Chapter 6

Isabella POV

The armored SUV crunched to a halt outside the skeletal remains of the Prohibition-era distillery. Rusted copper stills loomed in the gloom like silent, rotting giants against the gray sky.

"Wait here," I ordered Maddox and Jax.

My two Soldiers exchanged uneasy glances, their hands instinctively hovering over their holstered weapons, but they nodded.

The bandages on my palms were fresh-I had changed them that morning, though the gauze still showed faint rust-colored stains. The flesh underneath was beginning to knit, but every flex of my fingers sent a dull ache up to my elbows.

I slipped inside alone. The air was thick with damp earth and the ghostly, suffocating scent of old whiskey. As I navigated the decaying floorboards, the faint sound of running water drew my attention toward the back of the warehouse.

By a broken pipe feeding into a rusted basin, a man stood shirtless, scrubbing fresh blood from a white button-down shirt. My breath caught. He was sculpted like a ruthless Roman deity, his back rippling with lean, predatory muscle. Hearing my footsteps, he turned. His eyes-dark, feral, and entirely unbothered by the blood on his hands-locked onto mine.

"Enjoying the view, gattina (kitten)?" he drawled, his tone laced with street-level arrogance.

He carried himself with the reckless swagger of a low-level Soldier, but the sheer, suffocating dominance radiating from him felt entirely wrong for a grunt. Every instinct I had screamed that this man was a predator playing with his food.

I kept my face an icy mask. "Exposing yourself in a graveyard like this is a good way to get killed."

A slow, wicked smirk spread across his lips. "I'm hard to kill. What's a woman in designer silk doing in Blackwater?"

"Looking for a specific strain of medicinal mold," I lied smoothly, my gaze sweeping the shadows behind him.

That's when I saw it. Half-hidden under a rotting plank near his heavy boots was a tarnished cigar box stamped with a faded, intricate crest. The Ghost of Gary's mark. He was here.

I couldn't make a move with this dangerous stranger in the room. "Seems I'm in the wrong wing," I murmured, taking a deliberate step back.

"Leaving so soon?" His eyes tracked my every movement, burning with a sudden, intense curiosity that made my skin prickle.

"I have what I need," I said, turning on my heel. As I slipped back into the daylight, I swore I heard him snap his fingers, followed by a low, chilling command to the empty shadows: "Find out who she is."

Back in the SUV, my heart hammered against my ribs. I didn't look at Jax or Maddox. I pulled a folded piece of paper from my coat-a blank page on which, before leaving the estate, I had written a single line in cipher: "The old ledger. I know where you hide. Meet me tonight. Same place." I had intended to slip it under the floorboard where the cigar box rested. But the stranger's presence had made that impossible.

I needed another way.

"Drive to the edge of town," I ordered. "Then double back. We're not leaving yet."

Two hours later, as dusk bled into darkness, I returned to the distillery alone-this time through a collapsed wall on the far side, where the floorboards didn't creak. The stranger was gone. I found the cigar box, pried it open with my bandaged fingers, and tucked the cipher note inside. Then I retreated into the shadows to wait.

An hour past midnight, a limping figure emerged from the darkness. The Ghost of Gary-a skeletal old man with milky eyes and a voice like rusted hinges-opened the cigar box, read my note, and went still.

"Who sent you?" he rasped.

I stepped out of the shadows. "No one. I came alone. And I know that Senator Whitmore's 1987 campaign was funded by the Chinese triad. The ledger has ten pages on it."

The Ghost's face drained of color. That information was not written down-it existed only in his memory. I had just proven that I knew more than any living soul should.

An hour of tense negotiation followed. He agreed to a preliminary alliance: he would not sell the ledger to Damien Valenti. In exchange, I would provide him with a new identity and safe passage out of the country once I had extracted the specific pages I needed. We clasped hands-his skeletal grip surprisingly strong-and the deal was sealed.

By the next afternoon, the rotting stench of Blackwater Creek was replaced by the suffocating perfume of Chicago's Gold Coast. Three days had passed since Angelo's thoracentesis. He was stable now-the fluid had not returned-but his lungs were still weak. Dr. Rossi had warned me: no strenuous activity, no cold air for long periods, and a persistent cough that would linger for weeks. But he was alive. That was enough.

I had secured a preliminary deal with the Ghost, but the victory felt heavy as I looked down at Angelo. My son's small face was pale, the dark circles under his eyes a reminder of how close we had come to the edge. A dry cough rattled his chest, and he pressed his small fist to his mouth.

When his eyes lit up at the sight of an artisanal gelato shop, my heart ached. I hesitated. The cold would irritate his throat. But the hope in his gaze-the first spark of normalcy I had seen since the motel-broke something inside me. I ordered the convoy to stop. He deserved at least one sweet, normal moment. I would keep it brief.

We stood on the sun-drenched pavement, Angelo clutching his strawberry cone. He took a small, cautious lick, then coughed-once, twice-before smiling up at me. I smiled back, ignoring the ache in my bandaged palms as I held his free hand. For a second, he looked like a regular five-year-old, untouched by the mafia's poison. Then, his little hand suddenly gripped my coat.

"Papa..." he whispered, his voice trembling.

I froze. Following his gaze across the bustling street, my blood turned to ice.

Standing outside the gleaming windows of a high-end jewelry boutique was my ex-husband, Damien Valenti. He wasn't looking at us. His entire focus was on the woman standing before him-Seraphina Ricci.

With a tenderness I had never, not once, received in our entire marriage, Damien fastened a blinding diamond necklace around Seraphina's throat. She tilted her head up, her eyes shining with adoration. Damien smiled-a soft, genuine smile that transformed his usually cold features-and leaned down to press a lingering, affectionate kiss to her forehead.

The image was flawless. It was a public declaration of their perfect, untainted happiness.

A poisoned blade twisted deep in my chest. This wasn't just about political power or family alliances anymore. It was the absolute erasure of my existence, the replacement of my son's family with a shiny new toy.

I felt Angelo's small body tremble against mine. He didn't cry-he had learned too young that tears changed nothing. Instead, he buried his face in my coat and whispered, "I don't want him, Mamma. I want you."

The raw, agonizing pain in my chest didn't break me; it crystallized. I pulled Angelo tighter against my side, shielding his eyes from the man who had discarded us. My bandaged palms throbbed where the gauze pressed into half-healed wounds-a small, grounding pain. I stared at the happy couple across the gilded street, letting the cold, unbreakable promise of Vendetta settle deep into my bones.