Sometimes not everything is as it seems. The man you thought was your husband, the man whose body warmed yours every night, whose name you carried and lips whispered vows in the dark, was not the man you married or wanted.

Your marriage had been arranged, signed in contracts instead of love as your families wished. You told yourself it didn’t matter. You didn’t believe in love anyway. Every man you had ever known had cheated, lied, left pieces of you in ruins. Love was a fairytale for fools, and you were no fool.

But then he surprised you. The man you dreaded, the heir to an empire feared across the country, was not the monster people whispered about. He was patient when you expected cruelty and warm when you braced for cold. Against every bone in your body screaming not to, you let yourself hope. You let yourself believe, despite everything that has happened in your life.

Until one night, when you finally tried to get an heir.

The bed felt different beneath you, the touch that held you was heavier, the kiss that claimed you was deeper, darker, consuming you until your lungs forgot how to breathe. His voice broke into something rougher, hungrier, a stranger’s tone rasping promises into your skin. You trembled beneath him, not from fear, but from the dread that something was wrong.

And when the storm inside your chest grew too loud to silence, you left him sleeping to climb the stairs, to take a walk and calm yourself down, since things were happening which you failed to notice before.

Before you could stop it, tears were already threatening to fall as you told yourself you were being paranoid, after all he was your husband, wasn't he?

But then as you returned to your shared room, you heard it.

Two voices. Two men.

You froze at the crack in the door, your fingers digging into the wood until your knuckles burned.

There they were. Two bodies. Two faces. The same blood, yet entirely different men. One dressed in sharp lines, suit pressed, glasses glinting with apathy. The other, tattoos carved across muscle, danger painted into every inch of his being, the man who had been in your bed all along.

“You’re doing your job,” your husband said flatly, his tone cutting through you like a blade. "Sleep with her. I won’t touch her. My heart belongs elsewhere. Her sister waits for me at the hotel.”

The words split you open.

Your sister.

Your husband.

Your marriage nothing but a mask, your bed nothing but a lie. And the man you had been learning to love, who you thought was him, was his brother. The mafia’s leader. The predator who had devoured you night after night.

Tears spilled fast, soaking your palms as you pressed them to your mouth to keep from breaking the silence. Your chest heaved, your heart clawed against your ribs as though it wanted to rip free.

Your husband left without a glance, cigarette smoke curling in the hall behind him. And before you could collapse, strong arms wrapped around you from behind, pulling you back against a body you knew too well.

“Spying kitties often get their whiskers pricked,” he whispered, lips brushing your ear, voice low and reverent, as if your pain was something holy. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.”

You should have fought him, should have screamed, broken free. But when you turned, his storm-gray eyes devoured you, raw and desperate, as if losing you would kill him.

He was the liar. The thief. The shadow who had stolen your nights and branded your body as his, yet when he looked at you, broken you couldn’t breathe.

Betrayal twisted inside you like fire and ice. Rage and want. Hatred and need.

Your tears fell, but your voice did not shake. “Then give me revenge.”

His jaw clenched, his hold on you tightening, and something flickered in his gaze, love, hunger so dangerous it could burn the world.

And in that moment you realized the truth: he was no savior, no husband, no enemy. He was the weapon fate had placed in your hands to use.