The bullet tore through my shoulder before I even heard the gunshot. I hit the pavement hard, my designer dress shredding against the concrete as chaos erupted around me. Screams. More gunfire. The acrid smell of burning rubber as our convoy's tires screeched in defensive maneuvers. Through the haze of pain, I watched my security detail return fire at the unmarked vehicles that had ambushed us three blocks from the Romano estate. "Mrs. DeLuca! Stay down!" Tony, my head of security, threw himself over me as another spray of bullets shattered the windows of the town car behind us. But I wasn't thinking about the attack. I wasn't thinking about which rival family had finally grown bold enough to target me directly. I was thinking about Marcus. My husband. The man I'd stood beside for fifteen years, through territory wars and federal investigations, through the deaths of both our fathers and the consolidation of two of New York's most powerful crime families. My hand fumbled for my phone, slick with my own blood. The shoulder wound was bad—I could feel the hot, pulsing wetness spreading across my collarbone, soaking into the silk of my dress. I'd seen enough gunshot wounds to know this one needed immediate attention. The phone rang once. Twice. "Elena?" Marcus's voice was distracted. I could hear music in the background, the soft clink of glasses. "I'm in the middle of something. Can this wait?" "Marcus." My voice came out weaker than I intended. "I've been shot. The convoy was ambushed near—" "Hold on." His voice grew muffled, like he'd covered the phone. I heard him speaking to someone else, his tone warm and concerned. Then he was back. "Sorry, what were you saying?" Pain lanced through my shoulder as Tony shifted, checking the wound. I bit back a scream. "I said I've been shot. I need—" "Sophia's not feeling well." Marcus cut me off, his voice taking on that particular gentle quality he reserved for... her. Always her. His childhood friend, the woman who'd been a constant presence in our marriage, a shadow I could never quite escape. "She has a terrible headache, and you know how she gets. I'm taking her to Dr. Reeves right now." The world seemed to tilt, and it had nothing to do with the blood loss. "A headache," I repeated numbly. "I know you're probably calling about the Castellano meeting tomorrow, but we'll have to reschedule. I'll be with Sophia for the rest of the evening. We can talk about it later, okay?" Another burst of gunfire. Tony cursed and returned fire, his gun deafening next to my ear. Marcus didn't even react to the sound. He hadn't heard it. He was already focused on someone else. "Marcus, I'm bleeding—" "Elena, I really need to go. Sophia needs me." There was actual impatience in his voice now. "We'll talk tonight when I get home. Love you." The line went dead. I stared at the phone in my hand, my blood smearing across the screen. Around me, the firefight was ending. My security team had neutralized the threat, and backup from the Romano compound was screeching around the corner. Help was coming. I would survive this. But something inside me had just died. "Mrs. DeLuca, we need to move you!" Tony was already lifting me, carrying me toward an armored SUV. "We're taking you to Dr. Marchetti." I let him carry me, my mind a thousand miles away. Dr. Marchetti was the family's private physician, the man who'd treated everything from my father's heart condition to my cousin's knife wound. He'd patch me up. I'd be fine. Physically. But as I sat in the back of the SUV, pressure bandages being applied to my shoulder by one of Tony's team, I couldn't stop replaying Marcus's words. The dismissal. The impatience. The way he'd said Sophia's name with more concern than he'd shown when I told him I'd been shot. Fifteen years. Fifteen years of marriage. We'd been the golden couple of New York's underworld—the Romano princess and the DeLuca heir, united to forge the most powerful crime syndicate the city had seen in generations. Everyone envied us. Marcus was attentive, thoughtful, always by my side at family functions. He remembered my preferences, brought me coffee exactly how I liked it, never forgot an anniversary. I'd thought we were happy. Different from most arranged marriages in our world. We'd grown to love each other, or so I'd believed. But Sophia had always been there. The childhood friend. The one who "needed" him at the strangest times. The one he dropped everything for, while I... While I bled out on a New York street, and he couldn't be bothered to listen. "Mrs. DeLuca?" Tony's voice broke through my thoughts. "Dr. Marchetti is ready for you. We're here." I nodded, letting them help me out of the vehicle. We were at one of the family's safe houses, a brownstone in Brooklyn that looked ordinary from the outside but was equipped with a full medical suite in the basement. Dr. Marchetti met us at the door, his weathered face creasing with concern. "Elena, cara, what happened?" "Ambush," I said shortly. "Shoulder wound. The bullet went through." He ushered me inside, already barking orders to his nurse. As I lay on the examination table, the bright lights making me squint, I felt oddly detached from my own body. The pain was there, sharp and insistent, but it seemed distant compared to the cold certainty settling in my chest. "You're lucky," Dr. Marchetti said as he cleaned the wound. "Another inch to the right, and it would have hit your subclavian artery. You'd have bled out in minutes." Lucky. Right. "I need to call your husband," he continued, preparing the sutures. "He should be here for this." "No." The word came out harder than I intended. "Don't call him. He's... busy." Dr. Marchetti paused, his eyes meeting mine. He'd known me since I was a child. He'd known my father, had been there the night Papa died. He saw too much, that old man. "I see," he said quietly, and went back to work. The suturing took an hour. I refused the heavy painkillers—I needed to think clearly. By the time Dr. Marchetti finished bandaging me up and giving me strict instructions about care and rest, it was nearly eight o'clock. The ambush had happened at five-thirty. Two and a half hours. Marcus hadn't called back. Hadn't checked in. Hadn't wondered why his wife had sounded strange on the phone, or why there had been loud noises in the background. Because he was with Sophia. Tony drove me home himself, his jaw tight with barely suppressed anger. He'd heard the phone call—they all had. My security team had listened to my husband dismiss my emergency for his friend's headache. The humiliation of it burned worse than the bullet wound. Our penthouse was dark when I arrived. Of course it was. Marcus was still out, playing devoted friend to Sophia while his wife recovered from an assassination attempt alone. I poured myself a scotch—Papa's favorite, from the bottle Marcus had given me on our tenth anniversary—and stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park. The city glittered below me, beautiful and ruthless, just like the life I'd been born into. Fifteen years. Fifteen years of being the perfect wife, the perfect partner. I'd stood by Marcus through the merger of our families, through the territorial disputes, through the night his father died and he'd wept in my arms. I'd given him my loyalty, my support, my trust. And when I'd needed him most, he'd chosen her. The sound of the front door opening made me turn. Marcus walked in, looking tired but not particularly concerned. He was loosening his tie, his jacket slung over one arm. He didn't even notice the blood on the floor where I'd stood to pour my drink. "Elena? You're still up?" He checked his watch. "It's late. I thought you'd be asleep." I took a sip of scotch, savoring the burn. "How's Sophia?" "Much better, thank God. It was a migraine, but Dr. Reeves gave her something for it. She's resting now." He finally looked at me, really looked, and his eyes widened. "What happened to your arm?" I glanced down at the bulky bandages visible beneath my silk robe. "I got shot."