Chapter 1

Introduction

The year I turned 18, Adrian Moretti killed a man for me.

He saved me from my father, who'd been beating me for years. He stayed by my side in the years that followed. We started at the bottom of a New York shipping company and clawed our way into the Moretti family's inner circle.

We bled together and lost a child together. Together, we took a name no one had respected and turned it into a force no one on the East Coast could ignore.

So when I found more than 1,000 photos of a woman I didn't know on his backup phone, hatred wasn't my first reaction.

I just wanted a divorce.

But Adrian fed the papers into the shredder.

"We agreed back then. A Moretti marriage only ends one way.

"Death."

Later, I found the truth in files from ten years ago. That kidnapping had cost me my baby and left me too afraid to go anywhere alone for years. It hadn't just been bad luck.

Adrian had known about it ahead of time.

He'd even pulled the backup team himself.

He just wanted me to be afraid.

He wanted me to go back to being the girl who only felt safe hiding behind him.

That was when I finally understood what had trapped me.

It had never been another woman.

It was the man who'd once set me free, and then built me a brand-new cage with his own hands.

The year I turned 18, Adrian Moretti killed a man for me.

The man was my father.

It was pouring in New York that day. My father got drunk, dragged me out of our apartment, and pinned me against the railing of the fire escape. When Adrian burst in, my father was still clutching a broken bottle.

Afterward, the police took Adrian away. He looked at me through the window of the squad car, blood at the corners of his mouth.

"Don't cry, Serafina.

"No one will ever get to hit you just because they're family."

That was the first time I believed someone could really pull me out of the dark.

Adrian spent a few years in prison for using excessive force while defending me.

By the time he got out, I was 22 and working as an entry-level assistant in the accounting office of a dockside shipping company. We had no money and no connections. The only people we knew were a few guys willing to run boats at night for cash.

But Adrian was a fearless gambler.

And I was even bolder with the numbers.

Ten years later, Moretti was a name no one in East Coast shipping circles could ignore.

We'd been married for seven years, and every one of his passwords was still my birthday.

Then I found photos of a woman I didn't know on his backup phone.

More than 1,000 photos.

Her in a college auditorium, at a riding stable, by the ocean, in a hospital room, and in Adrian's bed.

In the last few, she'd started to show.

In the photos, Adrian was still wearing his wedding ring.

I put the divorce papers in front of him.

Adrian barely glanced at them.

"I'm not signing."

"Why not?"

He leaned back in his chair, like we were discussing some contract that didn't matter.

"We agreed back then. A Moretti marriage only ends one way.

"Death."

I looked at him.

"That was something stupid we said when we were 20."

"I never thought it was stupid."

He folded the papers and fed them into the shredder.

The machine chewed them up with a low grinding sound.

"Sera, we don't get divorced.

"Our marriage only ends in death."

The woman's name was Livia Caruso.

She was seven years younger than me.

The night my divorce papers were shredded, she called me herself.

"Mrs. Moretti, you must have seen the photos by now."

Her voice was sweet, with the kind of innocence that comes from being protected a little too well.

"Adrian has been taking care of me since I was 19.

"You've been married all these years without a single child, and I'm the one who's pregnant. Don't you get it yet?"

I didn't answer.

She sent me about 12 more photos.

Hotel key cards.

A yacht.

Adrian bending down to tie her shoe.

And a report from a prenatal checkup.

The next day, Livia showed up at my office.

My assistant tried to stop her, but Livia only smiled at her.

"Mrs. Moretti knows me."

I told them to let her in.

She was wearing a white dress and kept stroking her belly, though she wasn't showing yet.

"My father, Vincent Caruso, died because of Adrian.

"He promised to take care of me for the rest of my life.

"You should understand."

I looked up.

"Understand what?

"That 'taking care of you' means taking you to a hotel room?"

The smile on her face froze for a second.

Then it came right back.

"I just came to tell you I won't let my baby be born a bastard.

"You'd better step aside."

I pressed the intercom button.

"Security."

Two female guards came in.

I pointed at the door.

"Please show Ms. Caruso out."

Livia's expression changed.

"Serafina, you think you can lay a hand on me?"

"I haven't touched you," I said.

"This is my office. You barged in without an appointment, and you're interrupting my work.

"As for who Adrian loves—"

I pushed the prenatal report she'd brought with her back across the desk.

"He can come tell me himself."

Sure enough, Adrian came home that night.

He didn't ask whether she'd bothered me.

The first thing out of his mouth was about her.

"Livia's pregnant. She's emotional.

"Don't provoke her."

I let out a laugh.

"So when she shows up at my office to push me out, I'm the one provoking her?"

Adrian rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Her father died because of me. I owe her."

"Can you stop hiding behind that line every time something happens?"

"Sera."

His voice dropped.

"She's young. She doesn't know any better.

"You're different."

I looked at him.

So "different" meant she got to make mistakes, and I had to be the reasonable one.