My fiancé kissed my sister at the altar, never knowing I had married the mafia boss he feared that morning.

Saturday arrived with a pale, cold mist rising off the East River.

The city was barely awake when I stepped out of a yellow cab at the corner of Centre and Pearl Street at seven forty-five. The granite steps of the Manhattan Municipal Building were slick with moisture, towering like the entrance to a mausoleum.

I wasn't wearing white. I wore an ivory wool coat over an unadorned silk shift dress, my dark hair pinned up with simple tortoiseshell combs. My fingers were cold inside my gloves.

Inside the quiet rotunda, two men in dark overcoats flanked the security entrance. The moment I walked through the metal detector, one of them—a man with a scarred jaw and the cold demeanor of an ex-soldier—nodded respectfully.

"Mrs. Moretti. This way."

The title hit me like a splash of ice water, but my step didn't falter. "Lead."

We were taken up a private elevator to a third-floor administrative chamber that had been cleared of staff. Inside stood a city clerk whose hands trembled visibly as he adjusted his spectacles, and Roman Moretti.

Roman was already waiting. He wore a bespoke midnight-navy suit and a white shirt with an open collar. He looked rested, entirely unbothered by the fact that he was dismantling two prominent New York dynasties before breakfast.

When he turned to look at me, his gaze was slow, deliberate, and entirely unreadable.

"You're five minutes early," he noted.

"I don't like keeping my creditors waiting."

"Husband," he corrected smoothly, taking two steps toward me. "From this morning forward, Miss Hart, I am no one's creditor. I am your husband."

The clerk cleared his throat nervously. "If both parties are ready... we have the waivers signed by the administrative judge. The waiting period has been waived."

"Proceed," Roman commanded without taking his eyes off me.

The ceremony took less than four minutes. There were no flowers, no vows about sickness and health, and no hollow promises of eternal devotion. There was only the dry rustle of legal paper, the scratch of a fountain pen, and the cold reality of a binding civil contract.

When it came time for the rings, Roman pulled a narrow velvet box from his pocket. Inside was a platinum band set with an emerald-cut diamond so dark it looked like frozen oil until the overhead light hit it, revealing deep, blood-red undertones.

"The Moretti crest stone," Roman said, taking my left hand. His skin was warm, his grip iron-hard, yet surprisingly gentle as he slid the heavy ring onto my fourth finger. "My grandmother brought it from Palermo. No woman has taken it off alive."

The gravity of his words hung in the quiet room.

"I have no intention of taking it off," I said, meeting his eyes.

I took the plain platinum band the clerk offered and slid it onto Roman’s left hand. His skin was rough over the knuckles—old scars from fights long before he wore four-thousand-dollar suits.

"By the power vested in me by the State of New York," the clerk mumbled, stamping the official embossed seal onto the parchment, "I pronounce you husband and wife."

The clerk looked down, terrified to suggest that the groom kiss the bride.

Roman stepped closer. His hand rose, his fingers brushing the line of my jaw with a touch that sent an involuntary shiver straight down my spine. He didn't kiss my lips; he leaned down and pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to the pulse point beneath my ear.

"You smell like rain and lavender," he murmured against my skin. "Go home, Arya. Put on your wedding dress. Walk down that aisle."

"And you?" I asked, my voice slightly breathless.