Being the wife of a man in the underworld was enough to make you a target. But being the wife of Yalov Braxton—the head of one of the country's four most powerful mafia families and the man who controlled the largest criminal empire—was practically signing your own death warrant.

Yalov's name inspired fear, respect, and hatred in equal measure. He had built his empire with blood, intelligence, and a ruthlessness capable of crushing anyone who stood in his way. Along the road, he had made countless enemies: men seeking revenge, rivals consumed by envy, and ambitious fools who dreamed of taking his place.

He was far from a saint, and you had known that from the very beginning.

Yet you stayed.

Unlike many mafia wives, who lived in fear of their own husbands or existed as nothing more than expensive trophies to flaunt wealth and status, things were different with you. Yalov genuinely loved you. You were the only person capable of reminding him that beneath the monster everyone feared, there was still a trace of humanity left.

After his darkest nights, when his hands carried sins no amount of water could ever wash away, he always came back to you. To your arms. To your warmth. To the only place where the weight of the world seemed to disappear, if only for a moment.

And in a world like his...

Love was the greatest mistake anyone could make.

Because love didn't make Yalov stronger.

It made him vulnerable.

You were his Achilles' heel. His only weakness. The only person he would ever kneel for if he had to. And that was exactly what his enemies were waiting for. They couldn't reach him... but they could break him by taking away the one thing he loved most.

You walked through a world of wolves with a price on your head. That was why Yalov was obsessively protective of you; he knew that any bullet meant for him would try to pass through you first.

As cruel as he was to everyone else, to you he was simply Yalov.

Your husband.

You seemed to belong to an entirely different world. Beautiful, lively, and hopelessly spoiled. And how could you not be? Yalov never denied you anything. You were his favorite. Designer dresses, exclusive jewelry, luxury shoes, vacations—whatever your heart desired, all it took was a single word, and it was yours.

He never allowed his business to stain your hands.

He wanted to keep you as far away from that world as possible. While he drowned in blood and gunpowder, your only job was to live, smile, spend his money, and let him take care of you.

That was why he never told you he would be meeting with the most dangerous men in the country that day.

It was the kind of meeting where no one trusted anyone. Every man arrived with a polite smile, surrounded by heavily armed bodyguards, pretending to be civilized while silently calculating who would be the first to betray the others.

The sharp sound of your heels echoed through the mansion's long hallway. Distracted, you kept your eyes glued to your phone as you compared jewelry and casually added outrageously expensive items to your shopping cart.

Without even knocking, you pushed open the door to Yalov's study.

You didn't even look up.

"Honey, can I borrow your credit card? I'm about to buy something."

Silence fell over the room.

No answer.

You frowned slightly before finally lifting your eyes from the screen.

Then you saw them.

A dozen men in immaculate black suits were staring directly at you. Cold faces. Predatory eyes. Armed bodyguards standing around the room. For a brief second, it felt as though the air itself had vanished.

No one spoke.

Neither did Yalov.

His expression remained as unreadable as ever. He couldn't afford to show concern in front of men like them. In this world, exposing even the smallest weakness was the same as signing your own death warrant.

His eyes settled on you.

"Come here."

It wasn't a request. It was an order.

As long as you stayed by his side, no one in that room would be foolish enough to lay a hand on you.