Chapter 1
Roman Vescari's hand was around a man's throat, I should have screamed. Instead, I stood frozen in the doorway of a room I had never known existed, staring at the man everyone in this city feared.
Roman was dressed in black from collar to polished shoes, his blond hair was pushed carelessly away from his forehead, as though murdering someone was an interruption to a perfectly ordinary evening. A dark tattoo curled from beneath his shirt collar and disappeared along the side of his neck.
There was blood on his knuckles and more on the white marble floor. The man beneath him coughed, Roman looked down then he looked at me.
Our eyes met and everything inside me stopped, for three seconds, neither of us moved. Then Roman slowly released the man's throat.
"Leave." His voice was quiet but he wasn't talking to me.
The two men standing behind him immediately disappeared through a side door and I remained where I was.
Roman wiped his bloody knuckles with a white handkerchief.
"You should close the door, Mrs. Vescari."
My fingers finally moved and I pushed the door shut behind me. The lock clicked, it was just me and him now.
"I was looking for my husband." I stammered.
Roman's eyes traveled over me, not hungrily and not kindly either as though he were trying to understand how a woman like me had ended up married to a man like Luca.
"You found something else." He said coldly.
My gaze dropped to the man on the floor, he was barely breathing.
"Is he dead?" I gasped.
"Not yet." I gulped and backed away.
"You are afraid of blood?" Roman noticed and asked me.
"No." It came out too quickly.
His mouth curved faintly. "Then what are you afraid of?"
I looked at him. "You." Then I looked back at the floor.
The smile disappeared and for some reason, that frightened me more.
Roman Vescari was Luca's older stepbrother. The head of the Vescari family. The man whose name could empty a nightclub, silence a courtroom, or make a businessman disappear before breakfast.
He was also the man my husband had warned me never to approach, Luca had always spoken about Roman with a strange mixture of resentment and fear.
Roman stepped closer, I held my ground until he stopped directly in front of me. He was taller than I remembered and close enough that I could smell his cologne beneath the metallic scent of blood.
His gaze dropped to my wrist where a faint bruise circled it.
His expression hardened. "Who did that?"
I instinctively pulled my hand behind my back. "No one." I replied quickly. “I fell.”
Roman's eyes lifted to mine. "Who?" He wasn't buying my lie.
"My husband." I murmured, the words slipped out before I could stop them.
Something dangerous flickered across his face, it was anger. I had known Roman barely five minutes, yet somehow I recognized it.
He reached for my wrist, I flinched and his hand stopped in midair then he lowered it slowly.
"You flinched before I touched you." His voice carried a little pain.
I looked away. "People don't usually like being touched by strangers."
"I am not a stranger." He looked away from me. “Do you hate me?”
"You are my husband's brother." I didn't know what better way to answer.
"Stepbrother." His correction was strangely deliberate.
I nodded, he glanced at the unconscious man. "How long has Luca been hurting you?"
"He doesn't hurt me." My throat tightened, that was another lie.
Roman's eyes narrowed. "You are a terrible liar." He looked at me with a softness behind his eyes.
I looked at the blood beneath his shoes. "What did that man do?" I asked him.
Roman's face became unreadable. "He stole from me." He replied calmly.
"So you killed him?" I gulped.
"Not yet." He replied bluntly.
I whispered, "Why am I still alive?" My lips trembled a little as I spoke.
Roman went completely still then he leaned closer to me. "Because I have not decided what to do with you." He replied.
My heart beat fast but before I could answer, the door flew open. Luca stood in the doorway. My husband, my cheating, gambling, perpetually absent husband.
His eyes immediately landed on me with Roman still leaning close.
"What the hell is she doing here?" He barked angrily.
Roman did not look at him. "Apparently, she was looking for you." His eyes didn't leave me.
Luca's jaw tightened. "I told her to stay upstairs."
"You told your wife to stay upstairs?" Roman raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yes." He responded shamelessly.
Roman finally looked at him and something about that look made Luca take a step back. "Interesting." He smirked.
I folded my arms around myself, I felt something inside me crack. It was ridiculous how quickly a person could become numb.
I had spent two years trying to convince myself that my marriage was salvageable. Two years of waiting, two years of excuses.
Two years of discovering perfume on his shirts, lipstick on his collars and unfamiliar names lighting up his phone at three in the morning.
Tonight, I had finally stopped pretending. "I know about Celeste." I whispered.
Luca's face changed and Roman's eyes moved between us.
"Who is Celeste?" Roman asked. “Luca?”
Luca glared at me. "You had no right to go through my phone." He groaned.
"I am your wife." I raised my voice, the highest I've ever done since our marriage.
"You're my wife on paper." Luca snapped back.
The words struck harder than they should have and Roman's expression became terrifyingly calm.
"Enough Luca."
My husband looked at him, just a word and he fell immediately silent.
Roman turned toward me. "Go upstairs."
"Why?" I asked.
His gaze shifted toward Luca. "Because I need to discuss your husband's debt."
"What debt?" I asked shocked. Luca had mentioned nothing about a debt before.
Luca went pale and Roman smiled, it was the first genuinely cruel expression I had seen on his face.
"You did not tell her?" Roman chuckled. "Then perhaps I should."
My husband suddenly looked terrified and for the first time since I had married Luca Vescari, I realized something. My husband had always feared the man standing behind him.
"Ariel." I froze, Roman had never called me by my first name before. "Go upstairs.” He said softly.
"Your husband owes me twenty million dollars." I let my mouth hang open in shock. Then Roman added the words that shattered whatever remained of my already broken marriage. "And if he cannot pay me by midnight, I am taking something else as payment.”
