Seven bullets were still inside my body when Dominic Rossi married me, and I didn’t even know it was happening.

While surgeons questioned whether my heart could survive another operation, New York’s most feared crime boss slipped a gold ring onto my swollen finger and told my unconscious body, “Anybody who comes for you comes through me.”

Three hours earlier, I was just an exhausted twenty-six-year-old waitress working someone else’s shift at the Aster Crown Hotel.

My mother, Ellen, was in a Cleveland treatment center, and her care had already swallowed my savings. I desperately needed the four hundred dollars this catering job promised.

The ballroom glittered beneath crystal chandeliers while politicians, bankers, businessmen, and nightclub owners drank champagne as if money could protect them from everything.

I knew nothing about those people, or why everyone seemed strangely careful around the broad-shouldered man in the midnight tuxedo who caught a champagne glass before it slid off my tray.

“You’re new,” he said.

“Is that a crime?”

His eyebrow lifted, and I immediately regretted my mouth. Before I could apologize properly, the elegant silver-haired woman beside him laughed.

“Dominic, stop frightening the staff.”

That was how I met Dominic Rossi and his mother, Isabella.

Isabella noticed my exhaustion and touched my wrist gently. “Go drink some water before you fall over. Nobody should have to faint for rich people.”

It was maybe ten seconds of kindness.

Thirty minutes later, those ten seconds nearly killed me.

I was passing the service corridor when I noticed a man in a catering jacket moving against the flow of waiters. His hand slid beneath his coat, but what terrified me was where his eyes were fixed.

Isabella.

Then I saw the gun.

“GET DOWN!”

My tray shattered against the marble as I threw myself into Isabella, knocking her toward the floor just as the first gunshot ripped through the ballroom.

After that, my memory broke into fragments. Screaming guests. Trembling chandeliers. Spilled champagne. Isabella beneath me.

Then the first bullet hit.

The second stole my breath, and by the third, the screaming disappeared beneath a deafening ringing inside my skull. My body kept jerking as more bullets struck, but somehow I stayed over Isabella until another gunshot cracked through the room and everything finally stopped.

Dominic appeared above me.

“The lady…” I managed.

“What?”

“Your mother.”

“She’s alive.”

I found Isabella behind him and whispered, “Good.”

Then everything went black.

What I didn’t know was that Dominic refused to wait three minutes for an ambulance. He ordered his men to put me in a car and rushed me to St. Catherine Medical Center.

Six hours later, while I fought for my life in surgery, his men learned the shooter was connected to Victor Costa.

Worse, someone had leaked that I survived.

Dominic understood what that meant immediately. I wasn’t merely a witness anymore. I had humiliated a powerful enemy by ruining an assassination attempt, and Victor Costa couldn’t allow that story to spread.

“Then protect her,” Isabella demanded.

“For how long?” Dominic asked quietly.

“As long as necessary.”

According to what I learned later, Dominic stared through the glass at my unconscious body while machines breathed for me. Then his eyes dropped to a file Enzo had brought him.

It contained information about me that Dominic had apparently known before I was ever shot.

Information he never told anyone.

He closed the folder.

“Get me a priest.”

Isabella stared at him. “Dominic… what are you doing?”

His answer changed my life before I was even conscious enough to know I still had one.

“I’m marrying her.”

And as Dominic walked toward my ICU room carrying a gold ring, Enzo grabbed his arm and whispered, “Boss, if she survives and discovers why you already had a file on her, she’ll never forgive you.”

Dominic stopped outside my door.

—

The first thing I felt was weight.

Not pain. Weight, like a heavy blanket pressing me into the bed. Then came the beeping, slow and steady, and a smell of antiseptic and roses.

I opened my eyes to a white ceiling.

“Four days,” a quiet voice said. “You’ve been out for four days.”

Dominic Rossi sat beside my bed in a wrinkled shirt, his sleeves rolled, a day of stubble on his jaw. He looked like a man who had forgotten how to sleep.

“Your mother,” I rasped.

“Is safe. My mother is with her on the phone every morning.” He poured water and held the cup to my lips. “Drink.”

I drank. Then I noticed something cold on my left hand.

A gold ring sat on my finger, simple and heavy, with a small diamond that caught the light.

“What is that?”

“A ring.”

“Dominic.”

He didn’t flinch. “You were dying, Lena. You were in surgery for nine hours, and the doctors needed someone with legal authority to make decisions. I needed that person to be me.”

“You married me.”

“Yes.”

I tried to sit up. Every one of seven healing wounds screamed, and I fell back, gasping.

“Don’t,” he said sharply. “Please.”

“You married me while I was unconscious.”

“I’m not proud of the circumstances. I’m not sorry for the reason.”

“What reason could possibly justify—”

“Victor Costa.”

The name sat in the room like smoke.

“The man who sent the shooter,” Dominic said. “There’s an accord between the families, signed years ago. No boss may harm the wife or mother of another. It’s the one rule nobody breaks, because breaking it means war with everyone.”

“So I’m protected by a piece of paper.”

“By a promise made by men who fear each other.” He leaned forward. “Before that ring, you were a witness who humiliated Costa. After it, you’re Mrs. Rossi. Touching you means declaring war on every family in the city.”

I stared at him. A nurse bustled in with a tray, glanced between us, and quietly set down a small plastic bag.

