Chapter 2 2

Damien POV

My fingers absentmindedly traced the jagged, raised flesh on my left shoulder.

Six years. The scar was fully healed, but the phantom sting of her teeth tearing into my skin remained.

I stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office in the Moretti Tower, the sprawling gray skyline of Manhattan looking like a kingdom of ash beneath the clouds. But my mind was trapped in the pitch-black presidential suite of the JFK Hilton.

The Lucchese family had slipped a hallucinogenic stimulant into my whiskey during a tense negotiation. By the time the storm knocked out the power, the drug had turned my blood into liquid fire. I stumbled into my suite, a blind, violent beast, and found a woman waiting in the dark. I thought she was an assassin. Or a whore sent to mock me.

I took her. I broke my own rule of never harming the innocent, drowning in the scent of rain and vanilla. She fought me like a feral cat, her nails carving into my back before she sank her teeth into my shoulder with a desperate, vicious finality.

I called her 'The Angel'. Not because she was sweet, but because she was the sole witness to my complete descent into hell. I had been searching for her ever since, a secret penance I couldn't shake.

A sharp knock on the heavy obsidian door pulled me back to the present.

My Underboss, Casimiro, stepped into the room. His face was a mask of professional stone. "Don Moretti. We have a hit on the network at JFK customs. An old marriage ID was flagged."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop. "Isabella."

The name tasted like poison on my tongue. Isabella Rossi. My former *Collateral*.

For a brief moment, I remembered the quiet, unremarkable girl I had locked away on the Long Island estate. But that image was quickly violently overwritten by the file my grandfather, Vittorio, had thrown on my desk five years ago. The forged bank statements. The testimony from an Associate. She had sold our shipping routes to the Russians, taken a massive payout, and vanished.

Worse, a year later, a baby boy was found abandoned at a Brooklyn fire station. Dante. My son. The Old Wolf had made it clear: Isabella had dumped my heir like trash because he was an inconvenience to her new, wealthy life.

"She refused the settlement money six years ago," Casimiro noted carefully.

"A long con," I sneered, my jaw clenching. "She ran out of the rat money and now she's back to beg. I want her out of my city." I turned to face Casimiro, my voice dropping to a lethal command. "Send a team of Soldiers to customs. Detain her in a holding room. Force her to sign the final divorce papers, and put her on the next flight to anywhere. She doesn't breathe New York air for more than an hour."

"Understood." Casimiro nodded and turned to leave.

Before the door could close, my private cell phone buzzed. I glanced at the screen and suppressed a groan. Gianna Santoro.

I answered, and her shrill voice immediately assaulted my ear. *"Damien! I have been standing at the JFK arrivals terminal with my luggage for twenty minutes! The paparazzi are literally circling me. Where are you?"*

*Cazzo* (Fuck). I had completely forgotten I was supposed to pick up my PR girlfriend. The Santoro alliance was crucial for the new dock territories, and Gianna demanded a public spectacle.

"I got delayed," I said coldly.

*"You better be pulling up in the Phantom,"* she snapped. *"It looks better in the photos."*

"I'm on my way." I hung up, a dark realization settling over me. I was heading to JFK anyway. I could handle Gianna's tantrum and personally oversee the exile of the traitor who abandoned my son.

Twenty minutes later, I was in the back of the bulletproof Rolls Royce Phantom, speeding down the Van Wyck Expressway.

I had the encrypted tablet resting on my lap, watching the live security feed from the JFK customs checkpoint. My men had already instructed the corrupt customs officers to stall her with a 'system failure'.

On the screen, I saw her. Isabella. She looked thinner, her posture rigid with panic. Good. She should be terrified.

Suddenly, Casimiro's voice crackled over the car's secure comms, laced with a rare hesitation. *"Don Moretti... a complication."*

I frowned, zooming in on the grainy footage. "Report."

*"She's not alone. She has... children. Three of them."*

My breath hitched. The camera angle shifted, revealing the small figures huddled around her legs. A boy with glasses, standing with eerie stillness. Another boy, practically vibrating with aggressive energy. And a little girl clutching a teddy bear.

Even through the low-resolution feed, I saw the pitch-black hair. I saw the sharp, unmistakable set of their jaws.

My blood turned to ice, and then ignited into a blinding, roaring inferno. She hadn't just come back for money. She had brought another man's bastards to my city, parading them in my territory as the ultimate insult. Or worse, she thought she could use them as leverage.

"Driver," I growled, my eyes locked on the screen as the boy with glasses suddenly raised his wrist to look at a cheap watch. "Step on it."