Chapter 1

Damien POV

The antique letter opener on my massive ebony desk still bore a faint, microscopic stain near the hilt. A constant reminder.

Three years ago, Isabella Sterling bought her way into my bed. She used her father's tech empire-a perfect, legitimate laundromat for Moretti blood money-to secure a marriage ring. She looked at me with naive, starry-eyed infatuation, thinking her warmth could tame an Underboss. I looked at her and saw nothing but a highly profitable asset.

I made sure to shatter her delusions. A year ago, I paraded Liliana Vance at our family's charity gala. Liliana was a useful political pawn, but more importantly, she possessed the ghost of a face I used to care about. Isabella's pathetic jealousy boiled over at the estate's infinity pool. I arrived just in time to see Liliana falling backward into the water, Isabella's hand outstretched.

I dragged my wife into this very penthouse office and verbally tore her family's legacy to shreds. That was when the naive girl finally snapped. She grabbed this exact letter opener and drove it deep into my abdomen.

By our laws, striking a made man meant death. But as I stood bleeding, I ordered my Enforcer, Rocco, to seal the room. I stitched my own flesh in silence. I didn't kill her. Instead, I banished her to the decaying West Wing of the estate.

I can still hear her voice from the night before her imprisonment. She had knelt outside this mahogany door for hours, begging for a divorce. I had gripped her tear-stained jaw, my blood running cold at the mere thought of her walking away. *"You are a Moretti. The only way you leave this family is in a coffin."*

To ensure she understood my absolute control, I orchestrated the hostile takeover of Sterling Industries. When her father, Arthur, died of a heart attack before his arrest, I assumed Isabella would finally learn her place in the dark.

The heavy oak door creaks open, pulling me violently from the past.

Rocco Gallo steps into the office. Through the crack of the door, I can hear the muffled, hysterical sobbing of Sofia Rossi, Isabella's maid, echoing from the freezing corridor.

Rocco's jaw is tight. He refuses to meet my eyes. "Sir," he starts, his voice uncharacteristically hollow. "Mrs. Moretti... she's gone."

The silence in the penthouse becomes a physical weight. The Chicago blizzard howling against the bulletproof glass fades into static.

*Gone.*

My face remains a mask of stone. I look down at the family ledger in front of me. "Dispose of the body," I command. My voice is flat, devoid of any human inflection.

But my fingers tighten around my Montblanc pen. The pressure builds until a sharp *crack* echoes through the room. The thick resin barrel snaps in half. The jagged edge of the gold nib slices deep into my palm.

A mixture of dark ink and warm blood spills across the pristine white paper, staining the Moretti accounts.

"That woman is always full of tricks," I snarl. My chest suddenly seizes, as if all the oxygen has been sucked from the room.

I don't wait for Rocco's response. I shove myself away from the desk, the heavy leather chair crashing to the floor. I bypass the custom cashmere coat hanging by the door. The bleeding in my hand doesn't register. Nothing registers except the deafening roar in my skull.

I burst out of the office, sprinting toward the elevator, tearing a path straight into the freezing night toward the West Wing.