Chapter 1 - The Midnight Choice
Claire Bellandi did not scream when she saw her husband kiss another woman.
She did not burst through the half-open mahogany door of the study. She did not throw the heavy crystal whiskey decanter sitting on the dark walnut hallway table, nor did she demand to know how many calculated lies could fit inside fifteen years of an otherwise devoted marriage.
She simply stood barefoot in the dark shadows of the corridor at 12:17 in the morning and watched Adrian Bellandi make his final choice.
His former lover's pale hand was pressed firmly against his rugged cheek.
His strong hand was curved securely around her waist, pulling her close.
And for one terrible, irreversible second, Adrian kissed her back.
That single second was more than enough.
Claire turned away silently before either of them could look up and see her standing there. By sunrise, she was completely gone.
The woman legally married to the most feared, untouchable man in Chicago had vanished without a trace from a property heavily protected by closed-circuit cameras, armed perimeter guards, coded security gates, automated motion sensors, and loyal men who supposedly noticed every unfamiliar vehicle within three blocks of the estate.
She left behind only her diamond wedding ring, her cellular phone, and five simple words written on a piece of hotel stationery she had saved from their tenth-anniversary trip:
You made your choice. Goodbye.
At 5:41 a.m., Adrian Bellandi sat alone on the edge of their massive master bed with her cold wedding ring resting in the center of his palm, finally understanding something that thirty years of ruthless power and bloodshed had never taught him.
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You could build stone walls high enough to keep out any rival syndicate.
You could not build them high enough to keep a woman trapped inside after you had willfully destroyed her reason to stay.
