Chapter 1

"Just sign it, Altair, so she can get back to her little experiments," Sabrina purred, her fingers intimately tracing the collar of my husband's shirt.

I stood frozen in the doorway of the mahogany study.

Altair Maynard, the most feared mafia boss in New York, had his mistress perched on the arm of his leather chair. His large hand rested on her bare knee, his thumb tracing slow circles, inching toward the hem of her skirt.

He didn't even look up at me.

"What is this?" he asked, his voice rough, his dark eyes still locked entirely on Sabrina's smiling face.

"Lab authorization forms," I lied. My voice didn't shake. "I need your signature on the emergency contact field."

I slid the folder across his desk.

Tucked directly beneath the routine requisition form was a very different document.

Our divorce settlement.

For eight years, I had been the Maynard family's ghost. Forging untraceable documents, synthesizing chemical weapons, keeping this man alive from the shadows. Four years ago, he married me, calling it a "strategic alliance." I was naive enough to call it destiny.

Then Sabrina DeLuca waltzed back from London, and I stopped existing.

Altair hesitated for a fraction of a second, then picked up the pen. He didn't lift his eyes to check the pages. The pen touched paper, his signature flowing out in one swift, decisive stroke—exactly like when he signed execution orders.

He handed the folder back, dismissing me with a wave of his hand as he leaned in to brush a strand of golden hair from Sabrina's face.

"Close the door on your way out," he murmured.

I took the documents. My heart, which had bled for this man for nearly a decade, finally stopped beating for him.

You can keep your throne and your precious mistress, Altair.

I turned and walked out, letting the heavy door click shut.

When the most dangerous man in New York realizes what he just signed without looking, he's going to learn a brutal lesson: Some ghosts don't come back.

Erasing the past is satisfying, but it always comes at a price.

I sat in the leather chair at the tattoo parlor, the mirror directly in front of me. I could see myself—knuckles white from gripping the armrests, jaw clenched tight, and that crescent moon below my collarbone being devoured inch by inch by the needle.

Four years ago, I got this moon tattooed in this exact spot. A foolish tribute to a reckless young godfather who once whispered that I was his eternal light.

Always be my moon. You're the only light I need.

I believed him. Believed him so completely that I carved his words into my flesh, then willingly lived as the shadow behind his empire.

Now, golden petals were swallowing that moon, one bite at a time.

Sunflowers. I chose them deliberately—flowers that chase the sun, that refuse to stay in darkness. If the moon was him, then the sun was me. I was choosing to turn toward my own light.

The tattoo artist offered me a bite guard. I shook my head.

I needed this pain. Needed every searing stroke to remind me of the price of blind faith—the cost of trusting a man who never intended to keep his promises.

When the needle ground over the deepest curve of the crescent, the pain shot through my skin like red-hot wire. My nails dug into my palms. Sweat beaded along my hairline. My jaw ached from clenching, temples throbbing.

But I didn't make a sound.

I kept my eyes fixed on the mirror, watching the old design disappear beneath the gold.

When it was done, my collarbone burned and throbbed, the skin red and swollen. But beneath the new design, that crescent moon was completely gone.

I had no regrets.

That promise no longer existed on my body. I was erasing Altair Maynard from my world, piece by piece.

My phone buzzed. A text from my lawyer: Divorce papers finalized. Signatures needed.

I replied: Proceed as planned.

When I returned to the Maynard estate, the security at the gate didn't even make eye contact. Four years, and within these walls, my presence still hovered somewhere between furniture and hired help.

I walked straight to his study. The mahogany door stood half-open, and from inside came the sound of a woman's laughter.

Then the scent hit me.

Altair despised strong fragrances—that was his rule. No perfume in his private spaces, no lingering scents of any kind. He liked his territory clean and controlled.

But tonight, the air was cloyingly sweet. A woman's perfume, rich and unapologetic in its possessiveness.

Sabrina DeLuca's scent.

I pushed open the door.

Altair sat behind his desk, shirt sleeves rolled to his forearms, radiating that cold authority that made powerful men nervous.

Sabrina was perched on the arm of his chair, leaning close, her lips nearly brushing his jaw as she murmured something. Altair's hand rested on her knee, his thumb tracing slow circles, inching toward the hem of her skirt.

