Chapter 1

Dante Russo was kneeling in front of me, fastening the strap on my wheelchair footrest, while his men waited outside to divide what was left of my father's territory.

Eight months ago, those same hands had held the gun that put a bullet through my father's chest.

"Does it hurt?"

Dante's fingers paused at my left ankle.

The doctors said my nerves had started responding again, so he asked me the same question every day, as if one different answer might somehow prove there was still something from the past six months he could fix.

"No."

He looked up at me but didn't press.

Today's medication sat beside the bed, along with half a cup of cold coffee and a silver hairbrush.

I had thrown the last one at his head hard enough to leave a dent in the wall.

By the next morning, the wall had been repainted and an identical brush was back in exactly the same place.

Dante had always been good at cleaning up damage.

Furniture could be replaced. Walls could be repainted.

Dead people were more complicated.

He pulled the thin blanket over my knees and asked if I wanted breakfast downstairs.

When I refused, he watched me for a few seconds but didn't insist the way he used to.

That was new too.

When he first brought me to the Russo estate, I made trouble almost every day. I smashed glasses, refused medication, tried to get out through a window during a guard change, and once dragged myself halfway down the hall with one numb leg trailing behind me.

Now I ate on time. I cooperated with the doctors. I hadn't asked in a long time when the gates would open for me.

Dante probably thought I had finally learned to accept my situation.

A knock sounded at the door.

"Boss, they're all here."

Dante checked his watch. "Give me ten minutes."

The man didn't argue. His footsteps quickly faded down the hall.

I turned the wheels, intending to move myself closer to the window. Dante instinctively reached for the back of the chair. I stopped, and so did he.

"I can do it myself."

"You almost fell yesterday."

"I remember."

He finally let go, though he stayed beside me until I'd turned the wheelchair on my own.

I looked out at the rain and asked casually, "The west-side warehouses today?"

A beat of silence behind me.

"Who told you?"

"You were on the phone in the hallway last night."

Dante stepped in front of me, the gentleness from a moment ago gone from his face. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough to know the three warehouses that used to belong to Moretti belong to you now." I met his eyes. "So what are you dividing today? The warehouses? The docks? Whatever's left of my father's transport routes?"

"Elena."

He only said my name, quietly.

The men outside understood the tone. The hallway went completely still.

I didn't ask again.

Ask the same question twice and it starts to sound like you're begging for an answer. I no longer needed Dante to explain how the Morettis had disappeared.

I had seen it myself.

The windows of our dining room had been shattered that night. Marco Moretti lay on the marble floor, blood spreading from his chest until it reached Dante's shoes.

Someone grabbed me from behind when I tried to run to him, and when I first saw Dante, I actually thought he'd come to save me.

Then I saw the Russo gunmen behind him.

"Dante... what did you do?"

Smoke still curled from the barrel of his gun.

"What your father did to mine."

That was the only explanation he gave me.

By the next day, my father was dead, my brother was missing, and the Morettis who survived had scattered. Dante brought me back to the Russo estate and told me there were still people outside who wanted me dead, that staying here was the only way to keep me alive.

It was captivity.

He insisted on calling it protection.

"I'll be back before lunch."

Dante's voice pulled me out of that night.

He picked up the suit jacket draped over the chair and walked to the door, then glanced back at me. "If your legs start hurting, have someone call me. Don't wait for the doctor this afternoon."

"Even if you're in a meeting?"

"Yes."

I smiled. "Your men must love me."

"Their job isn't to love you."

That sounded like Dante.

He had never needed anyone to like his decisions. He only needed them to accept them.

After he left, several sets of footsteps followed him down the corridor.

Somewhere in the distance, the elevator doors opened and closed while I remained by the window, watching rain gather into thin streams against the glass.

I waited two minutes.

Then I wheeled myself to the door.

The hallway was empty.

A month ago, four guards had still been stationed outside my room. There had been six in the beginning, then two, and last week even the final two disappeared.

Dante no longer thought they were necessary.

Since the escape attempt that shattered both my legs, I hadn't attacked another guard, stolen another key, or tried to leave the estate.

The doctors had told him my nerves were recovering slowly. Walking normally could take years.

I might never manage it at all.

And I had become increasingly cooperative.

So Dante started taking calls in front of me, leaving documents on tables, sometimes even allowing his men to report directly to him while I was in the room.

How much trouble could a woman cause when she couldn't make it down a flight of stairs on her own?

I closed the door, locked it, and pushed the wheelchair beside the bed.

Then I braced myself against the mattress, rose to my feet, and took one steady step forward.