Her Name is Don Callahan
Cassie Novak was the club hostess I'd been protecting for three years.
From the moment a rival family hunted her to the brink of death, I arranged her safe houses and covered her expenses.
I saw her as a little sister, someone who needed my protection.
When she was being hunted for a blood debt, I even had my husband, Ronan Costello—the most capable Capo in the Callahan family—personally oversee her safety.
But on the day of the party celebrating her "new life."
I went to her safe house early, wanting to give her a surprise.
Instead, I found Ronan gently kissing the new butterfly tattoo on her back, a symbol of her supposed "freedom."
"Ronan, if Genevieve finds out, will she cut me off?"
Ronan pulled her into his arms, his voice laced with that infuriating, condescending patience he always had.
"Don't worry. A woman like Gen lives in an ivory tower, clueless about the real world. She could never understand what we have—two souls who saved each other."
"But to maintain the family's outward peace, she'll behave."
"The moment I secure the Ultimate Protection Order, I'll take you away from here and give you a real home."
I stood outside the door, clutching the cold family seal I had just retrieved from the safe.
I didn't push the door open. I didn't cause a scene.
I just calmly clenched it in my palm, the chill seeping from my fingertips straight to the bone.
Ronan Costello.
You could never have guessed.
That Ultimate Protection Order you're both so desperate for?
Its sole issuer is the very wife you call a sheltered, clueless princess.