I hid a shattered forearm beneath my silk opera glove at a press shoot, knowing if my mob boss husband knew I took a hit meant for him, he'd burn the city to ashes.

The Great Hall inside remained blissfully oblivious, the quartet still playing Vivaldi as Salvatore Falco stood on the wind-whipped terrace, staring in stunned silence at the empty balustrade.

Falco looked at Dominic, who stood unmoving, adjusting the cuffs of his white dress shirt as if he had merely discarded a piece of trash.

“He would have butchered us both,” Falco said, his raspy voice carrying a heavy, somber weight. “He had twenty soldiers waiting for my men at the perimeter.”

“My men have already neutralized them,” Dominic replied, turning his back on the courtyard drop and walking toward his wife. “No blood was spilled inside the museum walls. The Commission will hear that Leo Navarro suffered a tragic fall after a private business dispute with an out-of-town syndicate.”

Falco looked down at the gun in his own bodyguard’s hand, then raised a hand, ordering the weapon holstered.

The old mob boss stepped forward, his eyes landing on Clara’s exposed navy cast. For a long moment, the man who had ordered eighty executions across four decades bowed his head in a gesture of profound, uncharacteristic humility.

“Mrs. Carretti,” Falco said quietly. “You took a strike meant to shatter our city into pieces. You bore the pain in silence to keep the peace between our families.”

Clara pulled the heavy velvet sleeve back down over the cast, her chin raised, her eyes unwavering. “I did it to protect my husband, Mr. Falco. But if your family ever breaks this peace, I will not stand between you and him next time.”

A ghost of a smile touched the old patriarch’s withered lips.

“You have a formidable queen, Dominic,” Falco murmured. “The northern docks are yours. The shipping channels are yours. The Falco family cedes all territorial claims north of the canal as restitution for the injury brought to this house.”

Falco extended his right hand toward Dominic.

Dominic looked at the outstretched hand for three long seconds. Then, he took it, his grip crushing and final.

“The treaty is signed in blood, Salvatore,” Dominic said. “Keep your house clean.”

“It will be spotless,” Falco promised.

The old man turned and strode back through the glass doors, his bodyguards flanking him, disappearing into the crowd of the Great Hall.

Dominic stood alone on the terrace with Clara. The city lights flickered in the distance, cutting through the damp, cold mist.

Dominic stepped close to her, wrapping his long black coat around her shoulders, enclosing them both in a warm, private cocoon against the autumn chill. He reached down, taking her injured arm with infinite, agonizing tenderness, resting his lips against the dark fiberglass at her wrist.

“It’s over, Clara,” he whispered against the cast. “It’s over.”

The adrenaline that had held Clara upright for four harrowing days finally collapsed. She buried her face against the lapel of his tuxedo, her body shaking with silent, heaving sobs as months of terror, pain, and deception washed out of her system.

Dominic held her tight, his hand cradling the back of her head, his eyes watching the dark horizon of the city he now fully commanded.