Chapter 5

Ethan POV

The whiskey tasted like absolute victory.

I sat in the high-backed leather chair of the Don's office-my office now-and surveyed the sprawling city below. It belonged to me. The Miller territory had been fully integrated, the old guard was falling in line, and the nagging inconvenience of a wife I didn't want was buried six feet under.

Chloe sauntered in, wearing nothing but a sheer silk robe that left little to the imagination. She perched on the edge of the mahogany desk, her fingernail tracing the sharp line of my jaw.

"You look tense, baby," she purred, her voice dripping with a superficial sweetness. "We won. You should be celebrating."

"I am celebrating," I replied, though the knot of unease in my stomach refused to loosen.

There was something... off. The crash site had been too clean. The police report had been sterilized, tidy to the point of suspicion.

A sharp knock broke the silence. Leo entered, his face uncharacteristically pale.

"What?" I snapped, annoyed by the interruption.

"We found this," Leo said, extending a hand. He was holding a cream-colored envelope. "In her jewelry box. We missed it during the initial sweep."

I snatched it from him. The handwriting was unmistakably Ava's-elegant, looped cursive that I had once admired.

I tore the seal open. It was a suicide note. The usual drivel: broken heart, couldn't live without me, the despair of a woman scorned. Pathetic. It was exactly what I needed to sell the narrative of the unstable ex-fiancée to the public.

Then, my eyes snagged on the final line.

The north wind remembers.

The crystal tumbler slipped from my fingers, shattering against the hardwood floor. Amber liquid splashed across my shoes, but I couldn't move.

"What is it?" Chloe asked, startled, jumping off the desk.

I couldn't breathe. The air had been sucked out of the room.

That phrase.

I hadn't thought about those words in ten years. We were children, playing in the overgrown garden of the estate. I had told her the north wind sees everything, that it carries secrets. It was our secret. A code.

She wrote this before the crash?

"Get out," I whispered, the blood roaring in my ears.

"Ethan?" Chloe reached for my arm, her expression confused.

"GET OUT!" I roared, sweeping the stack of papers off my desk in a violent arc.

Chloe scrambled back, genuine fear widening her eyes, and fled the room without looking back. Leo remained, stoic as a statue.

"Is she dead, Leo?" I asked, my voice trembling with a rage I could barely contain.

"Boss, we saw the car. We saw the body. The dental records matched."

"Did you check the teeth yourself?" I slammed my fist onto the desk, the wood groaning under the impact. "Did you?"

"No, the coroner..."

"The coroner can be bought!" I began to pace the room, a caged animal. "She knows, Leo. That line... she knows I set it up."

"She's dead, Ethan," Leo said slowly, trying to talk me down. "Ghosts don't write letters."

"This one does."

I spent the next week tearing the city apart. I ordered my men to dig up the crash site again. Nothing. Just scorched earth and twisted metal.

But I couldn't shake the feeling.

I started seeing her everywhere. A woman in a trench coat vanishing around a corner. A reflection in a shop window that lingered a second too long.

I stopped sleeping. The whiskey became my only sustenance.

The Capos noticed the change.

"Focus, Don Reed," the Consigliere warned me after I snapped at a lieutenant during a sit-down. "You are chasing shadows. The business needs you."

"The business is fine!" I yelled, my eyes wild. "I am securing our future!"

But I wasn't. I was bleeding resources. I hired private investigators to track down anyone Ava might have contacted. I put surveillance on her old college friends.

Nothing. She had simply evaporated.

Chloe became unbearable. She whined about the lack of attention, about my unpredictable moods.

"You're obsessed with a dead girl!" she screamed one night, throwing a pillow at me.

I crossed the room in two strides, grabbing her by the throat and pinning her against the wall.

"Don't you ever say her name."

I saw the terror in Chloe's eyes, the way she clawed at my wrist. It didn't make me feel powerful. It made me feel sick.

I released her. She slid to the floor, coughing and gasping for air.

"You're losing it, Ethan," she rasped, tears streaming down her face.

Maybe I was.

Two days later, I walked into my office. It had been locked. My security was top-tier; no one entered without my biometrics.

Yet, in the center of my desk, resting perfectly on the leather blotter, was a business card.

White. Heavy cardstock. Simple, minimalist font.

Phoenix Holdings.

Investments & Acquisitions.

No name. Just an address in the financial district. And a handwritten note on the back in blood-red ink.

Check your Cayman account.

Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through the haze of alcohol. I scrambled to my computer, fingers fumbling as I logged into the shell account where I hid the drug money.

Zero.

Two million dollars. Gone.

"Leo!" I screamed, smashing the keyboard into the monitor.

Leo burst in, gun drawn, scanning for a threat.

"Find out who owns Phoenix Holdings," I snarled, holding up the card with a trembling hand. "Find them and bring them to me. Alive."

"Who is it?"

I looked at the card, the red ink mocking me.

"It's the north wind," I whispered, a chill settling deep in my bones. "And it's coming for us."