Chapter 1

The ninth time I tried to divorce my husband, Don Louis Romano, my best friend Jenny Parker, who had always talked me out of it, handed me the papers herself.

Every time before, she'd done everything in her power to stop me. She'd even taken over the Family's day-to-day affairs just to create chances for us to see each other and reconcile.

I took the papers and couldn't help but ask.

Years of pent-up exhaustion showed in Jenny's eyes, and to my shock, her voice was edged with resentment.

"You got Vivian shot this time. She nearly didn't make it. How long are you going to keep this up?!"

Vivian Hale was the woman Louis had been seeing.

I stared at her in disbelief.

"Vivian's had a hard life. I'm the one who introduced her to Louis.

"I know it's not fair to you, so I've been trying to make it up to you. But you've been at this long enough. It's time to stop."

Jenny sighed.

"Back during the arms shipment ambush, Louis and I risked our lives to pull you out of that firefight.

"If our saving your life means anything, stop using divorce as a way to get Louis's attention."

I couldn't speak. My fingers clenched.

The love and friendship I'd treasured for years had only ever been real to me.

The last ember of loyalty in my heart burned out completely.

The moment Jenny looked away, I picked up the pen and signed my name without hesitation. Sherry Bennett.

This time, I was really getting a divorce.

1

My phone rang, breaking the silence.

Jenny answered, her voice softening a little.

"Vivian? I'm on my way. You know I wouldn't miss your birthday party."

I found that bitterly ironic.

Jenny caught my expression and gave me a resigned look.

"Come on, stop putting on an act with those papers. If you actually wanted a divorce, you wouldn't have let me talk you out of it every other time.

"Know your place, Sherry. You're still the Donna of the Romano Family."

I said nothing, my mind drifting back to a high-risk arms shipment years ago.

I'd been ambushed en route. Bullets grazed my skin, and gunmen closed in from every direction.

I was pinned behind a crumbling wall, certain I was going to die.

Louis had broken through the crossfire with a rifle in hand, and Jenny followed him into the gunfire. Both were drenched in blood when they dragged me, badly wounded, out from among the dead.

Clutching my bleeding wounds, I swore to them both that I would spend the rest of my life protecting them.

But the memory shifted, and the first time I caught Louis cheating came into sharp focus.

Louis had his arms wrapped tightly around Vivian, his brow furrowed, snapping at me.

"Get out. You're scaring her.

"What are you crying about? She's not a threat to your position."

Jenny always showed up right on cue to smooth things over.

"Sherry, forgive him. He saved your life, remember?"

Numb with pain, I raised the loaded gun and started to aim it at myself.

But she broke down crying and wrenched the barrel toward her own chest.

"Sherry, I swear on my life, Louis will change! Don't do anything reckless. You're the only friend I have!"

Jenny's words smothered every impulse I had to fight back.

Time after time, she helped me hold on to Louis.

But he never changed. Not once.

I didn't want to forgive him, but Jenny kept dangling the past in front of me, telling me we'd find our way back to how things used to be.

There was a time when rival gang members came after me. One of them would step in front of me with a gun, while the other beat my attackers back.

And now those same two people were the ones twisting the knife in my heart, over and over.

So much for vows sworn in blood.

I forced my violently trembling hands still, straightened my spine, and walked out.

From now on, I could only rely on myself.

Back at the house, stacks of cash were piled on the coffee table.

This was Louis's usual move whenever I brought up divorce.

No apology. Just wads of money sent over the next day as compensation.

But this time, sitting right in the middle of all the cash, was an old handgun.

My fingertips brushed the gun, and a bone-deep chill ran through me.

I knew this gun all too well.

A crushing grief closed around my throat.

The chamber was loaded with the same type of bullet my father had used to take his own life.

Louis knew my deepest scars better than anyone.

And now he'd placed this in front of me on purpose, pressing exactly where it hurt the most.

I called Louis again and again. Every call went straight to voicemail.

He never picked up.

It had always been me waiting for him.

Not this time.

I grabbed the gun, the papers, and the car keys, and walked out the door.

I floored it the entire way.

I drove to the underground casino that Louis and I had built together over eight years.

Sex was being sold openly in every corner, and the halls reeked of liquor and cigarette smoke.

I hadn't set foot here since the last time I caught Louis cheating at the casino. I never imagined it could have deteriorated this much.

I stopped one of the casino workers I recognized.

"Where's Louis? What happened to this place?"

He scoffed, not even bothering to show respect to me, the woman who co-owned this casino.

"You don't know? Don Romano already gave this place to Ms. Hale as a birthday present."

2

My heart sank like a stone.

This casino was something Louis and I had built together, and he'd just handed it over to Vivian like it was nothing.

