My fiancé is sitting in a high-stakes back room at The Velvet Room, betting his whole life away. For a woman who isn’t me. Just to walk out the door with his ex-girlfriend Celeste Moore, the one the Bratva just shipped off to work the floors of a red-light joint. And her three friends. Two rounds in, Damien has already lost the Patek Philippe I clasped onto his wrist the day he made VP. And one third of Aurora Capital. The boutique fund in my name. The shares I quietly signed into his name a year ago, under the polite cover of “investing in his future.” Round three. Viktor, the man behind The Velvet Room leans across the felt and tells him to bet the thing he loves most. Damien doesn’t blink. He slides off the platinum cufflinks at his wrists. The ones I had engraved for our engagement. He smacks them down dead center on the table. His voice carries clean across the floor — calm like he’s closing a deal. “If I lose—” “I’ll break off my engagement to Aurora Castellano. And I’ll marry the girl on that stage instead.” “And I’ll let Aurora take her place. After all, there’s no shame in honest work.” The whole room sucks in a breath. Everyone down there knows my name. Aurora Castellano. Manhattan’s Ivy League sweetheart. Heiress to Aurora Capital. The woman who loved a man enough to give him a third of the empire she was born to inherit. He’s betting I’ll come downstairs with a checkbook and bail him out of the three million he just bled into Viktor’s table. So he can keep his perfect Wall Street record clean. And pull his sweetheart out of the fire while he’s at it. I lift my bourbon. I look down at the man I was supposed to marry. He still has no idea I’m watching. “If Mr. Cross wants to break our engagement,” I murmur, swirling the ice, “and humiliate me like this on the way out—” “He’d better think about how he’s going to explain it to my seven brothers.” Everyone knows the Castellanos have seven heirs spread across Wall Street and Silicon Valley. The world doesn’t know those seven brothers are the real shadow kings of this city. And they spoil their little sister to death. …… “Three rounds, Mr. Cross. You’re cleaned out.” Viktor, owner of The Velvet Room slams the dice cup onto the felt. The floor erupts. Drunk laughter. Catcalls. Damien stands in the middle of it all. Hands in his pockets. Chin lifted. Not a crack in his face. He looks up. Straight at my room. “Aurora. I know you’re up there.” His voice cuts through the noise like he’s calling me down to him. “Come down and cover the three million. After tonight—” “—I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.” The room buzzes again. “The Aurora Capital heiress, bailing out her man’s mess?” “Cross really outdid himself—using his fiancée’s money to save his ex-girlfriend.” I sit in the velvet armchair. I look down at this man again. Three years of patience curdles in my stomach. I used to think his coldness was discipline. Focus. The mark of a man going places. I rewrote his résumé in our second year at Columbia. I introduced him to the senior partners at company. I sat in front of my own board and defended him when they asked, why him? And he took every single piece of it like it was air. Tonight I see it for what it is — self-righteousness wearing a clean suit. Damien’s brow tightens when I don’t move. He cuts a small look sideways with Celeste’s three friends. A nod. They lift the hems of their dress and storm the stairs. The first one — Brittany — kicks my door clean off its frame. The oak slams into the wall. She crosses the room in four strides. Acrylic nails go straight for the Castellano emerald around my neck. “Aurora! Damien said pay up! Get your card out and save Celeste already!” The second one — Madison — folds her arms in the doorway. “Honestly. The only reason he stayed with a controlling bitch like you was the trust fund.” The third one — Sienna — screeches over her shoulder. “You’re not worth a single hair on Celeste’s head! Pay up, or do you actually want to watch him dump you?” My bodyguard’s hand drops to his holster. Before he doesn’t get the gun out. Four men in black appear out of nowhere and pin his shoulders to the wall. Damien’s private security. He brought security tonight. So, all of this is to guard against me. I stand up. Brittany’s red-tipped nail is one inch from my throat. I raise my right hand and I slap her across the face with everything I have. *SLAP.* She stumbles back three steps and lands on the carpet. I look her down. The room temperature drops ten degrees. “You don’t get to touch what belongs to a Castellano.” I tilt my head down at her, picking the skin off my knuckle where her acrylic split it. “Cute manicure. Send the bill to your funeral home.” My voice is quiet. It carries anyway. Downstairs, Damien tips his head back. His face goes to stone. “Aurora! Are you serious right now? Slapping a girl who’s just trying to help her friend?” I step to the railing. I meet his eyes. “You want me to pay three million to save the woman you’ve been contacting on the side?” I chuckled softly. “Damien. Your face is thicker than the walls of this place.”
