Twenty-four hours before we were to be married, I offered to shoot her. Ten hours before our wedding, I made a mockery of her dying wish. Five hours before we were going to say our vows, I promised I'd never love her. One hour before I said I do, I vowed I'd never shed a tear over her death.

But the minute we were pronounced man and wife, I knew.

I knew I'd only use my gun to protect her. I'd give my life for hers. I'd cry. And I would, most definitely, lose myself to a dying girl—a girl who by all accounts never should have been mine in the first place.

I always believed the Mafia would be my end game—poisoning my heart while it claimed my soul. I never could have imagined it would be my redemption ... or the beginning of something beautiful.

The beginning of her. The end of us.