She laughed—seductive, suggestive. Altair reached up to brush a strand of golden hair from her face, his eyes darkening.

Just like those nights when he had me pinned beneath him.

My stomach turned to ice.

His gaze landed on me, his voice still carrying a trace of roughness. "You're here."

Sabrina turned, her wine-red lips curving. "Aelia! We were just discussing some family matters." Her fingers still lingered on his collar, stroking lazily. "But I'm sure you understand, don't you?"

I understood perfectly.

"I need a signature." I crossed the threshold and set the folder on the mahogany desktop.

Altair's brow furrowed slightly, his gaze assessing. "What is it?"

"Lab authorization forms. The emergency contact field—you insisted on having your name there."

He reached to flip through the documents. "Let me see—"

My heart rate spiked.

He never looked. In four years, every document I'd handed him, his pen had touched paper while his eyes stayed elsewhere.

Why now, of all times.

"Oh, Altair." Sabrina laughed, her fingertip grazing his arm. "Since when do you care about these little things? Just sign it so she can get back to her little experiments."

Little experiments.

Eight years. I had synthesized compounds that federal labs couldn't trace, built half his arsenal, forged documents that fooled customs in three different countries. And she called them little experiments.

Altair hesitated for a moment, then picked up the pen. He didn't look at the documents again. The tip touched paper, his signature flowing out in one swift stroke—clean and decisive, exactly like when he signed execution orders.

Sabrina tilted her head, studying me like an outdated ornament. "You know, Altair, sometimes I forget she's your wife. The way you two interact is more like... employer and employee."

Altair said nothing.

The silence was answer enough.

I took the documents and turned to leave before they could see my composure crack.

The door clicked shut behind me.

I let out a long breath.

The divorce papers in my hand were light as a feather, but this marriage had collapsed under its own weight long ago.

It wasn't always like this.

He used to corner me at family gatherings—one hand braced on the wall beside my head, the other tilting my chin up, his lips pressing down with urgent hunger.

"You're mine, tesoro. Don't forget it."

Now his gaze swept past me like I was wallpaper.

When I was sixteen, an ambush targeting the Maynard family killed my parents. The old godfather, Don Maynard, took me in—repaying an old debt. My father had once taken a bullet meant for him.

In the years that followed, I hid in this family's shadows, making myself into the most useful tool—quiet, efficient, unobtrusive.

Until that night on the docks four years ago. A bullet came from the flank, aimed at the back of Altair's head. I threw myself in front of him, and it tore through the flesh below my ribs.

I woke in the estate's medical wing with him sitting beside the bed, still wearing the shirt stained with my blood. He leaned in to check the wound, lifting the gauze, his fingertips brushing the skin along my ribs—slow, too slow to be just examining an injury. I held my breath. He looked up at me—his gaze deep, scorching, like something was coiling to strike.

I should have looked away.

But my fingers clutched the front of his shirt and pulled him down. When his lips crashed into mine, they tasted of blood and gunpowder, rough, burning, like something held back too long finally breaking free.

Two weeks later, we stood before a priest. His official explanation was "strategic arrangement"—protection for me, legitimacy for him.

I swallowed that lie, naive enough to think I could make him love me.

After Sabrina DeLuca returned from London, my delusions shattered piece by piece.

Her marriage in England had fallen apart, and she wound herself around Altair's life like a vine—on his arm at charity galas, at his right hand during closed-door negotiations, present at every smoke-filled transfer of power. Wherever the godfather was, she was beside him.

I kept telling myself it was just business, until our anniversary last month.

I waited seven hours on the rooftop terrace of The Peninsula Hotel, watching candles burn down stub by stub, watching the carefully prepared dinner grow cold in the night wind. He never called. Not once.

The next morning, I saw the photos on social media: Altair and Sabrina at a private charity auction. She wore a backless gown, and his palm pressed against her bare lower back. They were both laughing.

That was when I started planning my exit.

I looked at the document in my hand—the one he'd just signed without a second glance. In fourteen days, this paper would become my one-way ticket out.

I was about to pursue what he had never given me.

A life of my own.