Chapter 2

As my senses came back to me, I instinctively pushed myself up, reaching for the phone.

But Asher suddenly pinned my wrist down and covered me again, biting my lip with a possessive edge that felt almost like punishment.

"Asher..." I breathed out against him, already sensing the jealousy in him.

I didn't resist. Instead, I lifted my arms and wrapped them around his back, threading my fingers through his sweat-damp blond hair.

"Shh. Let him call. Tonight, it's just us."

The darkness in Asher's eyes eased a little.

After the storm finally passed, moonlight spilled over the scattered clothes across the floor.

He lay on his side beside me, tracing the line of my jaw again and again.

"Audrey..." His voice was low and rough. "Do you remember that rainy night in Lower Manhattan nine years ago? A little boy getting beaten in the street, kneeling in the mud and crying."

I froze for a moment.

Asher lowered his thick lashes.

"The old head of the Sterling family—our father—had a wife who couldn't have children. For the sake of the family line, he found our mother and had me and Arthur, a pair of bastard twins. But the Sterling family only needed one heir."

"To prevent a future power struggle, old Sterling made his choice." Asher's voice was so cold it sounded like he was telling someone else's story. "He kept Arthur. As for me and my mother, we became the stain that had to be erased. Old Sterling sent people to trash our run-down apartment in Brooklyn and cut off every road we had left. He wanted me to rot at the bottom of this city like a rat in the gutter—to become useless forever, so I could never threaten Arthur."

Listening to him, I finally remembered that hazy piece of the past.

That year, I had secretly slipped out of the estate.

In the middle of a downpour, I happened to run into a little boy who had been beaten half to death, and his seriously ill mother, who had been thrown out of the hospital because she couldn't pay the medical bills.

Back then, it had only been a passing impulse of pity.

I paid the woman's hospital bill in full and settled the bruised little boy into a motel room.

I left him enough cash to change his fate—and used my connections to get him into a boarding school in Boston.

"That money saved my mother's life. It also remade mine." Asher looked up, and in those eyes identical to Arthur's, there was now a depth of feeling and stubborn devotion that made my heart jolt. "You have no idea. When the family dragged me back and forced me to become Arthur's shadow—his stand-in, even the one they used to take bullets for him during gang wars... the only thing that kept me alive was the girl who came down like an angel that year."

I stared at the face in front of me, so familiar and yet so strange.

In my last life, the owner of this face had swung an ashtray into my skull and shoved me into the freezing sea to be devoured by sharks.

And now, that same face was looking at me with longing so raw, so humble, it almost hurt to see.

In my mind, the seeds of revenge began to take root and spread.

Morning sunlight broke through the thin New York haze.

There was a soft knock at the door.

A maid named Maria came in carrying a tray. On it was a set of cheap, plain clothes.

It was an unspoken rule between the families: dawn had come, and the "shadow" who couldn't be seen was supposed to slip out the back door.

Asher's expression dimmed for a moment.

Without a word, he threw back the covers, ready to reach for the disguise prepared for him.

"Maria." I slipped on a robe, swept the cheap clothes into the trash, and gave the order in a cold voice. "Go to the master closet and bring me Mr. Sterling's custom suit."

The old maid's eyes widened in shock, but under the pressure of my stare, she lowered her head and shakily did as she was told.

When the sharply tailored suit was brought in, I took it from her myself.

Standing in front of Asher, I ran my slender fingers up from his chest, fastening his shirt button by button.

Then I looped the tie around his neck and knotted it into a Windsor.

I leaned close to his ear and whispered in a voice only he could hear,

"Good morning, my dear brother-in-law."

At the sudden roughness of Asher's breathing, I straightened with quiet satisfaction.

I slipped my arm through his stiffened one and raised my voice.

"Let's go downstairs, hubby. We shouldn't keep the capos and the elders of both families waiting at the breakfast table."

The old maid stood off to the side, her frightened eyes darting between me and Asher, not daring to make a sound.

Just as we turned toward the door, the two phones on the nightstand began vibrating at the same time.

I didn't look back.

My fingers locked tightly around Asher's strong arm, and in my heels, I walked out of the room without once turning my head.