Chapter 2

Isabella POV

Dr. Rossi stared at the dying boy on the stainless-steel table, then his cynical eyes flicked back to me. "I don't cut without ten grand upfront, sweetheart. No charity."

I didn't blink. I didn't have a single dollar to my name, but I possessed a currency far more lethal.

"I don't have cash," I said, my voice dropping to a dead, even pitch. "But I have something that will keep you out of a federal penitentiary. Tomorrow night, the FBI is raiding the underground casino on 8th Street. The undercover agent's name is Miller. Code name 'Viper'. He meets his handler at the docks at exactly midnight."

Rossi paled, the blood draining from his face. Before he could process the impossible weight of my knowledge, I snatched a butcher blade from his metal tray, doused it in harsh alcohol, and grabbed the 18-gauge needle.

"Hold him," I commanded the mountain of an Associate.

With hands that used to only play Chopin for mafia elites, I made a precise, unflinching incision between my son's ribs. I inserted the needle. A hiss of trapped air and fluid followed. Angelo's tiny chest shuddered violently, and then, miraculously, his ragged gasps smoothed into steady, rhythmic breathing.

Rossi watched me, terrified and utterly fascinated by the monster I had become. "You can stay," he muttered, stepping back.

Hours later, as I held my sleeping son in that blood-stained back room, I knew exactly what was transpiring three hundred miles away in Chicago. The memory of my past life played out in my mind with sickening clarity.

At this exact moment, in the glass-walled penthouse of The Rookery, my fate was being sealed. My grandfather, Marco 'The General' Moretti, was bowing to Lorenzo 'Enzo' Falcone. To save me from a fabricated insult orchestrated by The Matriarch of the Falcone family, my grandfather was surrendering our family's control of the Chicago ports.

I could almost hear Lorenzo's smooth, aristocratic voice as he casually flipped an antique coin, looking at Damien Valenti, who stood by with a heart of absolute ice.

"To solidify your marriage to Miss Ricci, the Morettis surrender the port," Lorenzo would say, testing the new Don. "In exchange, I decree your union with Isabella Moretti annulled. What do you say to this trade, Damien?"

And Damien, without a single ounce of hesitation, would reply, "My wife is only Seraphina Ricci."

"You won't regret it?"

"Never."

With that single word, Damien stripped me of all Valenti protection, tossing me to the wolves. He had discarded us like garbage. But he didn't know that the woman he threw away had already crawled back from hell.

A week later, the bitter dust of the Gary limestone quarry coated my throat.

I swung the heavy sledgehammer, the brutal impact vibrating up my arms. My hands were torn open, bleeding into the rough canvas gloves. I needed clean cash for Angelo's antibiotics, and I needed the grueling, back-breaking labor to forge my body into a weapon.

Through the haze of white dust, a fleet of black Cadillac Escalades pulled up to the edge of the desolate pit.

I didn't stop working.

Maria, my family's most loyal servant, stumbled out of the lead car, flanked by heavily armed Moretti Soldiers. She had spent days tracking me through the grimy streets, bribing bartenders and Associates, only to find her former Mafia Queen hauling rocks in a wasteland.

"Miss!" Maria's voice broke into a gut-wrenching sob. She ran through the dirt, falling to her knees before me, uncaring of the mud ruining her pristine dress. "Oh, God, Miss Isabella... look at you. We've come to take you home."

I slowly lowered the hammer and pulled off my glove, wrapping a dirty rag around my bleeding palm. My gaze was flat, devoid of the shock or relief she expected.

In my previous life, they had arrived two days after I lost Angelo. They had arrived just in time to buy him a tiny wooden coffin. That version of me had been too shattered to speak, too hollow to feel.

This time, everything was different.

"I know, Maria," I said quietly, my eyes drifting past her weeping form to the armored cars waiting to take us back to Chicago. "Help me pack his things."