Chapter 1

My fiancé, a ruthless mafia Capo, always had a convenient excuse for his betrayals.

Any trace of another woman was scrubbed clean.

Exhausted by the gaslighting, I planted a lipstick in his car just to see how deep the deception went.

When I confronted him, he put his phone on speaker.

The whole family stepped up to cover his tracks.

My brother claimed it was misplaced by my best friend. My best friend scoffed, scolding me for my paranoid delusions. Everyone swore Kaelen's loyalty to me was absolute.

What they didn't know was that I had already tracked his encrypted GPS. While they spun their seamless web of lies, I was standing outside the villa.

Through the glass, I watched Kaelen pull his mistress into a deep, possessive kiss amid a celebration for their newborn heir.

The very people who had just fed me alibis were inside, raising glasses to his new family.

Standing there in the cold, I realized how utterly easily I had been replaced.

Let them keep their lies. I am done.

...

Once the call ended, Kaelen, my fiancé, turned to me, a flawless mask of exhausted innocence.

"Satisfied? If you're going to keep tearing us apart, Seren, maybe the wedding..."

"Cancel it," I interrupted, my voice dead flat.

The first time I found a vintage pearl choker in his car, his mother claimed she dropped it after a family sit-down.

The second time, a loyal lieutenant took the fall for two torn theater stubs.

By the ninth time, I finally understood: the entire syndicate was working together to scrub Kaelen's sins clean.

So, I set the trap.

"The cathedral is canceled. Notify your men," I continued.

The Mercedes slammed to a violent halt, thick tires screaming against the asphalt. Kaelen turned to me, the lethal fury he usually reserved for rival cartels now bleeding into the confines of the car.

"Are you out of your damn mind, Seren? You don't even trust your own flesh and blood now?" His voice was a low, dangerous rumble.

"You need your head checked. If you have no faith in me, there is no loyalty. And without loyalty, this union means nothing."

Just then, his burner phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen, and the murderous edge in his eyes dissolved into something sickeningly soft.

He unlocked the doors.

"I have business. Walk back to the estate and reflect on your disrespect. We'll pretend this didn't happen."

He peeled out, leaving me suffocating in exhaust fumes.

But I didn't walk home. I pulled up the encrypted GPS tracker I'd embedded in his chassis weeks ago and hailed a cab.

Thirty minutes later, the signal died at a coastal cliffside private gala villa. I peered through the floor-to-ceiling glass.

It wasn't business. It was a private heir celebration soiree.

The sprawling room was packed with the familiar faces of my life—fixers, soldiers, family.

But the center of gravity was her. Mirelle Corvin.

Around her neck rested the vintage pearl choker. Binding her hair was the velvet tie I'd pulled from Kaelen's suit jacket weeks ago.

Seeing her face, the fragile glass of my composure shattered.

A month ago, at the Blackpine-Haven Medical Compound, I'd been administering her IV. A microscopic complication—a drop of blood backing up the tube.

Mirelle's bodyguards had used it as an excuse to ambush me, breaking my right hand. The clan suspended me from my duties immediately after.

Instead of drafting legal retaliation against her crew like I'd thought, my brother Tom was pouring champagne for Mirelle, laughing like they were lifelong friends.

A few feet away stood Bryndis. My best friend who swore on her life she'd bleed the men who crippled me was now cheerfully entertaining those very same guests.

And Kaelen. The Capo who had demanded my blind faith just twenty minutes ago.

"Boss is late!" one of his lieutenants crowed. "Better make it up to the mother of your heir, Capo!"

Kaelen didn't hesitate. He wrapped his arm around Mirelle's waist and pulled her into a deep, possessive kiss as the room erupted in cheers.

A phantom fire licked across my cheeks, burning down to my marrow.

These weren't strangers who had ruined my career. It was them. They had weaponized my minor medical mistake, inflating the grievance to force me out of the compound and clear the path for Kaelen's new family.

My phone buzzed against my hip. An encrypted text from the central medical board glared at me in the dark:

[Dr. Veyra, your transfer request is approved. Report to the Northern Outpost in three days.]

I stared at the screen, a chilling numbness finally washing over the rage.

Good.

In three days, my ties to Kaelen Rourke would be severed forever.

Sick to my stomach, I turned away, desperate to disappear into the salt-laced wind before my chest caved in completely.

Then, the doors swung open behind me.

"Dr. Veyra?" Mirelle's cloying voice drifted into the dark. "Are you here to join the toast for my son?"