Chapter 2 2

Isabella POV

"Where do we live?" I asked, looking down at the dangerous stranger in the wheelchair.

Damiano didn't answer. Instead, his storm-gray eyes shifted to the massive man beside us. Hector Vargas stepped forward, reaching for the wheelchair handles with practiced efficiency.

"Stop," Damiano commanded, his voice a low, absolute rumble that froze the air. "My wife will do it."

I blinked, the adrenaline of the wedding crash fading into bone-deep exhaustion. "I... I don't know how to lift you."

"Figure it out," he said coldly. A *Don's Command*, even if he was an exiled one.

I swallowed my pride. Leaning into the armored Packard, I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders. He felt like solid granite. As I strained to pull him up, his scent-dark musk and gunpowder-enveloped me. I didn't know he was secretly engaging his core muscles to keep us from crashing to the pavement; I only felt his overwhelming weight. He let out a harsh, frustrated groan as our bodies pressed together, a sound I mistook for pain and humiliation. It took every ounce of my strength, but we finally tumbled awkwardly into the leather backseat.

The car pulled away, plunging us into the suffocating silence of the armored cabin.

"By marrying a woman discarded by the Doyles, I have thoroughly enraged my father," Damiano stated, his gaze fixed on the passing streetlights. "Lorenzo Moretti has frozen my accounts. I am cut off. I survive on a meager trust fund. You married a cripple with nothing."

It was a test. I could feel the weight of his stare, searching for regret, for the greed of a *Rat*.

My phone vibrated again in my lap. Brayan. I stared at the screen for a second, then powered it off completely, severing the last thread to my old life. I turned to face my new husband.

"I have some savings," I said, my voice steady despite the chaos inside me. "And I just got a promotion at L'Unico. I can work. We are partners now, Damiano."

A flicker of something unreadable crossed his storm-gray eyes. He didn't say a word, but the oppressive tension in the car shifted.

When we arrived at the townhouse on 72nd Street, my blood ran cold. It was a fortress of shadows. Inside the hallway, the furniture was draped in white sheets, looking like ghosts in a mausoleum.

"Hector will show you to the guest room," Damiano ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"No." The word slipped out before I could stop it.

Damiano's jaw tightened. "I require privacy for my... condition."

I crouched down so I was eye-level with him. "I'm not asking for your bed. I'll sleep on the sofa in the anteroom of your suite. But I am not sleeping alone in this terrifying house. We are partners, remember?"

Before he could unleash another icy command, I stood up, stepped behind his wheelchair, and took the handles from a visibly shocked Hector. I pushed Damiano toward the small elevator in the corner. For the first time, the Ghost of the Moretti family was silenced.

Damiano POV

The sound of the shower running in the master bathroom was my only cover.

I waited until the water pressure was at its highest, masking any noise. Then, I placed my hands on the armrests of the wheelchair and stood up.

My joints popped as I stretched my six-foot-three frame, rolling my broad shoulders to release the stiffness of playing a paralyzed man all day. I walked silently across the dark wood floors, moving with the lethal grace of a predator, and pulled back a fraction of the heavy velvet curtain.

The street was clear. No *Soldiers* from my father. No Doyle hitmen.

I let the curtain drop and looked toward the bathroom door. Isabella. She was supposed to be a *shield*, a pathetic, broken collateral damage that would make my enemies underestimate me while I plotted my *Vendetta*.

But she wasn't broken. *We are partners now.* Her words echoed in my mind. She had hauled my dead weight into the car, offered her meager salary to a man she thought was bankrupt, and hijacked my wheelchair to stay close to me.

Her absolute loyalty was a dangerous anomaly in our world. It made me feel something I hadn't felt in five years-the reckless, suicidal urge to tell her the truth. To show her the monster she had actually married.

I clenched my fists. Tomorrow morning, Hector would test her again with the harshest conditions this house could offer. I needed to know if this *Mafia Queen* in the making would break under pressure, before she managed to break my defenses.