Chapter 2 - The Fracture of IceThe silence that followed Marco Russo’s declaration was absolute. It was the kind of suffocating stillness that precedes a thunderstorm, where every breath is suspended and every heartbeat echoes like a drum in an empty cathedral.
I felt the blood drain entirely from my face. My fingers tightened reflexively around the delicate gold strap of my clutch bag. For three years, Enzo had treated me like an inconvenience, an arranged alliance on paper, a ghost who inhabited his house but never his bed. I had spent one thousand and ninety-five nights wondering if I was invisible, if I lacked whatever spark made a man want to reach out and touch his wife.
And now, a ruthless rival had walked up to the most feared man in Illinois, looked straight past the underworld king, and claimed me like a prize at an auction.
I waited for Enzo to laugh it off. I waited for him to dismiss Marco with a cold, aristocratic sneer, reminding the younger rival of the bloodbath that happened the last time a Russo crossed a DeLuca line.
Instead, Enzo didn't laugh.
The air around my husband turned into liquid nitrogen. I watched, paralyzed, as every drop of color vanished from Enzo’s face, replaced by a terrifying, murderous pallor. His jaw clenched so hard I thought the bone might fracture. The hand that had been resting on my waist slid up, wrapping around the back of my neck with a grip so fierce and possessive it left no room for breath. He pulled me flush against his side, molding my body to his with a raw, undeniable claim that he had never, not once, demonstrated in three agonizing years of marriage.
"Say that again," Enzo whispered.
It wasn't a shout. It was a soft, lethal purr that carried the weight of a guillotine blade dropping.
Marco didn't flinch. He just smiled wider, enjoying the visible fury tearing through the man who controlled Chicago’s docks, unions, and underground banks.
"I said," Marco repeated, leaning in closer, his eyes locked on mine while he spoke to my husband, "she looks wasted on you, Enzo. You’ve always kept your treasures locked in the dark. Maybe it’s time someone let her out into the light."
Before Marco could blink, Enzo’s free hand shot out with blinding speed, grabbing the lapel of Marco’s velvet jacket and yanking him forward so violently that the younger man’s chest slammed against Enzo’s fist. The surrounding crowd gasped, glasses clattering onto silver trays as security guards on both sides instinctively reached for their holstered weapons.
"Touch her with your eyes again, Marco," Enzo whispered, his voice trembling with a rage so deep it terrified me, "and I won’t just send you back to Europe. I’ll scatter your pieces across Lake Michigan before the clock strikes midnight."
Marco’s smile finally faltered, replaced by a flicker of genuine shock. He hadn't expected this. None of us had. For three years, Enzo had acted as though I meant nothing to him—as though our marriage was nothing more than a legal signature on a parchment. But the volcanic eruption of jealousy tearing through my husband right now wasn't about business. It wasn't about territory.
It was about me.
Enzo shoved Marco back so hard the younger man stumbled into a waiter, sending a cascade of champagne flutes shattering onto the marble floor. Without waiting for a response, Enzo turned his fiery gaze down to me.
May you like
"We’re leaving," he commanded, his voice thick with a dark, untamed hunger.
He didn't ask. He didn't wait for my agreement. He gripped my wrist—not with cruelty, but with the desperate, iron-clad grip of a man realizing someone was trying to steal what belonged to him—and hauled me toward the exit, leaving the entire ballroom in absolute, stunned silence.
