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?

The detective’s words hung in the sterile hospital air long after the door clicked shut behind him.

He’s been watching you for a very long time.

I stared at the grainy surveillance photograph on my bedside tray. The timestamp in the corner read six months ago—weeks before my mother’s diagnosis had even forced me to pick up extra catering shifts at the Aster Crown. Why would a man like Dominic Rossi—a multi-billionaire crime lord who commanded armies of enforcers and controlled half the city’s underground economy—waste a single second tracking a struggling twenty-six-year-old waitress?

When Dominic returned to the room ten minutes later, accompanied by Enzo, he took one look at my face and immediately knew something had shifted.

The cold, calculated armor was back in place. He dismissed Enzo with a flick of his wrist, stepped up to the bed, and looked down at the photograph lying exposed on my sheets.

A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the room.

“He showed you that,” Dominic stated, not asking a question.

“Is it true?” I asked, my voice barely louder than a whisper, yet trembling with a mixture of fear and fury. I looked up into his slate-gray eyes. “Were you watching me six months ago? Were you watching me a year ago? Why, Dominic? What kind of game are you playing?”

Dominic didn't flinch. He didn't offer a soothing lie or a practiced excuse. He simply pulled out the chair, sat down, and rested his hands on his knees.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

The blunt confirmation hit me like a physical blow. “Why?”

“Because six months ago, my intelligence network flagged a suspicious financial wire transfer routed through a shell company connected to Victor Costa’s laundering operations,” Dominic explained, his voice eerily calm. “The recipient account belonged to a private clinic in Cleveland that was treating your mother’s failing heart valve.”

My breath caught in my throat. “What... what does my mother have to do with Costa?”

“Nothing,” Dominic said. “At least, not initially. Costa was using small-scale medical debt collectors as a front to quietly buy up property deeds and medical liens across the Midwest, preparing to establish a foothold for his narcotics distribution network. Your mother’s clinic happened to be one of the properties targeted for foreclosure and acquisition.”

I stared at him, my mind racing to connect the pieces. “So you... you bought the debt?”

“I liquidated the debt, paid off the clinic’s entire ledger, and ensured your mother’s treatment was moved to a fully funded private wing,” Dominic continued, his eyes locked onto mine. “When my analysts pulled the files on everyone tied to the clinic, your name came up. The dutiful daughter working three jobs to keep her mother alive while drowning in medical bills.”

He reached across the table, his fingers gently brushing against the edge of the photograph.

“I had you watched to ensure Costa wasn't using your family as leverage against my business interests,” Dominic said softly. “And in doing so... I found you.”

“Found me?” I echoed, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. “Like a stray cat on the street? You think you can just buy my life, stalk me, marry me without my consent, and dress it up as protection?!”

“I saved your life,” Dominic snapped, his voice suddenly sharp, a flash of raw, controlled heat breaking through his icy exterior. He stood up, towering over the bed. “If I hadn't had you watched, if my men hadn't been positioned outside the Aster Crown that night, Costa’s sniper wouldn't have just grazed you—he would have put a bullet through your skull before you ever had a chance to push my mother to the floor!”

The words hung in the air, vibrating with terrifying intensity.

He was there that night on purpose.

“You knew,” I whispered, horror dawning on me. “You knew Costa was planning something at the gala. That’s why you were there.”

“I knew an attempt was coming,” Dominic corrected, leaning over the bed so close I could feel the heat radiating from his chest. “I didn't know he was targeting my mother. And I certainly didn't know that a stubborn, exhausted little waitress with a hero complex would throw herself in front of the bullets.”

He reached out, his warm thumb gently tracing my jawline. I flinched away from his touch, but his grip was firm, inescapable.

“You belong to me now, Elena,” Dominic murmured, his voice dropping into a low, hypnotic register that sent shivers down my spine. “Whether you hate me for it, whether you think I’m a monster—it doesn't change reality. My ring is on your finger. My name is on your hospital chart. And when you leave this room tomorrow, you aren't going back to your cramped apartment. You are coming home with me.”