Chapter 8

The train station at 1 AM felt less like a departure point and more like a graveyard of dreams.

The air reeked of diesel fumes and stale coffee.

I stood on Platform 9, my coat clutched tight against the biting wind.

I had one bag.

Cash.

No cards.

No tracks.

"You look like you're waiting for a funeral train."

I turned sharply.

Gianna was standing there.

She was wearing oversized sunglasses and a thick scarf that covered half her face, but I recognized the fire in her stance.

"Gianna," I breathed.

"Rocco hit me," she said simply.

She pulled down the scarf.

My breath hitched. Her jaw was mottled with deep purple bruises.

"He said I was too loud. Too opinionated. He wanted a mute."

Rage simmered in my veins, hot and familiar.

"He will pay," I vowed.

"He's already paying," she said, a wicked grin touching her bruised lips. "I drained the safe before I left."

"Is anyone else coming?" I asked.

"Me."

A voice drifted from the shadows behind a concrete pillar.

Aria.

She looked like a ghost, her skin translucent under the harsh station lights.

She was shaking, her hands clutching a small duffel bag so hard her knuckles were white.

"Luca?" I asked gently.

"He didn't hit me," Aria whispered, her voice barely audible. "He just... erased me. I haven't spoken a word in three weeks that he actually heard."

She looked at us, her eyes wide with raw terror.

"Are we really doing this?" she asked. "They will kill us."

"They have to find us first," I said.

"Where are we going?" Gianna asked.

"Las Vegas," I said.

"Why Vegas?"

"Because it's neutral territory," I explained. "The Outfit has no jurisdiction there. And because it's loud. It's bright. It's everything they hate."

The train whistle blew.

It was a mournful, lonely scream in the night.

"This is a one-way ticket," I said, meeting their eyes. "Once we get on that train, we are dead to them. We are Omertà breakers."

Gianna spit on the tracks.

"Good."

We boarded the train.

We found a compartment and locked the door with a decisive click.

As the train lurched forward, leaving the city that had been our prison, I felt a strange sensation expand in my chest.

It wasn't fear.

It was air.

For the first time in my life, I could finally breathe.

Dante Cavallaro POV

The silence in the Estate was deafening.

I kicked the front door open.

"Elena!"

No answer.

The lights were off.

The air was stale.

It felt like a tomb.

I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, panic tightening my chest.

My heart was pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

She's just pouting. She's hiding in the guest room.

I threw open the bedroom door.

Empty.

The bed was made.

Perfectly, militarily made.

I went to the closet.

Her clothes were there.

Except for the white suit.

And the black coat.

I went to the bathroom.

Her toothbrush was gone.

Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at my throat.

I ran back downstairs to the kitchen.

Nothing.

I went to the study.

Nothing.

I stood in the center of the living room, spinning around, looking for a note, a sign, anything.

Then I saw it.

On the small entry table.

The keys to the house.

And the keys to her car.

I grabbed them.

My hands were shaking.

My phone buzzed.

Rocco.

"Boss," he said, his voice sounding strangled. "Gianna is gone. The safe is empty."

My blood ran cold.

"Check the tracking on her car," I barked.

"I did," Rocco said. "It's at the train station."

"Luca?" I asked, dread pooling in my stomach.

"Aria is missing too," Rocco said. "She left her wedding ring in the ashtray."

Three wives.

Gone.

In the same night.

This wasn't a tantrum.

This was a mutiny.

I looked at the keys in my hand.

Elena hadn't just left me.

She had led a revolution.

I squeezed the keys until the metal bit into my palm.

"Find them," I whispered, my voice lethal.

"Find them now."