Chapter 1

Corinne's POV

To buy my freedom, I made a deal with my father. I would play Lorenzo Hale’s fiancée, his shield, until he took the throne as Don. Then I’d swallow a black-market drug, fake my death.

For five years, I took bullets for Lorenzo. I tasted poison meant for him. I bled for him more times than I can count. The whole underworld said Corinne Moretti loved Lorenzo Hale so much it made her crazy.

The day he finally became Don, he married my sister Blair, declaring he would keep me as his mistress.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t fight. I simply started counting the days.

The drug was already in my blood. Seven days, and I’d be gone.

But by the time Lorenzo finally decided he wanted me to stay, I was already “dead.”

——

Lorenzo Hale officially took the reins of the Hale family. He was the new Don.

Blair Moretti became his wife.

And I, Corinne Moretti, the fiancée who had stood beside him through every turf war and every attempt on his life, became his mistress.

The day the family made the announcement, I was in the west guesthouse of the Hale estate, the one they'd given me. The whole place was eerily quiet. The guards and the staff kept their eyes on the floor, as if they were waiting for me to throw something, to scream, to tear the house apart.

But I did nothing. There was no fight left in me—not for a man whose heart already belonged to someone else. Whatever love I once had for him was completely dead.

Two days later, Lorenzo finally came to see me.

He wore a black suit, sharply tailored. He was tall, broad through the shoulders, his features hard and cold.

"Corinne." His voice was low. "Do you have a problem with how this turned out?"

I stood. I didn't lower my eyes. "No. Marrying Blair locks in the alliance between our families. It was the smartest move you could make. I have no objections."

He studied my face, and the line between his brows deepened.

I could guess what he'd expected. He'd thought my silence meant I was waiting for him to come and smooth things over in person. He'd thought that the moment he opened his mouth, I'd fall apart. There would be tears, accusations, and then he would lay it out for me, gently but firmly: Blair was the only woman he'd ever loved. He could give me money, power, protection. He could not give me his name. The title of Mrs. Hale belonged to the woman he loved. A little comfort, a little pressure, and the whole thing would blow over.

But I genuinely didn't care.

That should have suited him perfectly. I was being good. I wasn't reaching for anything that wasn't mine. And yet I watched something restless and irritated settle into his expression, as if my indifference were a stone in his shoe.

"Boss, they're here." Damon Reed, the Don's right-hand man, walked in flanked by two guards carrying leather cases. When they opened them, the pristine white inside practically illuminated the room. Top-grade Arctic fox pelts, without a single dark hair. Lorenzo had traded a lucrative shipping port to the Russian mob just to secure them. Damon had let it slip weeks ago that they were meant for me.

Now Lorenzo seemed to have lost the words.

Before he could explain, I beat him to it. "They're beautiful." I looked at the furs with completely detached appreciation. "These are a gift for Blair, aren't they?

The irritation in his eyes darkened into something hotter. "What makes you think they're not for you?"

"You've been very clear that your heart belongs to Blair." I said evenly. "Something this rare should go to her."

Damon stepped forward. "Miss Moretti, the boss actually picked these out specifically for—"

"Damon." Lorenzo cut him off, ice in his voice.

Damon shut his mouth.

Lorenzo looked down at me, and I watched his temper climb. "Fine. If that's what you think." Every word was frost. "Then take them to Blair yourself. It's getting colder, and Blair doesn't handle the cold well."

"Of course," I said.

My easy compliance seemed to make him angrier. He turned on his heel and strode out of the guesthouse without another word.

I stood where he'd left me and watched him go. Something flickered through me, faint confusion, and then it was gone, and I was calm again.

Blair and I are sisters, both Morettis. Our father runs the Moretti family. I was his daughter by his first wife. After my mother died, he married Blair's mother. I was a sickly child, so they shipped me off to California to be raised by my grandmother.

That was where I met Jasper Reeves. He was gentle, sharp, and talented. We grew up together on that stretch of coastline, all salt wind and long gold sunsets. When we were sixteen, he held my hand on the seawall and promised that the day I turned eighteen, he'd go to my father and ask to marry me.

I said yes.

On my eighteenth birthday, while Jasper's family was preparing to make that call, my father sent men to bring me back east. I wasn't given a choice.

The Hale family was in the middle of a brutal war for territory back then. The old Don had decided his heir, Lorenzo, needed a Moretti bride to bind the two families together. Lorenzo was in love with Blair, but he knew that marrying her outright would paint a target on her back for every enemy he had. When he learned the Morettis had another daughter tucked away on the West Coast, he asked for me instead.

I refused.

My father threatened Jasper's entire family. "You marry into the Hales, or I gut every business Jasper's people own. I'll make sure he can't get a job sweeping floors in this country."

In the end, I made a deal with him. Once Lorenzo was secure as Don, my father would give me a dose of a black-market drug. It would mimic death well enough to fool any doctor. I'd be declared dead, and I could slip away, back to Jasper.

I agreed. I became Lorenzo's fiancée.

The years that followed were a minefield. Assassins. Poison. Ambushes. I was badly hurt more than once. I was poisoned. I came close to dying several times. I ran the family's operations behind the scenes and made myself into the perfect, flawless support he needed. When he needed scarce supplies brought in from out of state, I went and got them myself. When rivals ambushed him, I threw myself in front of the gun.

Eventually, a saying started going around in our world: Corinne Moretti loves Lorenzo Hale so much it's made her crazy.

I never bothered to correct anyone. I fought to put him on that throne for one reason only. It was the price of my freedom.

Now it was almost over. He was secure. Blair was his wife. Two days ago, I'd swallowed the drug. It took seven days to work.

Five days left.