Chapter 2

He didn't answer my question. He only took off his jacket and draped it around my shoulders, his movements far too gentle for a man who had just killed his way through a house. The coat smelled of blood. And beneath it, faintly, of cedarwood. Strange. And somehow familiar. "I can't explain now," he said quietly. "I need to get you out first." "I'm not leaving." I pushed the jacket away. "This place is safe. Outside is—" "Safe?" He cut me off, fury locked tight beneath his voice. He took my hand and pressed my fingers to the back of my neck, to a scar I hadn't even known was there. "This is the scar from the tracker they implanted in you, Sera." His voice was ice. "Safe people don't get marked like cargo." My fingertips brushed the raised, narrow line of the scar. A chill went through me. I had spent two years in that cage and never known something like that was hidden beneath my skin. So I had never even had the chance to run. They always knew exactly where I was. Gunfire continued downstairs. Firelight bled through the windows, staining half the sky a deep, ugly red. Two men in black suits rushed in and nodded at him. "Don Moretti, the route is clear. Three minutes." Don. They called him Don. From the scraps of underworld talk I had overheard over the past two years, I knew what that meant. The top of a family. He closed his hand around my wrist, his grip leaving no room for argument. "Walk with me, or I carry you." I looked at the bloodshot eyes. At the fire drawing closer beyond the door. In the end, I followed. Not because I trusted him. Because I knew better than anyone what would happen if I stayed. We ran down the stairs. Blood. Gunpowder. The sickly sweetness of spilled champagne. The smells mixed together until I nearly gagged. Several faces I recognized lay across the steps. Soldatos who usually guarded my door. Now they didn't move. Behind us, the estate had begun to burn. Flames licked up the gold-plated columns. An armored SUV waited at the entrance, engine roaring, doors open. Just as I was about to get in, a slow, polished voice drifted out of the dark. "Rafael Moretti. Coming in person to collect your wife." My body went rigid. My blood turned cold. Damien. He stood on the steps, his suit immaculate, as if the burning estate behind him were someone else's bonfire. He looked at me and smiled. That smile I had learned to fear. The smile that still followed me into dreams. "I kept her for two years, Don Moretti." His tone was almost leisurely. "She doesn't even remember her own last name now. Do you have any idea how ironic that is?" Rafael's grip on my hand tightened violently. "You knew who she was from the beginning." His voice was colder than ice. "Of course I did." Damien's smile deepened. "Otherwise, what would be the fun in breaking the lady of the Moretti family?" In that moment, what I saw in Rafael's eyes was not anger. It was hatred. The kind that wanted to rip a man apart with bare hands, then grind what was left into the dirt. Without another word, he pushed me into the SUV. Then he turned and gave Damien one final look. "You'd better pray she never remembers." His voice was deadly quiet. "Because the day she does..." "Is the day you die." The door slammed shut, cutting off the fire and gunfire outside. The SUV rolled over broken glass and tore into the night. I curled into the seat, watching the flames shrink behind us. But Damien's words kept echoing inside my head. Breaking the lady of the Moretti family. I was the lady of the Moretti family? I looked down and saw Rafael's left hand resting on his knee. It was still trembling. On his ring finger was a plain wedding band. So simple it almost looked cold. And it carried the same cool silver gleam as the little bird pendant around my neck. The one I had rubbed between my fingers for two years without ever remembering where it came from.