Chapter 4

Elena Vitiello POV:

I picked up the death certificate, folded it into a tight square, and shoved it deep into the pocket of my hospital gown.

I reached across the desk and picked up the Director's dropped smartphone. My fingers were steady as I dialed Dante's private, encrypted number.

It rang three times before the line connected. Dante's voice came through, edged with impatience. "What is it?"

I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I spoke in a tone so flat and calm it bordered on psychotic. "File number NY-40992," I said softly.

The breathing on the other end of the line stopped completely. A second later, a loud crash echoed through the speaker, like a heavy wooden chair being kicked over.

"Forging federal government documents is a Class E felony, Dante," I continued, staring blankly at the Director's bleeding neck. "But we both know the Syndicate doesn't care about the cops. They care about weakness. They care about scandal."

"Elena," Dante roared, his voice dropping into a lethal, panicked growl. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Send a car to the hospital entrance right now," I ordered, cutting him off. "Take me to the Long Island estate. If I am not walking out of these doors in fifteen minutes, I am mass-emailing this PDF to the FBI field office and the head of the Chicago Outfit."

I didn't give him a single second to bargain. I hit the red button and ended the call.

Fifteen minutes later, I walked out of the hospital's sliding glass doors. I was wearing an oversized beige trench coat the Director had practically begged me to take from his closet. The Syndicate guards stationed at the entrance stared at me in absolute horror, completely paralyzed, unsure if they were looking at a ghost or a threat.

A bulletproof black Cadillac SUV idled at the bottom of the steps.

A soldier opened the heavy door for me. I climbed inside and froze. My parents were sitting in the back seat, their hands clasped tightly in their laps, their faces tight with anxiety.

I kept my face completely blank. I climbed in and pressed myself into the furthest, darkest corner of the leather seat, merging with the shadows.

The SUV accelerated, merging onto the highway toward Long Island. The air pressure inside the cabin was so thick it felt like breathing underwater.

My mother couldn't take the silence. She reached across the console, her trembling hand reaching for my knee. "Elena, sweetheart-"

I slapped her hand away with a vicious, resounding smack.

She recoiled, tears instantly pooling in her eyes. My father cleared his throat, puffing out his chest to deliver the same tired, manipulative speech he had used to control me since I was a child.

"You have to look at the big picture, Elena," my father said, his voice trembling slightly. "Five years ago, the family was on the brink of civil war. Dante needed the Bianchi family alliance to stabilize his position as Don."

"We did it for you!" my mother sobbed into her hands. "We agreed to the paperwork to protect the empire you built! If Dante fell, we all fell."

A short, sharp laugh punched its way out of my throat. My eyes felt like razors as I stared at their pathetic, lying faces.

"You didn't care about my empire," I spat, my voice laced with pure venom. "You cared about your monthly stipends. You cared about your country club memberships and your seats at the Don's table. You sold my life for a paycheck."

My father's mouth opened and closed like a dying fish. My mother went completely pale. They both snapped their mouths shut and stared out the window.

An hour later, the massive wrought-iron gates of the Vitiello estate loomed in the darkness. The gates swung open, and the Cadillac tires crunched against the gravel driveway.

I looked out the window. This was the home I had designed. I had picked every stone, every plant. But as the headlights swept across the front lawn, my stomach dropped.

The hundreds of white roses I had meticulously planted were gone. The garden had been ripped up and replaced with aggressive, violently red roses.

The SUV rolled to a stop in front of the main house. The motion-sensor floodlights snapped on, blindingly bright.

I looked through the tinted glass and saw a woman standing at the top of the marble steps.

She had wild, fiery red hair. She stood with her chin tilted up, looking down at the driveway with the absolute arrogance of a ruling queen.

My pupils dilated until my vision blurred.

The woman was wearing a vintage, emerald-green silk dress. *My* dress. The one I had custom-tailored in Paris a month before my crash. And wrapped around her wrist, catching the harsh security lights, was a solid diamond bracelet. The exact bracelet Dante had given me the night he proposed.

I shoved the car door open. The freezing night wind whipped against my face, cutting through the oversized trench coat. I stepped onto the pavement, staring up at the woman who had stolen my life.

"Aren't you afraid of being choked by a ghost in the middle of the night, wearing a dead woman's clothes?"