I headed for the VIP room, but the guards at the door blocked my way and shoved me back.

"Unauthorized personnel. No entry."

"Are you blind? Do you have any idea who I am?"

I clenched my fists, squared my shoulders, and forced my way through.

The guards couldn't stop me. I shouldered past them and carved a path forward.

I stormed down the corridor and burst into the brightly lit banquet hall.

The room was packed with guests, buzzing with celebration.

The people who had once fought alongside us, the bosses from allied gangs, were all smiling and raising their glasses to the two of them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Louis spotted me barging in.

He went rigid, then pushed through the crowd toward me.

"What are you doing here?"

I heard the irritation in his voice, my chest heaving with each breath as I stared at him in disappointment.

"Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing. Why did you give away our casino to some whore without my say-so?"

The words had barely left my mouth when Jenny appeared in front of me.

"What are you doing here?"

"I told you to stop making scenes!"

The two people who once cared about me more than anyone were now interrogating me like an enemy in front of all their men.

The humiliation and heartbreak crashed over me in waves.

My hands balled into fists.

Louis let out a long breath.

"Hurts, doesn't it? Then remember this feeling and stay out of Vivian's sight from now on.

"She's been with me this long without anything official. Giving her the casino is the least I can do."

He reached out to touch my shoulder, and I jerked away.

His hand froze in midair, and undisguised disgust flooded his eyes.

"Fine, what do you want this time?

"More of my time? All of my attention? Or do you want me to cancel every engagement just to be with you?

"I'm never going to have just one woman. How many times do I have to tell you that?"

It felt like something blunt had slammed into my chest, sending a dull, throbbing ache through me.

Every time I caught Louis tangled up with someone else, Jenny would tell me she'd handle it.

"I'll talk to Louis. Don't get involved yourself, or it'll just damage your relationship."

But Louis came home less and less, and every time we saw each other, it ended in a fight.

At first, he still had enough patience to give in and humor me. But his resentment toward me deepened with every passing day.

Vivian fixed her eyes on me, her voice shrill and cutting.

"Like father, like daughter. A traitor's child, selfish and vicious to the core, never satisfied."

My eyes burned instantly. My father was a wound that had never healed.

"My father was not a traitor!"

I started toward Vivian, but Jenny shoved me back and stood in front of her.

"Enough! Your father sold out the Family during a mission and put his partner in danger. That partner was Vivian's father!"

I froze. It felt like all the blood in my body had turned to ice.

Years ago, my father, Michael Bennett, and his partner, Victor Hale, were sent on a job for the Family. Something went wrong, and my father came back badly wounded.

But his partner was never seen again.

Rumors spread fast. Everyone believed my father had secretly betrayed the Family and gotten Victor killed.

The crushing guilt destroyed my father, and he put a bullet through his own head.

But they all insisted he'd killed himself because he knew his crime had been exposed.

"You know he couldn't have been a traitor!"

No traitor would return to the Family after being exposed, let alone kill himself to prove his innocence.

Louis stepped forward, placing himself in front of Jenny, and glared at me.

He didn't say a single word in my defense.

"That's enough. How far are you going to take this? Stop embarrassing yourself."

The irritation in his eyes was impossible to miss.

I stood there, stunned.

Every memory came rushing back at once.

3

Back at the underground training compound when we were young, everyone called me a traitor's daughter. They tripped me up at every turn on the training grounds.

Louis would shove his gun into the face of anyone who talked about me that way and stand up for me.

Jenny was the one who pulled me out of the windowless punishment cell and treated my wounds.

When Louis married me, he held his gun aloft and swore he would protect me for the rest of his life, that he'd never let anyone hurt me.

Jenny was my maid of honor. She cried through the entire ceremony.

"The three of us have to trust one another. Nothing can ever come between us."

Louis and I had hidden beneath corpses to survive a hit, then built the underground casino together, piece by piece.

But everything changed the day Jenny brought Vivian into Louis's life.

The truth had dawned on me too late. I looked at Vivian, clinging to Louis with a practiced air of helplessness.

My expression turned solemn, and I spoke again with full gravity.

"I don't know what happened to your father, but it was an accident. My father had nothing to do with it."

Jenny shielded Vivian completely behind her.

"Stop playing the victim. Everyone in the Family knows exactly what happened.

"Your father betrayed the Family and cost Vivian her father!

"Vivian's been surviving on other people's charity all these years, clawing her way through the training grounds. Her life has been ten thousand times harder than yours."

My lips trembled uncontrollably.

My father had treated Jenny like his own daughter, taught her to shoot, given her a dagger.

I never imagined that after his death, Jenny would become one of the countless people dragging his name through the mud.

"You believe that? Don't you know what kind of man my father was?

"Is that why you've been making it up to Vivian at my expense?"

