The silk of my black dress felt like liquid midnight against my skin. It was backless, clinging to every curve Luciano had claimed only hours before. It was a weapon of a different kind—designed to draw every eye in the room and then cut them down. Around my neck sat a heavy collar of black diamonds, a gift from Luciano that felt less like jewelry and more like a vow.
I stood in front of the mirror in the secondary suite, my hands steady as I applied a deep, blood-red lipstick. The girl who had cried at the altar was dead. The woman looking back at me had a coldness in her eyes that even I didn't fully recognize.
"You look like a war I’m about to win," Luciano’s voice rumbled from the doorway.
I turned. He was dressed in a bespoke charcoal suit, his shirt as white as a shroud and his ti
