I run blindly through the estate gardens, my heels abandoned somewhere on the marble steps. My body moves on autopilot, muscle memory guiding me through paths I haven't walked in years.
The pool house materializes through my tears—Mom's old sanctuary, abandoned since the car bomb took her when I was fifteen.
I collapse on the old daybed, and the sobs come like violence.
Aaron fucking my sister against the wine cellar wall.
How long? How many times? Every family dinner, every time Aaron visited, every moment I thought we were building something real… were they laughing at me behind my back?
I curl into myself, trying to hold the pieces together. Four years. Four years of loving him, saving myself for him, believing his promises that I was special, that he'd wait, that our wedding night would be worth it.
What a fucking joke.
Footsteps crunch on gravel outside and I freeze, suddenly aware of my isolation. The main house is five hundred yards away. Nobody would hear me scream. My father's world is full of dangerous men, and I'm alone and vulnerable.
But then an expensive suit jacket drapes over my shoulders, heavy and warm and smelling of bourbon and bergamot.
"Easy there, little princess." The voice is smooth, amused. "That's quite a spectacular broken heart you're nursing."
A man crouches before me, and my breath catches.
The stranger from the ballroom up close is even more handsome than I remembered. Sharp cheekbones cast in shadow, black hair slicked back with casual precision, and those blue eyes—cold and striking like crystal catching light.
Terror and something else war in my chest. "Stay back."
"I'm not going to hurt you." He raises his hands, palms out. "I was smoking in the gardens when I heard someone trying to wake the dead with their crying. Figured I should check if you were dying or just dramatic."
"You were watching me. In the ballroom."
"Guilty." He doesn't even try to deny it. "You're hard to look away from, even when you're trying to disappear into that pretty dress."
Something about his certainty makes my skin prickle. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know you just discovered your fiancé buried deep in someone who isn't you." His voice is casual, but his eyes have gone cold and lethal.
My face burns. "You saw?"
"I saw you run like the devil himself was chasing you." He produces a silver flask from his pocket, monogrammed with initials I can't quite make out. "The rest I can guess. Bourbon?"
I shook my head.
"Good girl." His approval does something dangerous to my stomach. "Never accept drinks from dangerous strangers."
He takes a long pull himself, throat working, and I watch him with fascination I shouldn't feel. Then he settles on the daybed beside me—close enough that I can feel his body heat, far enough that I don't feel trapped.
The respectful distance somehow makes me trust him more than proximity would.
"I'm Ian," he says, offering me the flask again. "And you're Esther Castellano, the bride-to-be who just had her world implode."
I take the flask this time. The bourbon burns going down, chasing away the cold that's settled in my bones. "You know who I am."
"Everyone knows who you are, princess. Vincent Castellano's daughter. The prize that comes with a marriage alliance." His mouth curves. "Though I have to say, the reality is far more compelling than the reputation."
"What's my reputation?"
"Sweet. Obedient. The perfect mafia princess who does what she's told." He leans closer, voice dropping. "But that's not who you really are, is it? That's just who you had to be to survive."
I notice his cufflinks then—black platinum with an emblem I don't recognize. A wolf, maybe, or something more abstract. "Who are you?"
"Does it matter?" He grins, all dangerous charms. "Tonight I'm just a man who found a crying girl and couldn't walk away."
Despite everything, I laugh—a broken sound that becomes real. "You're pretty good at this. Do you comfort all the heartbroken girls you find?"
"Only the beautiful ones who make me want to commit murder." His eyes darken, focusing on my mouth. "Only the ones who make me forget why I came here in the first place."
His words break something in me. The whole story pours out—Aaron's promises, his slow transformation from protector to stranger, the wedding in two months that will trap me forever.
"He used to call me his salvation," I whisper. "Said I was the only clean thing in his world."
Ian's eyes flash with something lethal. "The boy who would fuck your sister during your engagement party, is a worthless piece of shit who deserves a bullet, not your tears."
"You don't even know him…"
"I know enough." His jaw tightens. "And that tells me everything about his character. That's some particularly vicious betrayal. Creative, even. I almost admire the cruelty of it."
"That's a horrible thing to say."
"I'm a horrible man, princess. Best you learn that now." But his hand is gentle when it cups my jaw, forcing me to look at him. "But even I wouldn't do what he did. Even I have standards."
"What standards?"
"If I wanted you…" His thumb traces my lower lip, and I stop breathing. "I'd make damn sure you knew it was you I wanted. Not some poor substitute. Not a game. Just you."
"But you see me for the first time."
"Yet I see enough." His eyes search mine. "I know you're scared and hurt and looking for a way to hurt him back. And I know that if I kiss you right now, you'll let me, and we'll both regret it."
"Who says I'd regret it?"
His smile is pure sin. "Because despite everything, you're still a good girl, Esther. And good girls always regret the bad boys."
"Maybe I'm tired of being good."
"Are you?" He leans closer, close enough that I can feel his breath on my lips. "Or are you just tired of being treated like you don't matter?"
The truth of it hits like a physical blow. I kiss him before I can overthink it. No plan, no thought, just desperate need crashing over every survival instinct I've ever had.
For a heartbeat he freezes, and I think he's going to push me away, prove he's better than me.
Then his control shatters.
He pulls me onto his lap with a growl that vibrates through my chest, hands tangling in my hair, angling my head exactly where he wants it. His mouth claims mine with an intensity that makes Aaron's kisses feel like practice.
Like I've been kissing wrong my entire life and only now am I learning the language.
He tastes like bourbon and something wild that calls to the parts of me I've kept carefully locked away. His hands are confident, possessive, mapping my body through silk like he's memorizing the landscape.
I arch against him, shameless in my need, feeling him hard beneath me. This is real. This heat, this wanting, this feeling like I might actually die if he stops touching me.
"Make me forget," I beg against his mouth. "Please. I don't want to be the virgin sacrifice. I want… I need—"
"Esther." He pulls back with visible struggle, breathing hard. "You deserve better than revenge sex with a stranger."
"I don't care what I deserve."
"But I do." His thumb traces my swollen lips. "Besides, if I took you now, little princess, I'd never let you go."
"Maybe I don't want you to."
He makes a sound that's part laugh, part growl. "You don't know what you're saying. You don't know who I am, what I'm capable of."
"I know you make me feel more in five minutes than Aaron did in four years."
When I can breathe again, he's watching me with something like awe and regret warring in his expression. "We should stop," he says, but doesn't put me down.
"Why?"
"Because when I fuck you…" His voice is rough, certain. "And I will fuck you, Esther. Make no mistake about that. But when I do, it won't be because you're running from him. It'll be because you're running to me."
"What if I already am?"
His smile is dangerous, promising. "Then we'll see each other again very soon."
He sets me down gently, adjusting my dress with hands that shake slightly. Then he kisses me once more—soft, reverent, completely at odds with what just happened.
"Go back to the house," he says, stepping away like it costs him. "Clean yourself up. Survive tomorrow. And remember, Esther—you're worth more than some boy's betrayal. You're worth everything."
"How will I find you?"
"You won't have to." He heads for the door, pauses. "I'll find you. I always find what's mine."
"But I'm not yours."
His smile is all predator. "Not yet."
Then he's gone, leaving only bourbon and bergamot and the ghost of his touch.