Mafia Princess's Fall, Cartel Queen's Rise

Alessia POV:

A silent De Luca Soldier escorted me from the hospital.

Not to freedom, but to another cage.

This one was a cold, minimalist office in a high-rise that screamed of new money and old power.

Dante was there.

He stood with his back to me, facing a wall covered in black-and-white photographs. A memorial: the faces of De Luca members killed by the Gallos over decades of war.

His shoulders were slumped, and even from across the room, I could see the exhaustion etched into his posture. He looked like a man carrying the weight of all their ghosts.

He didn't turn when I entered.

"We found one of your father's safe deposit boxes," he said to the wall of the dead. "Your name is on it."

He turned then, and my breath hitched.

But the exhaustion I'd seen in his posture didn't reach his eyes. They were simply hollow-cold and professional.

He slid a document across the vast, polished expanse of the desk.

"The contents are substantial and illicit," he said, his voice so flat he could have been reading a quarterly earnings report. "I'd advise you to get a lawyer."

He was speaking to a stranger.

My hands trembled. I couldn't bring myself to touch the paper. All I could do was look at him, the man who had held me and whispered promises in the dark.

"Dante, please," I begged, my voice cracking. "Look at me. Was there ever a single moment of truth between us?"

He finally met my gaze, and the hollowness in his eyes was so vast I felt like I could fall into it and never be found.

"It was my job."

He turned to leave, his duty done.

A memory flashed, sharp and painful.

The first time I saw him at my father's charity gala. I'd chased him for months after that, a lovesick puppy.

I remembered faking a fall on a marble staircase just so he would have to catch me. And he had, his arms closing around me, strong and steady.

I remembered the night I finally confessed my feelings, my heart pounding in my chest.

He hadn't returned the kiss. Not on the lips, anyway. Instead, he'd pressed his lips to my forehead, his voice a dark, velvet warning.

"You'll regret this, Alessia."

I had laughed then, delirious with what I thought was victory.

Here, in this cold De Luca office, surrounded by the ghosts of his family, I whispered the words to myself.

"I regret it."