Chapter 1

Everyone on the Harbor City waterfront knew I was Don Rizzo's most cherished little cripple.

Five years ago he pulled me out of the blast, kept me at his side, and fitted the prosthetic to my leg with his own hands.

He'd held me — a girl who'd lost both parents in a single night — and made me a promise. "There now. From now on, I'm your family."

From that day on, I became the crown jewel of the Rizzo Family's public face, the orphan the newspapers loved.

Under his grooming, I rose to become the Family's consigliera-in-waiting, the legal mind that kept his empire clean on paper.

The made men needled me sometimes, over cards and cheap wine. "Isabella, you and the Don have got to be tying the knot soon~"

I thought of those two lines on the test yesterday, and I started wondering myself when he'd finally ask.

Then the paparazzi caught him out past the county line, sheltering from the rain with his arm wrapped tight around a country girl, her skin snow-pale, his whole posture protective, doting.

I buried every whisper of the scandal, called in every favor I had with the newspapers, clutched my pregnancy test result, and drove up into the mountains through the night.

The rain came down in sheets, and yet, standing just outside the safe house where he was staying, I heard his low words to Marco, his enforcer, every one of them clear.

"Marry her? She's a cripple, how could I? If that blast back then hadn't been meant for me, why would I have bothered pulling her out of it like some saint?"

"Gianna's father, though, he took a bullet for me down at the docks. I owe her a life. Of course I'll keep her safe."

I stumbled backward and fell, hard and helpless, into the cold mud.

Watching Salvatore Rizzo's silhouette as he soothed the woman through the lit window, my heart went to ash.

I wiped my eyes dry and dialed a number. "Dominic Falcone. You once said you wanted me to help you bring the Rizzos down. Does that still stand?"

——

The answer came back fast, that head-tilted stillness audible even down the line. "Of course it stands. Why. Did he do something to you?"

"Word on the waterfront says the great consigliera Isabella Marchetti and Don Rizzo are about to have their happy day. I never thought you'd be the one calling me."

Yes. I'd thought so too — that we'd reach the altar soon enough.

I'd even rehearsed a thousand times in my head how I'd tell him about the child.

But what Salvatore had just admitted was damning, word for word. I couldn't lie to myself.

I offered no explanation, only said I'd be in touch again.

Dominic agreed.

I hung up, forced my feelings down, and still I pushed open that thin door.

Salvatore had his back to me, using the silk handkerchief I'd given him — the one he treasured so much he never let another soul touch it — to gently dry a woman's hair.

That gentleness. Softer than when he'd dressed the raw wound of my severed leg.

A sharp pain twisted through my chest, and I stopped where I stood.

"Isabella?" Marco spoke first, his hand going still at his side.

Only then did Salvatore turn around. Surprise flickered across his face and was gone.

Soon there was nothing left but the same warmth he always showed me.

"Isabella?" He set down the handkerchief and crossed the room, brows drawn in mild reproach. "Rain like this, and you drove all the way up here? Those mountain roads aren't safe for anyone."

His warm palm steadied me as naturally as anything, as if it carried nothing but blazing concern.

But just now, those same hands had held someone else, dried someone else's hair.

"Damage control on the scandal. Thought I'd stop by and see you while I was up this way." I kept my voice as even as I could, though my eyes drifted, beyond my control, to the woman by the fire.

She was pale all over, her gaze timid and shrinking.

She scrambled to her feet. "This must be the Isabella the Don always talks about? Please, sit, I'll bring you some hot water."

The Don's Isabella?

Salvatore had introduced me to men that way countless times, but he'd always add one line at the end. "And she's my woman."

People often laughed, "Don Rizzo, what luck you have. A woman this capable, beautiful and sharp both."

And Salvatore would always laugh, arm around me, pleased before the whole table.

But now that name, landing on my ears from her mouth, grated no matter how I heard it.

Once Gianna finished speaking, she rose in a hurry, bare feet pressing onto the cold floor. For the briefest fraction of a second, before she caught herself, the trembling in her lip stopped and her gaze went flat.

Salvatore let go of me at once, bent to pick up the slippers nearby, and crouched down with the most natural ease to hold Gianna's ankle. "The floor's freezing. How many times have I told you to wear shoes." The tenderness in his voice, that indulgence — I'd never once heard it.