Damien’s nostrils flare. He must think I just shamed him. He throws his jacket open and points up the staircase. “Boys—if Miss Castellano doesn’t understand manners, escort her down. She owes Celeste an apology in person.” A dozen men with baseball bats start up the stairs. The bats thud against the staircase railing — slow, deliberate, meant to scare. My fingers slide into the pocket of my gown. The Castellano family ring waits inside. Downstairs, Damien’s private security disarms my own bodyguards, twisting their wrists until they drop to their knees. Damien climbs the marble staircase one step at a time. He stops in front of me. Tips his chin down like he’s the one with the moral high ground. “Aurora. I’ve put up with your jealousy for three years.” He gestures at the three girls behind him. “There are four lives on the line tonight. How can you be this cold?” Down below, Celeste gets walked out from the back. Cheap white dress. Red-rimmed eyes. Mascara smudged just enough to look helpless. She drops to her knees at the foot of the staircase like she rehearsed it in a mirror. “Damien! Please—don’t ruin what you have with Aurora because of me!” She lifts her face. The perfect tremor in her voice. “I’m not worth this. Let me die. Let you two be happy.” Brittany and the other two scramble across the floor to her, sobbing on cue. “You happy now, you cold bitch? You won’t be satisfied until she’s dead!” The gamblers around the room shake their heads. They point up at me. They mutter the kind of things men mutter when they want to feel righteous. I watch the show downstairs. I don’t bother lifting the corner of my mouth. But Damien stares at my blank face. His jaw locks. And now Celeste shivers right on cue — just one little shoulder twitch, arms wrapped around herself like she’s freezing. Damien’s eyes drop to the white sable coat draped over the back of my chair. Don Salvatore—the Don of this city—draped it over my shoulders himself on my eighteenth birthday. He suddenly steps forward and reaches for the clasp at my throat. “Celeste’s freezing. Just give her your coat for now. I’ll buy you ten.” His hand moves like he’s allowed to. Like I’m something he already owns. I step back at once. His fingers close on empty air. I look up at him. “Damien.” My voice is cold. “You put a hand on my anything— you’d better make sure you still have a hand afterward.” Damien’s hand stopped halfway. His jaw tightened, and the color drained from his face. “Just a coat, Aurora.” “Seriously, Aurora? Over a coat? Celeste’s been through enough tonight. If she gets sick out here, that’s on you.” “Her life matters.” I laugh once. Short. Cold. “Mine doesn’t?” “This whole night. I’ve been watching it. You’ve been showing me exactly who you are. Damien.” Downstairs, Viktor’s smile disappeared completely. He was done waiting for Damien’s check. He shifts his stance. The warmth drops out of his eyes. “Listen up, Mr. Cross — no cash, no exit. You gambled away your fiancée. House rules.” He waves one fat hand. “Boys! Get her changed and onto the stage. Let’s see what an Ivy League princess looks like in lingerie.” I keep my body calm. My right hand slides into the hidden pocket of my gown. My thumb finds the inside of the Castellano family ring. Three small grooves. The signal my seven brothers told me I could press exactly once in danger. *Tap.* *Tap.* *Tap.* Somewhere across Manhattan, seven phones light up at the same second.
Twelve men with baseball bats just sealed the only way out of my private box. My security tears free of the men holding him and throws himself at the staircase, ready to die for me. Viktor’s men don’t even hesitate. A tactical knife flashes once. *Thud.* The blade goes straight through my security left shoulder. Hot blood sprays in an arc. A few drops land on the hem of my gown. The smell hits the air. I lock my eyes on Damien. “Damien. Are you really going to stand there and watch?” For one second, he flinches. His eyes drop to my bodyguard bleeding into the carpet. Then he turns to Viktor. “This isn’t fair. Sign a promissory note. Three days. Full three million plus interest.” Viktor snorts. “Your IOU? Worth about as much as that Patek you already lost.” He nods toward the stage downstairs.. “Tonight Celeste and that three friends stay and works it off as a whore, or your fiancée goes on the stage.” Celeste screams. She flings herself at Damien’s legs and clings on with both hands. “Damien — please — I’d rather die than be passed around in a place like this — save me — !” He looks down at her. A muscle ticks in his jaw. Then he turns his head, slow and pained, and looks at me. I see the exact moment he decides. So disgusting. “Aurora. It’s one dance. Just for show.” The voice he uses when he wants to sound soft. “After tonight, I’ll give you the biggest wedding this city’s ever seen. Every name in Manhattan.” “But Celeste — I have to save her.” The room goes still. He just traded my dignity for his ex-girlfriend’s safety. I look at him with narrowed eyes. “You’ll spend the rest of your life making it up to me?” My voice doesn’t shake. “But Damien. You’re not even worth the breath it takes to be angry with you.” Celeste keeps her eyes lowered. But I catch it. That tiny, ugly little smile at the corner of her mouth. Her friends take Damien’s silence as a green light. Brittany shoves the cocktail waitresses aside and gets right up in my face. Her red acrylics close around the strap of my gown. “No more pretending. Put it on and go dance. The crowd downstairs didn’t come to wait.” *RIIIIP.* The straps tears clean off. Bare skin. The cold air of the casino hits it. I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I don’t move. I count the time. Almost. My brothers will be coming. Damien sees me standing still and reads it as defiance. He waved a hand, signaling Viktor’s men to hurry. “Enough.” He turns his back on me. And pulls Celeste behind him like she’s the one who needs protecting. “Get her on the stage. Sooner this is done, sooner Celeste and I go home.”
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