Chapter 1
On the night before my wedding, a red key card arrived at my suite.
The card showed the Roman numeral VII.
Room VII was where Vincent Russo had proposed to me ten years earlier.
I thought he had planned one last surprise before the ceremony. Instead, I walked into the private club under Belladonna Casino and found Bianca Falcone beside a red leather chair.
Black ribbon circled her wrists. A platinum collar rested around her neck.
The inside carried the words I knew by heart. V and E, Until Death.
I had designed that collar for Vincent. I planned to give it to him after our wedding.
Vincent knew I stood in the doorway. He finished untying Bianca's wrists before he reached for a cigarette.
"Did you send me the key card?" I asked.
"I sent it," he said.
"Why did you want me here?"
"I got tired of hiding this. You were going to find out sooner or later. You need to accept it."
The next day, Belladonna Casino would host an $8 million wedding on its top floor. Three hundred guests had accepted invitations. Every major family in Las Vegas had sent a representative. The local press had spent a week calling it the Russo wedding of the decade.
Everyone expected me to become Mrs. Russo.
Vincent told me he planned to meet Bianca and a retired judge before our ceremony. He would marry her in a private civil service, then return to stand beside me at the altar.
"The Falcone family controls the arms routes I need," he said. "You will keep running the casinos. Bianca will secure the alliance. Each of you gets what matters."
My eyes stayed on the collar around Bianca's neck.
"So I get the wedding, and she gets the legal marriage?"
Vincent smiled because he believed I understood my place.
"You understand exactly what I mean."
He touched my engagement ring with one finger.
"Do not turn this into a fight. You have been with me for ten years. Every family in this city knows you are mine. If you leave the Russos, who would dare marry you?"
Ten years earlier, Vincent had lost his place in the Russo family. I sold my jewelry to pay his lawyers. When his first casino deal failed, I met with twelve banks until one agreed to hear us out. When gunmen attacked his car, I held pressure on his wound until help arrived.
He had taken my loyalty and turned it into a permanent contract.
I removed my ring and set it on the red key card.
"Remember what you said tonight."
Vincent did not follow me. He believed I would still put on my dress in the morning.
Inside the elevator, I called a number I had not used in ten years.
Luca Moretti was the head of the Moretti family in New York. He was also the one man Vincent feared.
The call connected after the first ring.
"Is that you, Elena?"
His voice carried no surprise. He had kept the number active all these years.
I tightened my grip on the phone.
"You offered me a marriage contract ten years ago. Is that offer still open?"
"The offer never expired."
"Come to Belladonna tomorrow morning. Bring your lawyers and a black suit."
He stayed silent for two seconds.
"Tell me this is your decision."
I looked at my reflection in the elevator doors. My face had lost its color, but my hands were steady.
"I have never been more certain about anything."
His answer came without hesitation.
"I will see you tomorrow, my bride."