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chapter 1

The dress didn't fit.

It was supposed to. Andrea and I were identical down to the scar on our left knee from falling off the garden wall at nine. But three years at the Velvet Collar in Rome changes a body. My shoulders were harder. My back was mapped with things white satin was never meant to cover.

Victoria didn't look up from her phone. "Suck in."

"Non entra." [It doesn't fit.]

Her head snapped up. "Speak English. You are not in that club anymore."

I smiled with Andrea's smile. "Sì, signora." [Yes, ma'am.] She hated when I called her that. It reminded her she was old enough to be my mother, because she was.

The fitting room smelled like my sister's perfume. They'd left her things everywhere, as if she'd just stepped out. A lipstick on the vanity. A half-finished glass of champagne gone flat. A wedding invitation with her name in gold foil. Andrea Laurent to Ryan Volkov.

Andrea was gone. Ran a month before the wedding and left me to pay for it. Typical. Victoria told the Volkovs she was sick. Told me if I didn't put on the dress, she'd sell my contract back to the Collar with interest.

That's why they'd dragged me out of Rome at two in the morning with a bag over my head. Not a rescue. A replacement.

The door opened before I could answer. He didn't knock.

Ryan Volkov filled the doorway in a black suit that probably cost more than the entire club. Crime heir, rumor-made monster, my sister's fiancé. He looked at me in that dress and his eyes went still.

"Andrea," he said.

I didn't correct him. Victoria's nails dug into my wrist under the satin, a warning sharp enough to bruise.

He crossed the room. Slow. He took my hand, the one with the calluses Elena taught me to earn, and pressed his mouth to my knuckles. His lips were warm. His eyes never left mine.

"You smell different," he said quietly, too quietly for Victoria to hear.

My pulse jumped once against my throat. "Davvero?" [Really?] I caught myself, softened it with Andrea's laugh. "Do I, darling?"

He held my hand a second too long. His thumb brushed the faint white line around my wrist where the collar used to sit. Andrea never wore collars.

He knew. Right then. I saw it click behind his eyes.

He let go, nodded to Victoria, and left.

The door clicked shut.

Victoria exhaled. "He bought it."

Across the room, in the three-way mirror, I watched my sister's dress strain at the shoulders where Rome had made me strong.

He hadn't bought anything