Chapter 1

My fiancé is sitting in a high-stakes back room at The Velvet Room, betting his whole life away.

For a woman who isn't me.

Just to walk out the door with his ex-girlfriend Celeste Moore, the one the Bratva just shipped off to work the floors of a red-light joint.

And her three friends.

Two rounds in, Damien has already lost the Patek Philippe I clasped onto his wrist the day he made VP.

And one third of Aurora Capital. The boutique fund in my name.

The shares I quietly signed into his name a year ago, under the polite cover of "investing in his future."

Round three.

Viktor, the man behind The Velvet Room leans across the felt and tells him to bet the thing he loves most.

Damien doesn't blink.

He slides off the platinum cufflinks at his wrists. The ones I had engraved for our engagement.

He smacks them down dead center on the table.

His voice carries clean across the floor — calm like he's closing a deal.

"If I lose—"

"I'll break off my engagement to Aurora Castellano. And I'll marry the girl on that stage instead."

"And I'll let Aurora take her place. After all, there's no shame in honest work."

The whole room sucks in a breath.

Everyone down there knows my name.

Aurora Castellano.

Manhattan's Ivy League sweetheart. Heiress to Aurora Capital.

The woman who loved a man enough to give him a third of the empire she was born to inherit.

He's betting I'll come downstairs with a checkbook and bail him out of the three million he just bled into Viktor's table.

So he can keep his perfect Wall Street record clean. And pull his sweetheart out of the fire while he's at it.

I lift my bourbon. I look down at the man I was supposed to marry.

He still has no idea I'm watching.

"If Mr. Cross wants to break our engagement," I murmur, swirling the ice, "and humiliate me like this on the way out—"

"He'd better think about how he's going to explain it to my seven brothers."

Everyone knows the Castellanos have seven heirs spread across Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

The world doesn't know those seven brothers are the real shadow kings of this city.

And they spoil their little sister to death.

......

"Three rounds, Mr. Cross. You're cleaned out."

Viktor, owner of The Velvet Room slams the dice cup onto the felt.

The floor erupts. Drunk laughter. Catcalls.

Damien stands in the middle of it all.

Hands in his pockets. Chin lifted. Not a crack in his face.

He looks up. Straight at my room.

"Aurora. I know you're up there."

His voice cuts through the noise like he's calling me down to him.

"Come down and cover the three million. After tonight—"

"—I swear I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

The room buzzes again.

"The Aurora Capital heiress, bailing out her man's mess?"

"Cross really outdid himself—using his fiancée’s money to save his ex-girlfriend."

I sit in the velvet armchair. I look down at this man again.

Three years of patience curdles in my stomach.

I used to think his coldness was discipline. Focus. The mark of a man going places.

I rewrote his résumé in our second year at Columbia.

I introduced him to the senior partners at company.

I sat in front of my own board and defended him when they asked, why him?

And he took every single piece of it like it was air.

Tonight I see it for what it is — self-righteousness wearing a clean suit.

Damien's brow tightens when I don't move.

He cuts a small look sideways with Celeste's three friends. A nod.

They lift the hems of their dress and storm the stairs.

The first one — Brittany — kicks my door clean off its frame.

The oak slams into the wall.

She crosses the room in four strides. Acrylic nails go straight for the Castellano emerald around my neck.

"Aurora! Damien said pay up! Get your card out and save Celeste already!"

The second one — Madison — folds her arms in the doorway.

"Honestly. The only reason he stayed with a controlling bitch like you was the trust fund."

The third one — Sienna — screeches over her shoulder.

"You're not worth a single hair on Celeste's head! Pay up, or do you actually want to watch him dump you?"

My bodyguard's hand drops to his holster.

Before he doesn't get the gun out.

Four men in black appear out of nowhere and pin his shoulders to the wall.

Damien's private security.

He brought security tonight.

So, all of this is to guard against me.

I stand up.

Brittany's red-tipped nail is one inch from my throat.

I raise my right hand and I slap her across the face with everything I have.

*SLAP.*

She stumbles back three steps and lands on the carpet.

I look her down. The room temperature drops ten degrees.

"You don't get to touch what belongs to a Castellano."

I tilt my head down at her, picking the skin off my knuckle where her acrylic split it.

"Cute manicure. Send the bill to your funeral home."

My voice is quiet. It carries anyway.

Downstairs, Damien tips his head back. His face goes to stone.

"Aurora! Are you serious right now? Slapping a girl who's just trying to help her friend?"

I step to the railing. I meet his eyes.

"You want me to pay three million to save the woman you've been contacting on the side?"

I chuckled softly.

"Damien. Your face is thicker than the walls of this place."