Rising From Ash: The Mafia Queen Returns

Dante POV

I tore through the study like a man possessed.

Books flew off the shelves, crashing onto the floor.

Papers scattered across the Persian rug like fallen leaves.

I was hunting for the contract with the Russians, but in my blind haste, my hand struck a loose panel in the back of the antique desk.

It gave way with a sharp *click*.

A hidden compartment.

I froze.

I didn't put this here.

Slowly, I reached in and pulled out a manila envelope.

It wasn't mine.

It smelled like her.

Vanessa.

I opened it.

Inside was a medical report from four months ago.

*Elena Rossi.*

*Paternity Test.*

My heart seemed to stop beating for a full second.

I scanned the numbers.

I scanned the conclusion.

Probability of Paternity: 99.9%. Father: Dante Rossi.

The room tilted on its axis.

\ The air turned to ice in my lungs.

Vanessa walked in then.

"Dante, what is all this noise? You're scaring the maids."

She stopped dead when she saw what was in my hand.

The color drained from her face, leaving her skin the shade of ash.

"Dante," she stammered, her hands trembling. "That... that is a fake. She forged it. I hid it to protect you from her lies."

She was lying.

I could see it in the pathetic tremor of her lip.

I could smell the fear on her, acrid and sharp.

"You knew," I whispered.

The rage didn't come like a wave.

It came like an explosion.

"You knew she was carrying my child!"

I roared the words, the sound tearing at my throat.

I grabbed a crystal vase from the desk—a gift from the Prime Minister—and hurled it at the wall.

It shattered into a million diamond-like shards with a violent crash.

Vanessa screamed and covered her head.

"Get out," I said.

My voice was deadly calm now.

"Dante, please—"

"Get out of my sight before I forget who you are."

She ran.

I stood alone in the wreckage.

My child.

My blood.

And I had treated her like a nuisance.

I grabbed my keys and stormed out of the house.

I needed to know who she was.

I needed to know who I had destroyed.

I drove to the university she had attended before we married.

I walked through the campus like a wraith, seeing nothing but her face.

I found the Dean of Economics.

He looked terrified when I barged into his office, my suit rumpled, my eyes wild.

"Elena Rossi," I said. "Tell me about her."

"Mrs. Rossi?" he stuttered, adjusting his glasses with shaking fingers. "She... she was our brightest student. A prodigy. She published a paper on international trade logistics that is still cited today."

I stared at him, stunned.

"She did?"

"Yes. We begged her to stay for her doctorate. She said she had a duty to her family."

I walked out of the office feeling like I had been punched in the gut.

I didn't know that.

I didn't know she wrote.

I didn't know she was brilliant.

I thought she was just a pretty face to warm my bed and wear my ring.

I walked past the dorms.

An old janitor was sweeping the leaves.

He saw me staring at her old building.

"Looking for the Rossi girl?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Haven't seen her in years," the old man said, leaning on his broom wistfully. "Shame. She was a sweet kid. Always talking about her father. Said he was the only one who understood her."

"Her father is dead," I said, my voice hollow. "Don Rossi died ten years ago."

The janitor laughed, a dry, rasping sound.

"Not that one. The other one. The one she called every Sunday. Stefano. She called him Don Stefano from the North."

My blood ran cold.

Don Stefano.

The Ghost of the Alps.

\The most elusive, dangerous man in Europe.

Elena wasn't just a Rossi.

She was royalty.

And I had treated a Queen like a servant.

I pulled out my phone.

"Find Stefano," I ordered my Chief of Security. "Burn every favor. Call every contact. Find him."

I looked up at the grey sky.

"I'm coming, Elena," I whispered into the wind.

"I'm coming."