Chapter 1

I've signed five blood-bound annulment contracts with my mafia don husband.

Each and every time, he fed me the same line: "When this is over, we'll tie the knot again."

But every single one of those "things" was for the same woman: Seraphina Moretti.

We ended our marital bond for the first time, and I sobbed, begging him to tell me if his love for me had ever been real.

He clamped his hold on my jaw hard enough to whiten his knuckles, enunciating every word coldly: "Elara, that doesn't matter."

When the second annulment rolled around, I was mocked openly at the family gala, labelled a discarded floozy for all the clan to see. I locked myself away in the ensuite bathroom and sliced open my wrists; blood trickled along the tile grout, pooling across the floor like a crimson stream.

My best mate Talia tracked me down to find me trembling. It wasn't the wound's ache making me shake, though—Killian was somewhere on the estate that very night, yet he never bothered to pop by and check on me once.

By the third split, I'd taught myself never to shed a tear in his presence.

On the fourth occasion, I even took it upon myself to ask him flat-out: "What sham do you need me to play along with now?"

He froze for the longest moment, said nothing at all in the end, just curled his hands into tight fists and spun his back on me.

Now we're here for the fifth annulment.

He's fool enough to think he only needs to click his fingers and I'll trot back to remarry him just as I've done all the previous times.

What he did not know is this:

This time, I'm disappearing from his life for good.

1

The scratch of a rollerball pen dragging across parchment rings jarringly loud amid the tomb-like hush of the room, sounding just like a viper flicking out its forked tongue.

I'm Elara Rossi, sole heiress of the Rossi bloodline, and I'm putting my signature to the fifth annulment deed of my life.

This isn't any run-of-the-mill business paperwork.

It's a blood-oath marriage pact.

Across the long table sits my husband, Killian Voss. Dressed in a black velvet suit today, his striking yet brooding good looks appear even paler against the dark fabric.

Inside the Voss family's private estate out in Brooklyn, the air hangs as frigid as an ice cellar. Both sides of the lengthy oak dining table are packed: Voss clan elders, heads from allied mafia families, legal solicitors, the whole lot of them.

The elders watched me with expressions I knew all too well.

Pity.

Amusement.

Contempt.

To them, this Sicilian heiress had finally been broken. The sharp edges had been worn down. At last, she had accepted her fate.

Everyone in the underworld knows full well I'm a woman he can summon at his whim and discard just as easily.

Six years on, we've married and split over and over, our union nothing more than a never-ending bitter joke.

Killian never lifts his eyes from the open paperwork spread before him. "Sign it." His voice rumbles low and gravelly, utterly void of warmth.

I hold out the pen. Our fingertips brush, yet I don't pull away, and neither does he.

He stared at me intensely, searching my face as though determined to find something—anything.

A crack? A plea? A trace of desperation?

But there was nothing for him to find.

I knew this game too well.

Killian's pupils shrink almost imperceptibly. He takes the pen and scrawls his signature in a brutal flourish, pressing down so hard the nib nearly tears clean through the parchment.

"When this is over," he clicks the fountain pen shut, his tone sharp and commanding as always, "we'll reinstate our betrothal, following clan protocol."

Protocol. Always the blasted protocol.

I merely twitch the corner of my mouth and stay silent.

The formal signing wraps up.

Guests file out one after another, heavy oak doors thudding shut behind them until only the two of us remain in the cavernous room.

He stays rooted to his spot, evidently waiting for something from me—an excuse, a plea to stay, or like every single time before, for me to cling to his vague empty promises and fall back into this ridiculous vicious cycle.

I circle the table and head for a tiny suitcase tucked into the corner; inside sit only the handful of personal belongings I've kept in this so-called home.

Irritation creeps into his voice at last: "I've got a driver waiting to take you away."

"Save yourself the trouble." I stride out without a single backward glance.

Every soul in New York's mafia circuit is aware Elara Rossi is nothing but a decorative trinket for Killian Voss to pick up and put down at will. He casts me aside publicly in front of every big name in the underworld, then yanks me back into his arms and slips a wedding band on my finger once I've patched up my broken heart.

Six years ago when I first set foot in New York, I'd foolishly daydreamed he might one day grow to love me. What utter nonsense that turned out to be.

Stepping out past the estate's iron gates, New York's night wind cuts right through me, biting cold. I pull out my phone and book a ride. The pale screen glow spills across my face, lighting up eyes completely devoid of emotion.

My ride hasn't arrived yet. I linger on the kerb and glance up toward a lit window on the second floor.

The curtains hang slightly ajar, framing Killian's tall frame standing rigid by the pane, his gaze fixed unblinkingly down on where I stand.

He's watching me.

I deliberately dodge his stare, a sharp, dormant resolve simmering deep in my eyes.