worse, did Romeo stand over my sedated body while I was unconscious in the intensive care unit, slipping a gold band onto my finger while my brother Jamie was out hunting the remnants of the Irish mob?

"You made your bed; now lie in it," I had told my father at the Met. Danny gave me away like a coward to save his own skin. Romeo did worse. He claimed me before I could open my ruined eyes and fight.

A wet nose shoves against the crook of my elbow, startling a sharp yelp out of me before a heavy, warm head settles directly into my lap.

"Sofia," I whimper, burying my shaking hands into the short, sleek fur behind her ears.

She whines softly, leaning her entire muscular weight against my bare shins, anchoring me down. Her breath is warm against my knees. The dog he bought me. Trained her to be my eyes, my guide, my guard, and let me call her a miracle. Every meal Inga cooked. Every cup of chamomile laced with melatonin so he could crawl into my bed like a thief. Every breath I took in that Manhattan penthouse belonged to Romeo Messina.

A sob tries to rip up my throat. I lock my jaw until it aches.

No. I will not cry for this bastard. Not anymore. I have cried enough over this ruined life to fill the ocean below. For nearly three years I thought I was healing. I thought I was learning to live in the dark, painting shadows from memory. Instead, I was a prize in a pretty cage, waiting for him to collect.

And last night.

My thighs still burn with bruises, and there is a deep ache on my hips from his fingerprints. Heat slams into my cheeks just thinking about it. He carried me to his bed, laid me on red silk, and ate my cunt like a man starved until I lost my mind and begged. I let him take my virginity. I wrapped my legs around his waist, dug my nails into the ink on his shoulders, and let him fill me while he whispered worship against my ear.

"I'm your dark knight," he promised, right before he ruined me for anyone else.

"Liar," I whisper into the salt air, venom shaking through my voice. "You're not my dark knight. You're the devil in an expensive Italian suit."

Expensive leather clicks on stone, cutting through the wind and making my whole body go rigid.

Sofia's ears lift under my hands before I can pull her close, as if she's a lifeline. She does not growl. She huffs, happy, and her stubby tail taps the pavers.

Traitor dog.