My parents' love was the stuff of legend in Paris.
My father had three long scars running across his back—marks that he earned rescuing my mother from her own father.
The tallest, grandest building in the city was my father's wedding present to her.
The year I was born, the whole city lit the sky with fireworks all night—my father's gift to my mother.
People said I was the living proof of their love.
When I was three, a pretty woman moved in next door. She put my small hand on her rounded belly and smiled.
"I heard you've always been sickly," she said to me. "Your father finds you a nuisance, so he and I decided to try for another son."
"Your mother can't keep a man—she's useless. You'll have a new mother soon."
I didn't understand half of what she said, but I already had a mother. So when Mom came home I told her everything.
That night the villa next door went up in flames. The woman's sharp screams sliced through the sky. Mom came behind me and wrapped her arms around my neck, soft as always.
"Justin, do you like the present Mommy got you?" she asked.
——
"Mom—Dad! Dad is back!" I cried, pressed to the window, pointing at the man stepping out of the car below.
It had been six months since he'd come home.
But he didn't come inside. The moment he got out of the car, he ran straight into the fire.
I called and called, terrified, begging him to come back. He didn't answer. After a long while, he finally came out—carrying the neighbor woman from earlier. I breathed a long, relieved sigh.
Mom's face had gone hard.
At four in the morning he returned for real. I ran to meet him, eager to be lifted the way he always did. Instead, he shoved me toward his bodyguards and ordered them to seize me. Then he walked to Mom and grabbed her by the throat, hauling her up.
His voice was a cold thing I'd never heard from him before.
"You set the villa next door on fire, didn't you? The child Bella was carrying is gone—my blood! You're also a mother—how could you be so cruel?" he spat. "Do you know what the doctors said? If I'd arrived a moment later... Bella—she's just a child!"
Mom's face turned blue beneath his hand, but she still smiled, bitter and furious.
"You know I hate being provoked," she said. "Especially by your dogs—one of them was a pregnant dog." She shrugged. "Consider it an appetizer. If you can't control your dogs, I don't mind roasting one for dinner."
Red flared in my father's eyes and his grip tightened.
"You think I won't put you in front of the police?" he snapped.
"You'd need proof to have them take me away." Mom shrugged.
Before the fire, Mom had people wipe every surveillance tape. My father raged; he slammed her down onto the coffee table. The crash of broken glass echoed like the breaking of the life I'd always known.
Then he pulled something out—what everyone else called a gun—and pressed it on to her temple. His voice was vicious.
"Gianna," he said, "men are like this. After being together for too long, they cheat. Compared to those surrounded by women every day, I’ve already been pretty good. And didn’t I promise you? The title of Mrs. Pearson will always belong to you." He stared at my mother. "Bella couldn't threaten you—so why do you keep pushing her?"
I'd seen what a gun could do. I bit my protector's hand hard enough to draw blood, wrenched free, and barreled between them to stand in front of Mom.
"Dad," I shouted, every inch of me trembling, "you're wrong. I would never cheat. I would never betray Mom!"