I tore open the fabric of my skirt, exposing the ugly old scars on my leg.

"Every one of these scars is from the firefights we survived together.

"We fought side by side for years. Why won't you believe me?"

Jenny looked away but didn't deny it.

"Enough.

"The only victim of what happened back then is Vivian.

"You've had Louis and me looking after you all these years. You should be grateful."

Louis stepped forward, his face cold.

"Even without Jenny's arrangement, taking care of Vivian is the right thing to do. She's been through too much.

"Sherry, you need to be the bigger person."

His gaze was unwavering. I forced a smile, but tears slipped down my face before I could stop them.

They saw my hand reach for my waist.

Louis roared.

"Stop her! Don't let her hurt Vivian!"

Several guards swarmed in and pinned me to the floor.

Fists rained down on my back.

Louis and Jenny shielded Vivian behind them.

They watched me with open wariness.

The physical pain was nothing compared to the tearing inside my chest.

A strangled groan escaped me, and blood seeped from the corner of my mouth.

"Louis, I didn't come here to make a scene. I came here to divorce you."

Louis froze, then signaled the guards to let me go.

He looked down at me on the floor and smirked.

"You're pulling the divorce act again?

"Same old trick every time. Can't you come up with something new?"

I turned my head to avoid his outstretched hand and pushed myself up from the ground.

"I'm done with you, Louis. I've already signed the divorce papers."

Louis's brow furrowed.

"What game are you playing now?"

He leaned in close, a mocking smile on his lips.

"Trying to play hard to get?"

Vivian's eyes glistened with tears as she tugged at Louis's sleeve.

"Louis, you promised to give me a real home."

4

Louis was quiet for a moment, then murmured to Vivian.

"Easy, sweetheart. I'll stay by your side and give you all the love you want, but Sherry keeps the title."

He seemed to be talking to himself, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Don't start throwing little tantrums like Sherry. You're not her."

Vivian's cheeks flushed red, and she turned away without another word.

Louis's expression was pure disdain. He still thought my divorce was nothing but a childish tantrum.

I had anticipated this.

I pulled out the Romano Family's transfer documents.

"You've always wanted my shares in the Family, haven't you? Sign the divorce papers, and they're all yours.

"Since you all say I'm a traitor's daughter, this should be penance enough to satisfy every last one of you."

Jenny rushed over and grabbed my arm, her face panicked.

"Have you lost your mind? You and Louis risked your lives to build the Romano Family.

"Walk away from the Romano Family and you'll have nothing."

I avoided her gaze and looked straight at Louis.

A hollow laugh escaped me.

"I don't care anymore."

Louis stared at me for a long time, eyes narrowed.

I held his gaze, waiting.

"Louis, I'm letting you go. Now let me go too. I can't hold on any longer."

Something in those words set him off. He snatched the papers, his face ashen with rage.

"Without the casino, without my protection, I'd love to see how you survive in the underworld."

He stared me down, his eyes holding an emotion I had never seen there before.

"Sherry, I'll be waiting for the day you come crawling back and beg me to take you back."

He scrawled his signature and flung the divorce papers in my face.

I didn't argue. I bent down, picked up the papers, and turned to leave.

Jenny's frantic voice followed me, calling my name over and over.

For a moment, I was back on the day they dragged me out from among the dead.

But this time, I would never look back.

She started after me.

"Are you insane? Just admit your father was a traitor. Once Vivian gets closure, she'll forgive you!"

I saw straight through Jenny now. My father was innocent, and I would never let his name be stained.

"Why do you have to be so stubborn? Just admit you were wrong. It won't cost you anything.

"After all these years of friendship, don't put me in this position. I really can't stand watching you throw your life away."

Louis's cold voice came from behind.

"Let her go. Once she sees how brutal it is out there, she'll understand how good she had it with us.

"Once she's had enough, she'll come back to me on her own."

Jenny's footsteps stopped.

I walked out of the casino without looking back.

Louis would never understand that to me, the world outside was wide open and bright.

Every ounce of suffering I'd endured had come from the two of them.

Back at the villa, I started packing what little I had.

Photos of the three of us fighting side by side, mementos from the training compound. I left them all behind.

All I took were my documents and my father's old gun from the coffee table.

I stepped out the front door, and my phone rang.

"Ms. Bennett, this is George Moretti. I've been waiting for this call.

"Have you made a decision about the deal we discussed?"

A faint smile crossed my lips. I glanced back at the empty villa one last time, and every last thread of attachment snapped.

"Of course. I look forward to working with you."

His voice brightened, and his answer was swift.

"I'll send my private jet for you, Ms. Bennett."

An hour after the call, I boarded the private jet George had sent.

The plane carried me across the ocean, leaving all the betrayal and pain far behind.