Chapter 6

Isabella POV

The phantom grip of Damien's hand still burned my wrist the next afternoon. *In a coffin.* His promise echoed in my skull as Sofia parked the nondescript sedan on a grimy street in Chicago's Polish Village.

"Wait here," I told Sofia, pulling a silk scarf over my hair to obscure my face. She gave me a grim, understanding nod. She knew the stakes. She had seen the fresh, angry marks Damien had left on my skin last night-the first time he'd claimed his 'marital rights' since dragging me out of the West Wing.

Kowalski's Apothecary was a claustrophobic relic. The air inside was thick with the suffocating scent of dried herbs and harsh antiseptic. An elderly Polish pharmacist eyed me suspiciously from behind the wooden counter, his hands resting on a ledger.

"How soon can a pregnancy be detected?" I asked, keeping my voice low and steady.

"A month, at least," he rasped, his eyes narrowing.

I took a shaky breath, my hands curling into fists inside my coat pockets. "Then I need the strongest emergency contraceptive you have. Now."

His eyes widened, and he immediately shook his head. "No. It is against God's will, *Proszę pani* (Madam). It is poison to the body."

I stepped closer to the counter, my voice trembling but laced with absolute steel. "And is it not a greater cruelty to bring an unwanted child into a world of darkness and violence? To condemn an innocent to a life they cannot escape?"

Silence stretched between us, heavy and fraught. He searched my eyes, perhaps seeing the sheer, unadulterated desperation of a woman backed into a lethal corner. Finally, with a heavy sigh, he disappeared into the back room. He returned a moment later with an unlabeled brown glass bottle.

"One dose. Take it immediately," he warned.

I slid a thick envelope of cash across the counter-enough to buy his permanent silence-and hurried back out to the car, clutching the small bottle like a lifeline. It was my only weapon against the Moretti bloodline.

*

Damien POV

The lights of Chicago glittered like shattered glass beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of my penthouse office. I stared at the city, the amber liquid in my crystal glass untouched. The air in the room was freezing, matching the ice in my veins.

"Report," I commanded without turning around.

Rocco Gallo's heavy footsteps stopped at the edge of my mahogany desk. "She visited Kowalski's Apothecary in the Polish Village this afternoon, Boss. I stayed in the alley across the street to avoid spooking her, but I sent a low-level associate inside after she left."

I turned, my jaw clenching. "And?"

"The clerk talked. Said a high-class lady was asking questions about pregnancy."

The word hit the air like a gunshot. *Pregnancy.*

The crystal glass in my hand cracked under the sudden, violent pressure of my grip. A dark, suffocating fury clawed its way up my throat. Last night, after I had finally broken the year-long wall between us in a fit of possessive rage, she had looked me dead in the eye and begged for a divorce. She had played the desperate, abused captive flawlessly, demanding I break the contract.

It was all a smokescreen.

She wasn't trying to escape. She was checking if our encounter had successfully secured the ultimate leverage. An heir. She thought she could use my own blood to trap me, to make herself an untouchable queen in my empire while pretending to be disgusted by my touch. The sheer, calculated audacity of her manipulation made my blood run cold.

"Sir?" Rocco prompted, sensing the lethal shift in the room.

I set the fractured glass down on the desk. The contempt I felt for my wife in this moment was absolute. She wanted to play games with the Moretti legacy. She wanted a war.

"Call Marco and the others," I said, my voice dropping to a deadly calm. "Tell them we are attending Countess De Luca's charity gala tonight. And make sure my wife is dressed for the occasion."