Chapter 1

After a car crash, I lost all my memories.

Salvatore Calderone, the heir to the Family that had bled mine for generations, let his people draw lots for a bride the way they'd divide a dead man's territory, and my name came up. Naively, I accepted the alliance pact.

On our wedding night, a house servant of the Calderone estate was assaulted in one of their hotels and threw herself from a window to her death.

When the call reached Salvatore, he set the phone down without a flicker and turned back to our bridal bed as though nothing in the world had happened.

Our days looked quiet, the way still water looks quiet over something drowned. Until the day I gave birth.

As the agony tore through me, he bound me to a chair.

"Faking amnesia? Marrying into the Calderone Family? Setting someone up to humiliate Gemma Russo?"

Salvatore gripped my chin and sneered, "Adriana Bellucci, you make me sick."

"Oh, and just now? Your Family's fronts collapsed. Your parents jumped."

I watched myself bleed out, my breath fading, drowning in pain and despair.

His hatred was real. He left my body out past the tree line, for the animals, the way you dispose of a debt no one will collect. My soul lingered. Then I opened my eyes, back on the day of the crash.

Beside the cot in the Family's underground clinic, Donna Calderone smiled at me, warm as poisoned wine. "Adriana, you and Salvatore have been at each other's throats since you were children. You're perfect for each other..."

I threw off the covers, revealing the hired outsider stretched beside me, a man planted for show, fair-skinned, every muscle sculpted.

"Forgive me, Donna," I said coolly. "Him and me? Now there's a perfect match."

——

"You. Shameless little—" Donna Calderone shook with rage at the sight. She swept out and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frame.

I tapped my fingers lightly against the edge of the cot.

My first move after being reborn: I'd had my kitchen aide smuggle a man into my room.

"Relax, Boss," he winked. "I'll sell it better than the real thing."

The door flew open. Salvatore stormed in with Gemma at his heel. His eyes found the man in my bed and went dark with fury.

"What did you say to my mother to send her out of here like that?"

"You're staging little scenes just to drag my eyes back to you?" he sneered. "A shame. I prefer women who know how to behave."

I held his gaze without moving. "Who are you? Forgive me, I was in a crash. I don't remember a thing."

"Still faking?" Salvatore seized my chin. "You're terrible at this."

Just as before, I threw the covers back. The hired man stretched lazily and smirked up at him. Salvatore's pupils shrank to pinpoints. Then he slapped me, hard.

"You bitch."

"Signore Calderone~" Gemma purred. "Miss Bellucci is so wild. If she really came into your Family, who knows what scandal she'd bring down on the name?"

I wiped the blood from my lip. "Who said I wanted to marry into your Family? Who do you think you are?"

"Still pretending?" Salvatore locked a hand around my wrist. "You've chased me for years just to be noticed."

I wrenched my arm free and spat every word: "I won't marry you."

He scoffed. He straightened his watch, shot his cuffs, that small vain reset. "Still playing the untouchable? Even if you were lying here naked, I wouldn't put a hand on you. I like women who are gentle."

His eyes cut to Gemma. She colored on cue. I yawned. "Finished? I need to sleep. The door's that way."

The veins stood out at Salvatore's temple. "Fine. Keep at it. When you come crawling to me, don't expect mercy."

Bang. The door slammed shut.

The instant it did, Gemma glanced back to flash me a smug, victorious smile.