Chapter 3

"Baby, you won't believe what just happened. Some woman snuck in pretending to be your mom, dragged along some nobody, and made a huge scene. I handled them."

Julian's voice comes through, clear as anything. "That's my girl. Nice work."

The words land somewhere under my ribs and just sit there.

"I beat them up and you're not even a little mad?" Selene laughs, pleased with herself.

"Why would I be mad? You did what needed to be done."

I stand there with the blood drying stiff on my face, listening to my husband praise the woman who just watched his mother get kicked to the floor.

"So when are you actually coming to see me?" Her voice goes soft, all sugary and needy. "The baby and I miss you like crazy."

"I'm wrapping things up here. These next few weeks are all yours. Every bit of them."

Three years. Three whole years he swore up and down I was the only one, that nobody could compare to me, and here he is handing this woman weeks of his time like it's worth nothing.

I stop holding it together. The tears come without a sound, and I let them.

Right then Margaux's breathing changes again, catching on something that doesn't sound like air at all.

I look down at her.

Her lips are almost blue.

The heartbreak, the anger, all of it drops away. Next to Margaux, none of it matters.

"Julian!" My voice tears out of me. "Julian, it's your mother, she can't breathe, she's dying, you need to get here right now."

The color drops out of Selene's face. She grabs the phone back and hangs up before I can finish.

Then she slaps me across the face, hard enough to leave my ears ringing.

"You've still got a mouth on you, even now?"

I look her dead in the eye. "You already knew who we were. You knew before you ever brought out that bill."

Her eyes widen, just for a second. Then her heel drives into my chest, hard. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

I go down hard, the air knocked clean out of my lungs, and all I can do is lie there and watch Margaux's chest rise and fall slower and slower, thinking she's about to die right here with nobody coming to save her.

Then the door slams open and a dozen men in black file in.

Dante is the first one through.

I've seen my brother handle every kind of situation in my life, but I've never seen him like this.

He crosses the room and drops to one knee beside me. The second he sees the blood, his jaw goes tight.

He lifts a hand and cups my cheek, so careful about it that it almost hurts worse than the hit did.

"Vesper." His voice breaks on my name, raw in a way I've never seen him let anyone see. "Vesper, look at me."

"Dante." That's all I get out before I'm crying too hard to speak, and everything I've been holding down for the last twenty minutes breaks loose all at once.

He stands and turns to Selene. The whole mood of the room shifts with him, and even the guards feel it.

"That was you on the phone," he says, low and even. "Running your mouth."

Selene still hasn't caught on. She crosses her arms and lifts her chin. "This is my restaurant. You want to play hero for this crazy woman, be my guest. But I'm warning you—"

He slaps her across the face before she can finish.

She cries out and stumbles sideways, clutching her cheek, too stunned to get a word out.

Before she can recover, he backhands her again, and she drops straight to the floor, half her face already swelling.

Out past the door, the few customers who followed to watch have gone dead silent, murmuring among themselves about who exactly just walked in with a dozen bodyguards and a line of black cars.

Selene pushes herself up and starts screaming. "You're all finished! My boyfriend owns this restaurant, and when he gets here, none of you are walking out alive!"

"Then call him." Dante doesn't even blink. "I'd love to meet him."

She grabs her phone with a shaking hand and shrieks into it before the call even connects. "Someone's trying to kill me! Me and the baby! Get here now!"

Behind me, Dante's men already have the restaurant's guards facedown on the floor without breaking a sweat. Someone helps me into a chair and starts working on the cuts on my face. Two others lift Margaux onto a stretcher, her breathing still weak and ragged, and move fast toward the door.

Dante crouches down by my chair. "Rest," he says. "I've got this."

They're carrying Margaux out when the door bursts open again.

It's Julian.

He shoves past the stretcher without even glancing down to see who's lying on it.

"Who the hell put their hands on my wife?"