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“Our marriage contract says you can’t relocate me without my consent.”

“I know.”

“Neither spouse conceals an active threat or a plan involving the other.”

“I know what I signed.”

The answer made something inside me crack.

“Then you didn’t forget.”

“I didn’t forget.”

“You made a promise to me,” I pleaded.

Sergei’s face hardened. “Dmitry took a shot at you. You will be safer in Sicily with your father.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know every perimeter we have used has been breached. Nocturne. My house. The gallery. Even a controlled meeting site no Volkov should have known existed.” His voice remained low, but the strain beneath it roughened every word. “Dmitry does not need to win a war. He only needs one clear line to you. He showed me that tonight.”

“And Palermo gives him none?”

“Raffaele can put hundreds of men between you and the nearest gate.”

Then it hit me.

“You’re staying here without me,” I said accusingly.

“I finish this with Dmitry.”

“And if he kills you too?”

“He won’t.” Sergei stepped closer. “Alessia, listen to me. I would rather have you hate me alive than love me dead.”

“You sound exactly like my father.”

Sergei stopped cold, almost like I’d slapped him, but I continued anyway.

“He sent money, men, and instructions from across an ocean, then called the absence protection because that word sounded nobler than fear.”

“This is different.”

“Of course you think it is.”

“Alessia—”

“You both decided loving me gave you the right to abandon me first.”

“I’m not abandoning you.”

“You packed a bag, scheduled a guarded flight, and planned to put me behind walls in another country while you fought the war we agreed to face together.”

“I’m doing this to keep you alive.” Sergei’s control slipped then, not with anger, but with fear. “For the second time, a bullet passed within inches of your head, and I didn’t stop it, couldn’t stop it.”

“I know. I was there.”

“Dmitry could have killed you right then and there, and I couldn’t have stopped it.”