SEVEN BULLETS WERE STILL LODGED INSIDE MY BODY WHEN NEW YORK’S MOST FEARED CRIME BOSS SLIPPED A GOLD RING ONTO MY SWOLLEN FINGER WHILE I LAY UNCONSCIOUS IN SURGERY—BUT WHY HAD DOMINIC ROSSI DECIDED TO MARRY A WAITRESS HE BARELY KNEW?

Seven bullets were still lodged inside my body when Dominic Rossi married me, and I had no idea it was even happening. While surgeons debated whether my heart could handle another operation, New York’s most feared crime boss slid a heavy gold band onto my swollen finger and whispered to my unconscious, oxygen-tethered form, “Anybody who comes for you comes through me.”

Three hours earlier, I had been an exhausted twenty-six-year-old waitress desperately covering a double shift at the Aster Crown Hotel.

My name is Elena Scott. For the past six months, my entire existence had been reduced to a frantic mathematical equation: rent plus medical bills divided by minimum wage, subtracted by zero. My mother, Ellen, was sitting in a Cleveland cardiac care facility with a failing heart valve that had long since devoured every penny of my savings. When the agency offered me four hundred dollars cash to work an upscale corporate gala at the Aster Crown, I didn't care that my feet were already blistered or that I hadn't slept more than four hours in three days. Four hundred dollars meant another week of oxygen tanks and specialized medication for my mother.

The ballroom sparkled beneath multi-tiered crystal chandeliers that cast blinding diamonds across custom mahogany tables. Politicians, senior banking executives, real estate moguls, and notorious nightlife figures sipped champagne as though money could shield them from mortality. To them, the staff were invisible props—silent ghosts in black-and-white uniforms meant to keep their crystal flutes perpetually full.

I kept my head down, balancing a heavy silver tray loaded with flutes, navigating the sea of tailored tuxedos and designer silk. I knew nothing about these people, nor why the air in the VIP section felt noticeably heavier, charged with a quiet, suppressed tension. Everyone seemed unnaturally cautious around a broad-shouldered man in a midnight tuxedo standing near the mahogany bar.

When a careless guest brushed past my elbow, sending a champagne glass tipping dangerously toward the edge of my tray, I lunged forward with a practiced reflex, catching the stem just a millimeter before it shattered against the marble floor.

A low, amused voice drifted from beside my shoulder.

“You’re new.”

I looked up, my nerves already frayed to a razor-thin wire. “Is that a crime?”

One dark, perfectly chiseled eyebrow rose. The man staring down at me possessed the kind of face that belonged on a magazine cover or a federal most-wanted poster—sharp jawline, cold slate-gray eyes, and an aura of absolute, unyielding authority.

Before I could stutter an apology or remember my place as temporary staff, an elegant, silver-haired woman standing beside him let out a melodic laugh.

“Dominic, stop frightening the staff. She’s working hard enough as it is.”

That was how I met Dominic Rossi and his mother, Isabella.

Isabella’s gaze softened as she noticed the dark, violet exhaustion bruises beneath my eyes. With unexpected gentleness, she reached out and touched my wrist. “Go drink some water before you fall over, child. Nobody should have to faint for rich people.”

It was maybe ten seconds of human kindness in a room full of sharks.

Thirty minutes later, those ten seconds nearly got me killed.

I had retreated to the quiet perimeter of the ballroom, slipping past the ornamental velvet drapes toward the service corridor to catch my breath. The hallway was dim, smelling faintly of old polish and chilled air from the kitchens.

Then I heard it—the quiet, mechanical click of a slide being pulled back on a semi-automatic weapon.

My instincts, honed by years of surviving hand-to-mouth in the city, screamed before my brain could process the danger. I snapped my head around. Down the service corridor, a man in an identical catering jacket was moving against the flow of the waitstaff. His hand was buried deep inside the lining of his coat.

His eyes weren't scanning the room for guests. They were fixed entirely on the main ballroom entrance—specifically, on the doorway where Isabella Rossi had just stepped back out into the crowd.

My breath caught. A gun.

There was no time to think. No time to calculate the cost.

“GET DOWN!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

My silver tray crashed against the marble floor with a deafening clatter as I threw myself forward, tackling Isabella hard around the waist and knocking her sprawling toward the floor just as the first deafening explosion tore through the ballroom.

After that, everything shattered into a nightmare of pure sensory overload.

Screaming guests diving beneath tables. The tinkling cascade of shattering crystal chandeliers. Champagne foaming across the polished floor like spilled blood. Isabella pinned beneath my body, gasping in shock.

Then the first bullet hit me.

It felt like a red-hot iron rod being driven straight through my shoulder blade. I gasped, the air exploding from my lungs. Before I could even register the agony, a second impact slammed into my ribs, spinning me half around. By the third shot, the screams of the panic-stricken crowd vanished beneath a deafening, high-pitched ringing in my ears.

My body kept jerking involuntarily as more rounds chewed into the floor and struck my flesh. But through the blinding white-hot agony, my arms locked tighter around Isabella, using my own body as a human shield.

Protect her. The thought echoed in the darkness creeping at the edges of my vision.

Another deafening crack echoed through the corridor—the heavy, authoritative boom of a Rossi bodyguard’s sidearm returning fire.

Then, abruptly, the shooting stopped.

Heavy footsteps pounded against the marble. A massive shadow loomed over us. Dominic Rossi dropped to his knees, his face stripped of its cool composure, pale and twisted with raw terror.

“Mother!” Dominic shouted, his hands hovering over Isabella.

I blinked sluggishly, tasting copper in my mouth. My chest felt like it was filling with lead and fire. I turned my head, my cheek pressing against the sticky, champagne-soaked floor.

“The lady...” I managed, my voice a pathetic, bubbling rasp.

Dominic’s gray eyes whipped down, locking onto my face. “What?”

“Your... your mother.”

He looked down beneath me. Isabella was gasping, clutching his sleeve, completely unharmed. “She’s alive,” Dominic said, his voice trembling in a way no crime lord’s voice ever should.

I let out a weak, agonizing exhale. “Good.”