Chapter 2

I didn't sleep that night. Dante lay beside me in our emperor-sized bed, breathing with the steady rhythm of a man unburdened by conscience, while I stared at the ceiling and replayed the text message until the words burned behind my eyelids.

Ask him about Rose Voss.

My mother had died when I was sixteen. Pancreatic cancer, stage four, diagnosed too late because we couldn't afford the doctor visits that might have caught it earlier. I'd held her hand in a county hospital room that smelled of bleach and defeat while she whispered prayers through cracked lips and told me to be brave.

That was real. That memory was mine—the weight of her thinning fingers, the rattle in her chest, the way the heart monitor flatlined with a sound so small it seemed impossible that it could represent the end of everything.

But the text had planted a seed of doubt so deep it felt like it had always been there, waiting to be watered.

I slipped out of bed at dawn, padding barefoot across cold marble to the bathroom, where I locked the door and sat on the edge of the tub with my phone. The unknown number yielded nothing when I tried to call back—disconnected, untraceable, a ghost in the machine.

"You're up early."

I startled so violently I nearly dropped the phone into the tub. Dante stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with casual authority, wearing nothing but black silk pajama pants that hung low on his hips. His body was a map of violence—scars crossing his torso like roads through hostile territory, a faded bullet wound near his left shoulder, the tattoo of a serpent coiling up his right forearm.

"Couldn't sleep," I managed, sliding the phone beneath my thigh.

His eyes tracked the movement. Dante missed nothing. It was what made him a brilliant strategist and a terrifying husband.

"First night in a new home," he said evenly, crossing the bathroom to stand before me. He tilted my chin up with one finger, studying my face the way a jeweler examines a stone for flaws. "You've been crying."

"I'm fine."

"You're lying." No accusation in his voice, just fact. "But I'll allow it. For now."

He kissed my forehead—gentle, possessive—and left me alone with the taste of his cologne on my skin and a thousand questions I was too afraid to ask.

Breakfast was served in a dining room that could seat thirty. I sat at one end of a mahogany table while Dante sat at the other, the distance between us filled with fresh flowers and silver platters of food I couldn't stomach. His mother, Valentina Moretti, presided over the meal like a queen holding court—silver-haired, sharp-eyed, draped in black Chanel that made her look like an elegant widow even though her husband was very much alive and running the family's legitimate business interests from a corner office in Manhattan.

"You look pale, dear," Valentina observed, her accent threading through the English like silk through burlap. "Are you not sleeping well?"

"She's adjusting," Dante answered before I could speak. "Give her time."

"Time." Valentina's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Of course. Though I hope she adjusts quickly. The Moretti family doesn't accommodate weakness."

The words were aimed at me like a rifle scope. I felt their impact in my chest, a familiar sting I recognized from years of being found lacking by people who had more than I could ever dream of.

"Scarlett is not weak," Dante said, his voice dropping to a register that made the air in the room change pressure. "She's my wife."

Valentina's lips thinned but she said nothing more, returning her attention to her espresso with the practiced grace of a woman who knew exactly which battles to fight and which to postpone.

After breakfast, while Dante disappeared into his office for meetings I wasn't invited to attend, I explored the estate. The Moretti compound occupied twelve acres of waterfront property in Connecticut, surrounded by walls topped with security cameras and patrolled by men who carried their weapons with the casual comfort of accessories.

In the east wing library, I found what I was looking for—a desktop computer, old but functional, tucked into a reading alcove that smelled of leather and dust.

My fingers trembled as I typed my mother's name into the search engine. Rose Voss. The results were ordinary—obituary notices, a few mentions in community newsletters from our old neighborhood. Nothing sinister. Nothing that connected her to the Moretti family.

But then I refined the search. Rose Voss + Moretti.

A single result appeared—a newspaper article from twenty years ago, archived on a local news site with a broken layout and pixelated photos. The headline made my vision blur:

"Key Witness in Moretti Racketeering Case Found Dead; Authorities Rule Natural Causes"

The article was short, clinical, stripped of the humanity that had made my mother a person and not just a name in a legal file. Rose Voss, age 32, had been scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury investigating the Moretti family's criminal enterprises. She died three days before her testimony, officially from cardiac arrest.

Not cancer. Cardiac arrest.

But I'd watched her die of cancer. I'd watched her waste away for months.

Unless I hadn't.

Unless the cancer was the cover story—the slow, plausible explanation for a death that had been decided in a boardroom full of men who solved problems with bullets and bribes.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely close the browser. I erased the search history with clumsy fingers, my breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

"Find anything interesting?"

I spun around to find Marco standing in the library doorway, his scarred face unreadable, his arms crossed over a chest that looked like it had been carved from concrete.

"Just browsing," I said, my voice cracking on the lie.

Marco studied me for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "Mrs. Moretti. A word of advice." He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Some doors in this house are locked for a reason. Stop trying to open them."

He left without waiting for a response, his footsteps echoing down the corridor like a countdown.