Chapter 4

Corinne's POV

Salt spray woke me.

I was hanging in the dark, wrists lashed above my head, the rope creaking from the boom of a harbor crane. Forty feet below, black water heaved against the pilings. Beside me, strung up the same way, Blair swung in her torn silk dress, shaking so hard her teeth chattered.

Floodlights blazed across the pier. Ranks of armed men lined the dock, and at their head, dressed in black, stood Lorenzo, his eyes locked on Blair and me.

"Lorenzo!" A wild, ragged voice exploded above us.

Victor Russo crouched on the boom, a knife pressed to each of our ropes. The boss the Hales had crushed and locked away. Somehow, he'd gotten out.

"Never thought we'd have our reunion like this, huh, Lorenzo?" He laughed like a madman. "You took everything from me. Tonight you find out what it feels like to lose the person you love!" He jabbed a blade toward Blair, then me. "Your lawfully wedded wife. Your mistress who bled beside you. Years ago, you made me choose between my wife and my sister. Now it's your turn. One comes up. The other goes into the sea."

The dock went dead silent. There was only the wind and the waves.

Lorenzo's fists were clenched so tight the tendons stood out on the backs of his hands. His eyes moved from me to Blair and back.

"Lorenzo! Save me!" Blair screamed. "I don't want to die!"

I just looked down at him, with no fear and no hope. The pill I'd swallowed was already in my blood. Within hours, any doctor who checked me would pronounce me dead. Whatever he chose, tonight was the end of Corinne Moretti. My eyes drifted west, past the harbor lights, toward the open sea.

His gaze rested on my calm face for a long time. I could see him remembering what he'd said to me just days before. Next time, I'll choose you. I saw his chest seize.

"You said you only loved me!" Blair sobbed. "You promised you'd always protect me!"

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, there was nothing left but the cold decisiveness of a Don, and something underneath that looked a lot like running away.

I knew exactly what he was telling himself. Corinne is tough. She always pulls through. I'll owe her one more time. Next time I'll make it right.

He raised his hand and pointed at Blair. "I choose my wife."

"What a devoted husband!" Victor howled. His men hauled Blair onto the boom and hustled her down the ladder. She stumbled across the pier and threw herself into Lorenzo's arms.

Victor turned his knife to my rope. "Goodbye, sweetheart."

Sniper rifles cracked from the dark. Bullets tore through Victor and his men. His body went rigid, and with the last of his strength, he dragged the blade across my rope.

I dropped. The wind screamed past my ears, and the sea swallowed me whole.

Lorenzo's POV

The black water closed over her.

I shoved Blair at Damon and went in after her.

The cold hit like a fist. I clawed through the dark until my hand closed on her hair. My men hauled us both onto the dock. I turned her on her side, and she choked up seawater. Her face was white, her eyes shut. But she was breathing, just barely.

"A doctor! Get me a doctor now!" My voice cracked in a way I'd never heard before.

"Lorenzo..." Behind me, Blair sagged to the planks. Dark blood ran from the corner of her mouth. She caught my sleeve, her voice faint. "That lunatic... he made me swallow some kind of pill... I don't know what it was. Don't worry about me. Save Corinne first."

I looked at Corinne breathing in my arms. Then at my wife, poisoned, maybe dying.

I made my calculation. Forty feet into water. Bruising, maybe some internal trauma. It wouldn't kill her. But whatever was in Blair's blood, nobody knew.

I laid Corinne down. "Get her to the estate. Have the private doctor work on her. I'll be right behind you."

Then I gathered Blair into my arms and ran for the cars.

The doctors at the safe house were still working on Blair when my phone rang.

It was the estate doctor, his voice shaking. "Boss, she was stable. Surface injuries, a mild contusion, nothing broken. Then she started coughing up blood and it wouldn't stop. Her vitals fell off a cliff. We tried everything." He swallowed. "Miss Moretti is gone."