The tinted windows of the armored SUV turned Providence into a passing ghost of dark brick, wet asphalt, and slate-gray sky.

The heavy fabric of Diego’s wool jacket was warm, smelling of high-end cologne and crisp autumn air.

I looked down at the dark lapels draped over my cotton slip, utterly confused by his gesture.

"What are you doing?" I asked, my voice wavering for the very first time since the morning.

Diego didn't answer right away. He walked over to the decanter, poured himself another shot of scotch, and downed it in a single gulp. He stood with his back to me, his broad shoulders rising and falling with heavy, measured breaths.

"I spent three years planning how I would tear down Arthur Martin’s world," Diego said, his voice quiet, vibrating with an intense, re-directed anger. "I envisioned taking his empire, his docks, his ships, and his prized daughter. I wanted him to rot in his hospital bed knowing that a Ramos was treating his flesh and blood like garbage."

He turned back around. His face was no longer that of a arrogant conqueror. It was the face of a man who realized he had been playing the wrong game entirely.

"I thought I was stealing his heart, Noelle," Diego said, stepping closer to me, his dark eyes searching my face. "I thought I was taking the thing he valued most. But he didn't give you to me as a sacrifice to save his family. He and Thomas gave you to me because you were a witness."

The realization hit me like a cold splash of water.

"A witness..." I whispered.

"If I destroyed you, if I abused you or hid you away in a basement, I would be doing Arthur and Thomas's dirty work for them," Diego said, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure, lethal strategy. "They wanted me to be the monster so no one would ever ask how those scars got on your back."

He reached out, his warm, rough thumb gently brushing against a faint mark near my jawline. His touch was absurdly gentle—so gentle it made my stomach drop in an entirely new way.

"I am a violent man, Noelle," Diego said, looking deep into my eyes. "I have killed men in cold blood. I have burned warehouses and broken unions. But I have never, in my life, laid a hand on a woman or a child. My uncle Mateo taught me that a man who hits what cannot fight back is not a boss—he is a coward."

"So where does that leave us?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "What is a marriage without revenge?"

Diego leaned down, his face inches from mine, his dark eyes burning with a sudden, terrifying purpose.

"Who said anything about abandoning revenge?" Diego murmured. "We are just changing the target."

He held out his right hand to me—not as a master to a hostage, but as one soldier offering a pact to another.

"Arthur Martin gave me a broken bride to cover his sins," Diego said. "Help me burn his kingdom to the ground, Noelle. Give me the keys to his vault, his ledgers, his secrets. And in return, I will give you the one thing your family never allowed you to have."

"And what is that?"

"Justice," Diego answered. "And their heads on a silver platter."

I looked at his open hand. For twenty-three years, every hand offered to me had come with a fist attached. Every promise had been a lie, every smile a trap.

Slowly, deliberately, I lifted my hand and placed my fingers in his heavy, warm palm.

"I know where the real ledgers are buried, Diego," I said, a cold, dark smile touching my lips for the first time in my life. "And I know which politicians Thomas paid off last week."