"The mafia boss returned home early after 364 nights—and caught his wife collapsed on the cold chapel stone."

Julian Caruso was stripped of all corporate voting shares, his private accounts frozen by federal injunctions, and handed over to federal authorities for systemic corporate fraud, embezzlement, and arson.

By 3:30 AM, the estate was quiet once more.

Dante stood in the center of the grand master bedroom on the second floor. The room was spacious, elegant, and warmed by a soft fire in the hearth, yet it felt as if it had been uninhabited for a year.

Maren sat on the edge of the large king-sized bed, wearing a clean, soft white silk robe over her nightdress. Her hands rested in her lap, her freshly bandaged knees concealed beneath the heavy fabric.

Dante walked slowly toward her. He didn't carry himself like the feared mob boss of Chicago. He walked like a man who had been given a second chance at life and was terrified of ruining it.

He dropped slowly onto his knees on the carpet in front of her.

Maren gasped softly. "Dante... your shoulder—"

"Let it hurt," Dante whispered, his storm-gray eyes swimming with raw, unreserved tears as he looked up into her face.

He reached out, his large, calloused hands gently taking her bandaged knees into his palms, holding her with a reverence so profound it made her breath catch in her throat.

"For three hundred and sixty-four nights," Dante choked out, his deep voice trembling, "I came home after midnight believing I was keeping you safe from my dark world. I thought if I stayed away, if I didn't touch you with hands that dealt in violence, I was protecting you."

He leaned forward, pressing his forehead gently against her bandaged knees.

"I didn't see that I was letting you bleed in the dark," he wept softly.

Maren reached down, her warm, slender fingers running through his thick dark hair, lifting his head until his gray eyes met hers.

"I didn't kneel in that chapel because I was forced to, Dante," Maren said softly, a tender, radiant smile touching her lips. "I knelt because I loved you. Even when I thought you had turned cold... even when I thought our marriage was just a debt contract... I knew the man beneath the dark coat was worth praying for."