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PROLOGUE
LOUISA
Five Years Ago…
They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. What they don’t tell you about is the pain you’ll endure in the process. Or that the scars left behind might change you to such a degree that you’ll wonder if you didn’t actually die, and someone else was born in your place.
What doesn’t kill you will still end your life one way or another is a more accurate saying. I know this because I’m actively dying. My heart is racing, burning white hot in my chest, making me wish for a dagger to carve it out and end my suffering.
The grandfather clock in the foyer of the small chapel chimes the midnight hour as I burst through the wooden doors and out into the dark and stormy night, my short life and everything that has led me here flashing before my eyes —the accident that flung me into the pool, Rowan hurdling himself into the water to save me. The first time our eyes met. The first time we made love.
Those memories are like death itself nipping at my heels, and I run faster. But it makes no difference. I can’t escape them, and with every image conjured, I hurt a little more. Die a little more.
My foot catches on a rock in the gravel parking lot and I fall to my knees and land in a puddle. Mud soils my mother’s wedding dress, soaking into the ivory threads, tainting something that was once so loved and sacred.
“Lulu!” Mom’s voice pierces through the crack of lighting.
I want to get up and get away before she reaches me and witnesses my shame. But I’m too weak to go any farther.
“Your dress, Mom. Your dress.” Gathering some of the wet skirt, I lift it so that she can see what I’ve done to the gown she proudly gave to me.
What’s become of me?Sobs wrack my body as I blink against the rain, shouting the question in my head.
Not caring for herself, Mom sits beside me in the puddle. “Shh, my Lulu. That doesn’t matter right now. Come inside before you catch a cold.”
I swallow down through the tightness in my throat as I stare straight ahead toward the empty street. “He’s not coming.”
“I know.” Her gaze is soft and pitiful, but I can see the rage warring inside. Though I’m not sure who she’s angrier with. Me for falling for the wrong man, him for abandoning me, or herself for being a hardcore romantic who wanted to believe I’d found true love. Hell, she even let me wear the dress she wore the day she married Papá.
She was so swept away by my whirlwind romance that she even went against the wishes of my father, not to mention my three brothers, and convinced Father Ayala to marry Rowan and me in secret. In her mind, she’d envisioned the two rival crime families being brought together by our love. A real-life Romeo and Juliet.
To my detriment, I share that romantic gene. Until today, it was a benign emotion. It made me euphoric and giddy. But now it’s turned into a cancerous tumor I want to remove.
The rain comes down harder and Mom wraps her arms around me in an effort to shield me at least from that. “I’m so sorry, my Lulu. I’m so sorry.”
I drop my forehead onto her shoulder and cry, wishing that were enough to end the pain. But even long after the rain stops and my tears dry up, the agony of a shattered heart remains. His last words still blare into my skull as if he’s just said them.
It only took me about one hundred desperate tries to get a hold of him, where I feared something had happened to him that prevented him from coming, before he finally answered his phone. I imagined him in a ditch, put there by his boss if he’d discovered he was about to marry the enemy.
“Louisa,” he said, using my full name instead of his usual Lou. It sounded cold coming from him, and it sent a shiver of dread down my spine.
“Where are you? I’m at the church waiting.”
“I’m not coming.” His tone was dispassionate, matter-of-fact.
“What?”
“I’m not coming. It’s over.”
I shook my head in confusion. “What are you talking about? What’s over?”
“Us.”
Pausing for a moment, I let what he’d said sink in. “Did Bryan discover you?”
But instead of confirming my fear, Rowan laughed sarcastically. “Bryan is the one who set it all up. He wanted to see how far I’d go to prove my loyalty to the McKenzies. I would have done it too, if he’d made me. Lucky for me, he’s letting me off the hook.”
“It was all a setup?” All of my blood seemed to drain from my body at once, leaving me feeling faint. My ears suddenly pounded loudly with each stuttered beat of my heart. I swayed, catching myself against the wall. “But… You said you love me.”