“Your belongings, honey. Everything they cut off you in the ER.”

Inside lay my cracked phone, my keys, and a thin silver chain with a worn St. Christopher medal, the one my father had pressed into my hand when I was a little girl.

It was the only thing I had left of him.

I clutched it, and across the bed I saw Dominic’s eyes drop to the medal, then rise to my face too quickly.

“Why did you look at that?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s a dented piece of tin.”

He said nothing.

When the nurse left, Isabella entered with a bouquet of white roses and tears she didn’t bother to hide. She kissed my forehead and held my face in both hands.

“My brave girl.”

She handed me her phone. “Your mother’s on the line. Be gentle with her.”

My mother’s voice came through thin and trembling. “Lena? Baby, they told me you were hurt. I’ve been praying every hour.”

“I’m okay, Mama. I’m going to be okay.”

“That nice man, the one who called last week, said you were safe.”

“Which man?”

“The foundation. They moved me to the new wing months ago, baby. They said everything was covered, and I thought you arranged it.”

Months ago.

I hadn’t arranged anything. I could barely afford the parking.

“Mama, which foundation?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. Something with a Saint’s name.”

I slowly lowered the phone.

Dominic was watching me. In his face I saw no surprise at all, only a quiet, careful stillness, like a man waiting for a bomb he had built himself to go off.

“Why did you have a file on me before I was ever shot?” I asked.

His jaw tightened.

“Lena, I’ll explain everything. But not today.”

“Today.”

The door swung open.

Enzo stood there, out of breath, his tie crooked. “Boss. Victor Costa is in the hospital lobby.”

Dominic didn’t move.

“He’s holding flowers,” Enzo said. “And he’s asking to visit the new Mrs. Rossi.”

—

“Absolutely not,” Dominic said.

“He’s already in the elevator,” Enzo said. “He came with six men and a cardiologist’s pass. If we refuse him, we break the accord.”

Dominic stared at me. I stared back. My heart monitor started to beep faster.

“Let him come,” I said.

“Lena—”

“If I’m Mrs. Rossi, I’m not hiding in a bed. I want to see his face.”

Isabella squeezed my hand. “That’s my girl.”

Five minutes later the door opened, and a heavyset man in a camel coat strolled in carrying a bouquet of lilies bigger than my torso. Victor Costa had a warm voice, kind brown eyes, and a smile like a locked door.

“Mrs. Rossi,” he said. “What a pleasure.”

My skin crawled. “Mr. Costa.”

“I wanted to pay my respects. What you did for Isabella was extraordinary. Nobody in this city has seen such courage.” He set the flowers on the table and patted my hand. His palm was dry and cool. “I hope you recover quickly. I’d hate for anything to happen to such a brave young woman.”

“It’s already happened,” I said. “Seven times.”

“Terrible. These days, so much violence.” He sighed theatrically. “Dominic, a word.”

They stepped into the hallway. I could see them through the glass. Costa spoke, smiling. Dominic stood with his arms folded, his face carved from stone. When Costa finally walked away with his men, Dominic’s fist closed so hard I saw his knuckles go white.

“He threatened you,” I said when he came back.

“He told me he hopes your recovery is long and uneventful.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It’s Costa’s idea of a love letter.”

That night, Isabella insisted on staying with me. She curled up in the armchair with a blanket and a thermos of tea, and for a long time we just talked.

“Salvatore, my husband, would have loved you,” she said softly. “You have his stubbornness.”

“I’m not stubborn.”

“You threw yourself in front of six bullets for a woman you’d known for ten seconds.”

“Seven.”

Isabella laughed, then wiped her eyes. “The first time I met him, he was sixty pounds underweight and had stolen a loaf of bread. I let him keep it. Fifty years later he still told that story at every dinner.”

“Dominic has his eyes,” I said.

“Yes. And his guilt.” She hesitated. “My son carries things he never says out loud. Be patient with him.”

I wanted to ask what things, but exhaustion pulled me under, and the last thing I heard was Isabella humming.

I woke at 3:12 a.m. to a soft click.

The room was dark. The monitor glowed green. Isabella slept in the chair.

A figure stood at the foot of my bed, in blue scrubs and a surgical mask, holding a syringe up to the light.

My throat locked.

He took one step toward my IV line.

I hit the call button with my thumb and screamed.

The door crashed open. Enzo hit the man at full speed, and the syringe skittered across the tile. Two guards tackled him as Isabella jerked awake, shouting in Italian.

“Dominic!” she cried. “Dominic!”

He ran in, saw me, saw the struggling man, and made a sound I’ll never forget, a raw, animal sound of fear.

“Is she hurt?”

“She’s fine,” Enzo panted. “He didn’t reach the line.”

Dominic dropped beside my bed and gripped my hand. His fingers were shaking.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “It’s all right.”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

They pinned the man against the wall and stripped off his mask. He was young, with a snake tattoo coiled up his neck.

“Costa,” Dominic said quietly. “Costa sent you.”

The man spat blood and smiled.

Enzo searched his pockets and came up with a worn leather wallet. Inside, behind a driver’s license, was a folded photograph.

He unfolded it and went pale.

“Boss.”

It was a picture of my mother, walking through the doors of her Cleveland treatment center. Someone had circled her face in red pen.

Beneath it was an address, and a time.

*Tomorrow. 6:00 a.m.*