His syndicate had barely taken shape. A handful of soldiers, a single social club on the south side, and a name that meant nothing to anyone who mattered. I hid the fact that I was the sole blood-heir of the Valente dynasty and quietly opened every door my family's name could open. Alliances brokered through intermediaries so he'd never trace them back to me. Territorial disputes that resolved themselves overnight because a single phone call from the Valente compound reached the right capo at the right time. Protection from the Feds that he assumed was luck or the work of his own consigliere. From a man with nothing to his name to one of the most feared Dons on the Eastern Seaboard, and he never knew that the invisible architecture holding it all together was mine.
After we married, he treated me like I was the center of his universe.
When I got sick, he sat at my bedside and refused to leave. He posted a soldier outside the door and canceled a sit-down with the Calabrese family because my fever wouldn't break.