“Don’t touch me,” he says through lips as white as chalk.

His expression is unlike anything I’ve seen before—furious and disgusted. Like he fucking loathes me.

It’s so unlike how Sebastian usually looks at me that I can only blink up at him in confusion, wondering how this man who was willing to go to the ends of the earth for me just days ago could now regard me like shit on the bottom of his shoe.

Then I look a little closer at the deep bruise-like smudges under his eyes, and the gauntness of his cheeks, and the misery in his eyes, beneath that fury. And I know that someone has died. Maybe a lot of people.

“Sebastian,” I croak. My throat is dry, and so are my lips. It’s hard to speak.

He winces, like even hearing his name on my lips is too much for him.

“Don’t,” he says again.

I don’t know what he’s forbidding me from doing this time. Speaking? Looking at him? Maybe just existing . . .

“What happened?” I ask him.

He’s so angry that he’s shaking down the whole length of his considerable frame.

“You know what happened,” he hisses.

“My father betrayed you,” I say. “But Sebastian, I didn’t know! I—”

“DON’T LIE TO ME!” he roars.

His face is congested with rage, his fists clenched at his sides. He takes one jerking step toward me before stopping himself, as if he wanted to tear me apart with those hands.

I flinch back from him, and maybe it’s that flinch that stops him, because he pulls himself up short, and I see the tiniest flicker in his eyes, as if his fury surprised even himself.

He looks down at me. I know I must look filthy, pained, pathetic. But whatever sympathy that might have engendered before, whatever wispy memory of love resides inside of him, he crushes it ruthlessly. He blinks, and his face is like a stranger’s again. Worse than a stranger—it’s the face of an enemy.

“You set me up,” he says, his voice colder than these stone walls. “From the moment we met, you were lying to me. There was no kidnapper. That was one of your father’s men. And then when I didn’t call you afterward . . .”

He’s watching my face, confirming every word as it comes out of his mouth.

“Then you threw yourself at me again, at the date auction. That was no coincidence. You knew I’d be there.”

I never cry. It’s been years since I’ve let tears flow freely. But I can feel them running down my cheeks now, silent and hot.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I wanted to tell you—”

“You’re a FUCKING LIAR,” Sebastian says. “I don’t believe a goddamned word that comes out of your mouth.”

I can’t deny it.

I should have told him the truth as soon as I knew I was falling in love with him.

I should have told him when he showed me his mother’s piano.

I should have told him that night on the beach when he took my virginity.

I should have told him at the planetarium when he proposed.

I had so many opportunities, and I never took them. Because I was a coward. And selfish. I was afraid my father would hurt me. And even more afraid that Sebastian would leave me.

I told myself that it wouldn’t matter after the wedding.

But it always mattered, and it always will.

“You’re right,” I whisper. “I lied to you. I knew it was wrong, but I kept doing it. I’m so sorry, Sebastian. I didn’t know this would happen. My father—”

“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR FUCKING FATHER!” Sebastian bellows. “MY FATHER’S DEAD!”

It’s like a spike to my chest. I fall silent, under the enormity of what I’ve done.

I suppose I knew that, if I’d tried to remember. I saw my father and his men open fire on Sebastian’s family. I saw Enzo Gallo—that warm and well-mannered man, who treated me with more respect than my own father has ever done—I saw him hit in the face and the chest.

No one could have survived that. Especially not a man his age.

My face crumples like a paper bag, and the tears fall down faster.

It only infuriates Sebastian more.

“Don’t you dare cry for him,” he hisses. “It’s your fault he’s dead.”

“What about the others?” I ask, unable to help myself. I have to know if his brothers are alright, and Camille and Greta.

Sebastian stares at me coldly, not wanting to answer. But at last he says, “Nero was shot six times. But he isn’t dead yet. Camille, Greta, and Jace are alive. Giovanni and Brody are dead.” He swallows hard, then says, “Brody wasn’t even a fucking mafioso. He was just a friend.”

I don’t know what to say.

There’s nothing that can be said. Nothing that will wipe away what I did. Nothing that will bring Sebastian’s father back, or his friends.

I look up at him, feeling like my heart is tearing in half.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’d give anything to take it back.”

“Well, you can’t,” Sebastian says.

And with that, he turns to leave.

But first he throws a water bottle down on the bed. The one and only hint of mercy that he’s given me.

Then he turns around and slams the door, locking it behind him.

17

Sebastian

I stand outside the cell way down deep in the basement, my whole body shaking with fury and hurt.

I feel betrayed. I feel like a fool.

And most of all, I feel horribly, sickeningly guilty.

I told Yelena it was her fault that my father’s dead, and my brother is lying in an intensive care unit with tubes going in and out of his body.

But the truth is, it’s my fault.

I knew Alexei Yenin hated us. I knew he wanted revenge on my family. I knew that he exerts incredible pressure and control over his children.

And yet I told myself it would all be fine. Because I wanted to believe it would be fine. I wanted to believe I could fall in love and be happy, and that all the wrongs of the past could be swept under a rug.

OF COURSE Yelena and I didn’t meet by chance. It’s ludicrous now to think that I ever believed that.

The way that we connected with each other, the way we fell in love so quickly felt so fated, so absolutely right, that it made me believe in destiny. I never questioned how we kept crossing paths. I believed the universe was bringing us together.

Those are the delusions of a fool. Someone who thinks that karma is real, that things always work out right in the end. How could I ever have believed that, when I’ve seen a thousand times that it isn’t true?

My uncle was burned alive, by the fucking Bratva. My mother died of an infection that was random, capricious, and totally preventable. And now my father is dead, because of my mistake. There’s no justice in any of that.

I shouldn’t have gone in that cell.

I can’t get the sight of Yelena out of my mind—her beautiful wedding dress now dirty, torn, and stained with blood. Her face stricken and pleading. Chains on her hands and feet. And that bandage covering her shoulder where Dr. Bloom plucked out the bullet and sewed her up again.

The bullet she took for me.