Chapter 2

My chest went cold.

Lucia hid behind Christian as if I were some kind of monster, yet a blatant provocation flashed in her eyes.

Seeing my stunned expression, she reached out and gripped Christian's arm tightly.

The diamond ring on her hand dazzlingly bright.

"Christian." Her voice was soft. Just loud enough for me to hear. "Today is our anniversary. We're going to miss the show."

I looked past them at the screen on the wall.

January 22nd.

Their wedding anniversary. The same date Christian had promised to propose to me. The same date, five years ago, that I buried him.

At that funeral, his family circled me like I was already guilty.

I knelt. I said sorry until my voice gave out, until my knees bled through my dress.

You killed him. You should have died instead. Why are you still breathing?

I'd spent five years trying to answer that last question.

If I hadn't gone into that warehouse after him, none of it would have happened.

I walked straight into a rival ambush. Christian came back for me.

He took the bullet that was meant for him and lost his only way out. The explosion brought the whole building down.

But he hadn't died.

He'd been alive this whole time — with a wife, with a daughter.

My eyes were dry. I had nothing left to cry with. I stared at him for a long time.

Lucia kept tugging at his sleeve, and his mother came forward again.

"Christian had no choice, Elena, you don't understand how complicated—"

"How complicated," I said. "Right."

I took one step toward him. He took one step back.

"I married you," I said. "You know that? After your funeral. Your mother gave me permission to take your name.

"I stood at the altar in a white dress and held a photograph of your face and swore the widow's oath with my own blood."

Christian went white.

Lucia pressed her daughter's face into her shoulder.

"I thought I owed you my life," I said. "I spent five years trying to pay it back."

Christian reached for me. I stepped back.

"Don't touch me."

I looked at the little girl half-asleep on Lucia's shoulder.

"What's her name," I said.

Christian's hand moved to his cuff.

"Nova," he said.

Nova. New life. The name he'd promised me four years into what I thought was ours, lying in bed one night talking about the future.

If we ever have a daughter, I want to call her Nova.

That was his wish. He'd given it to someone else.

I reached up and unclasped the cross necklace from my throat. The one I'd worn every day since his funeral.

I dropped it into the trash can by the nurses' station.