By 11:30 A.M., I had been transferred to a private suite on the top floor of Saint Vincent's. An IV line was taped to the back of my left hand, slowly dripping saline and anti-nausea medication into my veins.

The room was vast, furnished with velvet armchairs, a private balcony overlooking the misty skyline of Manhattan, and a heavy mahogany dining table.

Valon sat in the corner armchair, his laptop open on his knees, his phone pressed against his ear. He had taken off his suit jacket, rolling his crisp white sleeves up to his elbows, revealing the dark, intricate tattoos that crept up his forearms—symbols of the Meta family’s old-world roots in the northern mountains of Shkodër.

"Tell Harrison that if he contacts my wife today, he is fired," Valon said quietly into the receiver. "I don't care about the docket. Tell the judge we are negotiating an extension. Good."

He ended the call, set his phone down on the glass coffee table, and rubbed his face with both hands.

I sat up against the soft pillows, staring down at my handbag resting on the nightstand beside my bed. My phone had been vibrating continuously for two hours—messages from my lawyer, from my manager at the Northern Table, and from my mother.

"You don't have to stay here, Valon," I said quietly, my voice raspy. "I have the IV. The doctor said I can go home this evening."

"You are not going home alone," Valon replied without looking up.

"I am going to my apartment above the restaurant," I insisted, my fingers tightening around the bedsheets. "We are still getting divorced, Valon. A heartbeat on a screen doesn't erase six months of coldness. It doesn't erase the fact that you stopped looking at me."

Valon closed his laptop with a quiet, decisive snap. He stood up, walked slowly over to the side of my bed, and sat down on the leather stool beside my mattress.

"I never stopped looking at you, Sigrid," he said softly.

"You slept on the couch in the study for eight weeks!" I shot back, tears burning the back of my throat. "You left the penthouse at 6:00 A.M. every morning and came back after midnight! You spoke to your harbor lieutenants more than you spoke to your wife! I was dying in that apartment, Valon! I felt like a ghost haunting a museum of your family’s money!"

Valon looked down at his boots, his jaw working as he swallowed down whatever emotion was rising in his throat.

"I was protecting you," he murmured.

"Protecting me from what?!" I cried, throwing my hands in the air. "From your work?! I knew who you were when I married you! I knew your father was the head of the Meta clan! I knew what happened on the piers! I didn't marry a saint, Valon, I married you! But you shut me out!"

Valon reached out, taking my right hand in his. His grip was firm, desperate, as if he were holding onto a lifeline in a storm.

"In June," Valon began, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying register, "a Federal prosecutor named Vance opened a sealed indictment against my uncle Marko. They seized three warehouses at Pier 42."

I froze. Pier 42 was the primary logistics hub for my restaurant’s seafood imports.

"Marko believed someone inside our inner circle was feeding shipment manifests to the Waterfront Commission," Valon continued, his eyes burning into mine. "He didn't care who he broke to find the leak. He started put surveillance on my home. On my drivers. On you."

I stared at him, my heart dropping into my stomach. "Marko was spying on me?"

"Marko is a paranoid lunatic who thinks everyone outside our bloodline is a threat," Valon hissed, his thumb unconsciously rubbing the gold wedding band on my finger. "I couldn't tell you, Sigrid. If you looked frightened, if you acted differently around his men when they visited the penthouse, Marko would have assumed you were hiding something. I had to make it look like we were distant. I had to make everyone believe that our marriage was failing so no one would use you to get to me."

"So you made it come true," I whispered, pulling my hand away from his grip. "You acted so well that you destroyed us anyway."

Valon flinched as if I had struck him across the face.

"I did what I had to do to keep you safe until Marko was dealt with," he said quietly.

"And is he dealt with?"

"He was extradited to Tirana three weeks ago," Valon said flatly. "He will never step foot in New York again."

"Then why didn't you talk to me three weeks ago?" I demanded, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes. "Why did you let me sign the preliminary property division? Why did you drive me toward Harrison’s office today without saying a single word?!"

Valon reached into his pocket, pulled out his personal phone, unlocked the screen, and placed it face-up on the white bedsheet between us.

"Because of this," he said softly.

I looked down at the screen.

It was a cropped photograph—a digital image sent via an encrypted messaging app two weeks ago.

The photo showed me sitting at a corner table inside the Northern Table. I was smiling, laughing, leaning across the table toward a handsome, broad-shouldered man with thick blond hair and a crisp gray suit. The man was holding my hand resting beside a wine glass.

The caption beneath the photo read: She has already found her replacement, Valon. Sign the papers and let her go.

My breath hitched in my chest.

"Valon..." I gasped, looking up at him in sheer, unadulterated horror. "This... this is Julian!"

"I know who he is," Valon said coldly. "Julian Vance. The brother of the Federal prosecutor who tried to destroy my family."