Too Late: The Don's Queen Is Not Me

yet I hid in the shadows for Serena. I kept our relationship a s

uld finally accept my name. Instead, I discovered she had commissioned a solid g

her, she introduced me to her friends as nothing more than her brother's low-level lackey to maintain

ll your strings. You'll

g her the keys to the city three separate times, only to realize I had wasted

turned to ash, replaced by the co

blocked her number, and publicly announced my marriage

pte

ian

he coppery tang of another man's blood, when Enzo, my most trusted capo, deli

mand was unbending: I had to take the blood oath of marriage to secur

chances to wear my name, and she

grim amusement in his eyes under the dim,

his voice a low rumble against the concrete.

ion below my ribs seemed to loosen, a se

y let my

ed for five long years was finally ready

crete wall, the casualness of the movement a prelud

eather. "She's kept herself so far removed from our w

associate who managed one of Ser

warmth in my

mplete that the only sound I could register was the f

rimson soaking through the

t cold and heavy in my palm. My thumb found the contact for th

rriage contract w

t Enzo and le

rds leaving my mouth like chips of stone.

mber scattering in a brief, viole

, his face a ma

I added, my voice flat.

ct. I had already studied Elena Romano's file-her photograph had stirred an odd, unsettling pr

the heavy metal door of the speakeasy sw

designer dress that shimmered

tinctively to the holster at his hip, a guardian moving to shield his Don from the intrusion. I did not permit it. I raised a single

verish light in her eyes, and snatc

y-grade encryption a silent rebuke, demanding a biometric authority she would never possess. A flicker of raw frustra

table, where it landed with a sha

r breasts, she gave me a lo

f my world a thing of stunning arrogance. "You are too soft, Julian," she t

meone who had never bothered to learn that th

ical thing, a sudden, sic

ompromised my own nature for, and I co

a dark, suffocating grief began t

ed leather booth, my height and

ness," I said,

through the heavy exit doors, and headed down

ercussion of her heels a shrill, desp

ingly strong as she tried to lever m

rum?" she demanded, her

ic," she insisted, her body pressing c

lean

e, reached me. It was a cheap, unfamiliar

as L

the back of my throat,

felt like a brand. I pushed, not with anger, but with a d

of the SUV and slid into the

a climbed in r

e, arranging her dress

my timeline, Jul

ve a clean business to think of," she sa

t her, staring at my own hardened r

effort to conceal the utter absence of the man she thou

" I told her, my voi

ation of her carefully cur