Chapter 1 GHOST DON'T KNOCK

The city looked different at night.

Or maybe I was the one who'd changed.

I stood at the floor to ceiling glass window of my hotel suite, watching Manhattan shine bright below like broken glass. Somewhere out there, in one of those high towers of steel and ambition, was the man I'd spent seven years trying to forget.

The man I had to destroyed to survive.

My reflection stared back at me sleek beautiful black dress, hair shorter than it used to be, eyes harder. I barely recognized the girl I had been. Soft. Trusting. Stupid enough to believe love could save anyone.

Women need to learn not to depend on Love, i learnt the hard way.

That girl died the night my family did.

"Ms. Sinclair?" My assistant's voice sounded through the phone I'd left on the marble counter. "The car's waiting."

Elena Sinclair. My new name. My new life. A ghost wearing Chanel, secrets and lies.

I pressed my palm against the cold glass, steadying myself. Tonight was the Bennett Foundation Gala five hundred of New York's elite crammed into the Plaza, writing checks they'd never miss to causes they would never think about again.

And he would be there.

Dante Russo.

My chest tightened just thinking his name. I'd seen his face in Forbes, in the Wall Street Journal, on the covers of magazines that treated him like some kind of king. CEO. Philanthropist. Self-made billionaire.

They had no idea what he really was.

What we really were.

I turned from the window and picked up my clutch it was small and expensive, containing nothing but lipstick, a fake ID, and the kind of courage that only comes from having nothing left to lose.

"I'm on my way down," I said.

The Plaza was exactly as I remembered all old money and new secrets, chandeliers dripping crystal like frozen tears. I moved through the crowd with practiced ease, smiling at strangers, accepting champagne I wouldn't drink, playing the part I had practiced a thousand times.

Art consultant. Orphan. Nobody important.

Just another beautiful woman in a room full of rich elites.

Except I wasn't nobody.

I was Aria Moretti. Last surviving daughter of the most powerful mafia family on the East Coast. And I was hunting.

"Elena Sinclair?" A silver-haired man in a tuxedo appeared at my elbow, hand extended. "Richard Chen. I heard you're consulting for the Vanderbilt collection?"

I shook his hand, let him talk, nodded in the right places. But I wasn't listening.

I was scanning the hall.

Searching for the one face that mattered.

And then I saw him, my heart skipped a beat.

Dante stood near the bar, surrounded by men in expensive suits who laughed too loudly at things that probably weren't funny. He looked older sharper somehow, like someone had taken a blade to him and carved away everything soft. His jaw was harder. His eyes colder.

But God, he was still beautifully handsome.

Dark hair pushed back carelessly. A suit that probably cost more than most people's rent. Presence that made everyone else in the room look like they were playing dress-up.

He turned his head, still listening to whatever the man beside him was saying.

And then he saw me.

Everything stopped.

The room. My heart. Time itself.

His expression didn't change. Not exactly. But something flickered behind those gray eyes recognition, maybe. Or rage. With Dante, they'd always looked the same.

I lifted my chin arrogantly. Held his gaze without blinking.

I'm not afraid of you anymore.

The lie tasted bitter sweet.

He said something to the men around him brief, dismissive and started walking. Not toward me. Not away. Just... moving through the crowd with the kind of purpose that made people step aside without thinking.

My pulse hammered against my throat and i struggled to swallow.

I should leave. Turn around. Disappear into the crowd before he reached me.

But I'd come here for this. For him.

So I stayed.

"Ms. Sinclair." His voice hit me like a physical thing low, controlled, wrapped in silk and danger. "What an unexpected pleasure."

Up close, he was devastating. Taller than I remembered. Broader. He smelled like heaven, he was the kind of man who'd learned to weaponize everything, including the way he looked at you.

"Mr. Russo." I extended my hand like we were strangers meeting for the first time. Like his fingerprints weren't still burned into my skin. "I've heard so much about you."

He took my hand. Held it a second too long.

"Funny," he murmured. "I thought you were dead."

My stomach dropped.

But my face stayed perfectly calm. Years of practice. Years of survival.

"You must have me confused with someone else," I said smoothly.

His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist just once, deliberatly before he released me.

"No," he said quietly. "I don't think I do."

The air between us became tensed. Everyone else in the room faded to background noise just static, just props in a scene only we understood.

"I need to..."

"Dance with me." It wasn't a question, it sounded more like a command.

"I don't think that's..."

"I insist." He offered his arm. Smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "After all, I'd hate for Ms. Sinclair to be rude to one of the evening's largest donors."

Trapped.

He knew it. I knew it.

So I took his arm, and i let him lead me to the dance floor, and tried not to think about the last time we'd been this close. The last time he had touched me. The last time I'd whispered promises I couldn't keep.

His hand settled on my waist. Mine on his shoulder. We moved together like our bodies remembered even if we pretended not to.

"Seven years," he said softly. Just for me. "That's a long time to stay dead, Aria."

Hearing my real name in his voice nearly broke me.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Liar." The word was almost gentle. Almost. "You always were a terrible liar. That's how I knew."

"Knew what?"

He leaned in. His breath warm against my ear.

"That you'd come back. Eventually. Because whatever you're running from? It's finally caught up to you."

My blood turned to ice. I felt like i would lose composure.

"And lucky for you," Dante continued, pulling back just enough to look at me, "I'm the only thing standing between you and a bullet."

His eyes held mine gray turning to smoke, burning with something I couldn't name.

"So here's what's going to happen, Aria... You're going to stop pretending. You're going to tell me why you're really here. And then..."

He smiled. Slow. Dangerous.

"...you're going to marry me."