Departure with a Belly

I was the fiancée of the Chicago Outfit’s heir, a bond sealed by blood and eighteen years of history.

But when his mistress pushed me into the freezing pool at our engagement gala, Jax didn’t swim toward me.

He swam past me.

He scooped up the girl who pushed me, cradling her like fragile glass, while I struggled against the weight of my gown in the murky water.

When I finally dragged myself out, shivering and humiliated before the entire underworld, Jax didn’t offer a hand. He offered a scowl.

"You’re making a scene, Eliana. Go home."

Later, when that same mistress shoved me down the stairs, shattering my knee and my dance career, Jax stepped over my broken body to comfort her.

I overheard him telling his friends, "I’m just breaking her spirit. She needs to learn she’s property, not a partner. Once she’s desperate enough, she’ll be the perfect obedient wife."

He thought I was a dog that would always return to its master. He thought he could starve me of affection until I begged for scraps.

He was wrong.

While he was busy playing protector to his mistress, I wasn't crying in my room.

I was packing his ring into a cardboard box.

I cancelled my transfer to UCLA and enrolled at NYU instead.

By the time Jax realized his "property" was missing, I was already in New York, standing next to a man who looked at me like a queen, not a possession.

Chapter 1

Eliana Carter POV

The water in the ornamental pool wasn't deep, but it was cold enough to seize the air right out of my lungs.

I thrashed, my heavy graduation gown clinging to my legs like a wet cement anchor, dragging me down toward the murky bottom.

Through the distorted, rippling surface, I saw him.

Jax Little.

The heir to the Chicago Outfit. The man who had owned my heart since I was five years old. The man who was sworn by blood, oath, and honor to protect me.

He dove in.

My heart surged with a reflexive, desperate relief. He was coming. He always came.

But Jax didn't swim toward me.

He swam past me.

His expensive bespoke suit cut through the water as he reached for Catalina Manning, the girl who had just shoved me in. She was flailing, screaming a performance worthy of an Oscar, despite being in water that barely reached her waist.

Jax scooped her up, cradling her against his chest like she was made of spun glass that I had shattered.

I stopped struggling. The realization hit me harder than the cold. I stood up. The water only reached my chest.

The physical cold was nothing compared to the absolute zero spreading through my veins. I waded to the edge, dragging the weight of my ruined dress-and my ruined life.

The live jazz band at the Mason Riley estate had stopped mid-note. Every eye in the Chicago underworld was fixed on us. The Dons, the Capos, the Soldiers.