Work went smoothly.
After a full morning of meetings at the office overseeing our legitimate companies across New York, I moved on into the illegal aspect of our organization. From reviewing the shipment routes, to partnership terms with outside organizations that required more diplomacy than force. All of it precise and necessary.
By mid-afternoon, I was negotiating with the Irish. Finalizing concessions, restructuring territory lines and ultimately, arranging a potential marriage between families to formalize this alliance. Old-world solutions for modern wars.
Only when the last document was signed did I finally allow myself to leave.
By the time the elevator doors slid shut behind me, carrying me up to my husband's penthouse overlooking a winter-stricken New York, the exhaustion finally settled in. It was the weight of constant calculation, of always being on my guard.
Silence greeted me the moment I walked into the living room.
The apartment stretched wide and deliberate. With its clean lines, minimal furniture, steel and glass softened by muted textures. It should have felt cold and impersonal. The kind of place built to impress rather than comfort.
I used to think I would hate interiors like this, having spent most of my life surrounded by beautiful, sprawling Italian architectures.
But Alex had a way of altering these spaces without changing them.
The lighting was warmer than it needed to be. The seating closer than required. Subtle adjustments that made the sharp architecture feel...inviting. As if the space itself was drawing me in, instead of keeping its distance.
"You're home early," Alex said, not bothering to mask the sarcasm in his voice.
I turned my head, and forgot whatever retort I had prepared.
He was walking toward me in nothing but black boxer briefs, skin still damp from the shower, droplets trailing down the hard planes of his chest. His hair was darker like this, pushed back carelessly as if he hadn't bothered to dry it properly. He moved with the quiet confidence of a man who owned every room he stepped into.
"I could say the same to you," I replied softly.
He leaned down as he passed, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to my cheek before continuing toward the kitchen.
"Are you hungry?" he asked casually.
My eyes traced the width of his back, the defined muscles shifting beneath his skin as he reached for a glass. A faint line ran down the center of his spine, disappearing beneath the waistband of his briefs. My throat tightened.
"Not really," I murmured.
He paused, then glanced at me over his shoulder, catching me staring.
A slow, knowing smile curved his mouth.
"Let me guess," he said, his voice dropping lower. "You're not hungry."
He turned fully now, stalking back toward me, gaze darkening with intent.
"You're starving."
My lips curved slowly. "It's hard not to starve when you walk around looking like that, husband."
He crossed the distance between us without another word.
My handbag slipped from my fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud just as his arms slid around my waist, firm and possessive, pulling me flush against him. Solid and unyielding.
I looped my arms around his neck, drawing him closer until our foreheads touched. I inhaled deeply his scent of soap and pine, something that was unmistakably him. Clean and dangerous. My home.
"I should punish you for what you did this morning," he murmured against my lips, his mouth barely grazing mine.
A shiver traced my spine. "Then what are you waiting for?"
His hand rose slowly to my face, fingers brushing through my hair, tucking a loose strand behind my ear with surprising tenderness. I had been wearing it down more lately. Once, I had kept it tightly secured. But ever since my memories returned, I had preferred to let it fall free.
Maybe because I liked the way his hands disappeared into it.
"I was about to be a gentleman," he whispered, his thumb tracing the curve of my jaw, "make you something to eat first."
His lips brushed mine, soft and deliberate.
"Ask you about your day."
Another kiss. Slower.
"And then," his hand tightened at my waist, pulling me impossibly closer, "I was going to take you to bed...and punish you properly."
The promise in his voice wasn't playful.
It was intimate. Intentional.
"Sounds divine," I said, forcing restraint into my smile. "But we have another problem."
His expression shifted instantly. The playfulness was gone, replaced by calculation. "What is it?"
"Tell me why you're so adamant about merging with the Irish."
His gaze slid away for a fraction of a second. His jaw flexed. "Let's just say I owe them. This is the cleanest way to settle it without bloodshed."
"What did you do?"
His eyes snapped back to mine, the green turning glacial. "Nothing that matters now that phase two is in motion." A beat. "Who did they ask for?"
I held his gaze. "Camilla."
A low curse slipped from him. "Did Sergio know?"
"No. The meeting was private." I folded my arms loosely across my chest. "I didn't sign anything. I told them I'd consider it. Camilla isn't my daughter. She's not even under New York jurisdiction. I'd need permission from—"
"Arturo," he finished darkly.
"Yes."
Silence stretched between us, thick and deliberate.
"What about alternatives?" he asked.
"They won't take anyone else." I studied him carefully. "So tell me why this alliance matters so much. Because if it had been any other girl, I would've signed the papers without hesitation."
The implication lingered.
Camilla wasn't just a bargaining chip.
And whatever Alex had done, it was heavy enough to shape the future of all of us.
"I went insane when you were gone," he said, his Russian accent thickening with memory. "I would've turned the world inside out just to find you. I didn't care what anyone said. Until I saw your body with my own eyes, you weren't dead to me."
My hands flattened against his chest, feeling the relentless beat of his heart against my palms.
"Then what happened?"
"Someone hired me to take them down," he said. "I was close to finishing it. I was going to dismantle everything they've built. Strip it bare, sent their leader's head back as proof."
His jaw hardened.
"But he stopped me. Said he knew where 'my wife' was."
The word still did something to me.
"He wouldn't tell me unless I promised to let him live."
My throat tightened. "So what did you do?"
A flicker of something dark passed through his eyes.
"I did what I was paid to do," he said quietly. "I let him walk. And the moment he gave me what I wanted...I killed him."
He made it sound like he was simply reciting his day.
"After I found you, they came back," he continued. "To collect. They want a share of what we built. They're the ones who came after me on that rooftop in London, months ago."
Silence settled between us, heavy and charged.
"So this alliance," I murmured, "it isn't just politics."
"No." His hand slid up, cradling my jaw, his thumb brushing slowly, tenderly along my cheekbone. "It's insurance."
"Then we'll have to find a way to make Arturo agree to the union," I said, even as something in my chest tightened at the thought. "Or we find another alternative."
Alex's gaze sharpened, already calculating three moves ahead.
"They won't settle for just anyone," he said. "They'll want someone valuable. Someone symbolic." A pause. "The Consigliere's only daughter would've been perfect."
Camilla.
The name lingered unspoken between us.
But another name surfaced in my mind. Quieter, heavier.
I wasn't sure I could do it again. Wasn't sure I could place him on a chessboard and call it strategy. But if it meant securing the Irish, if it meant closing the circle around us instead of leaving gaps—
He would be the safest bet.
My fingers curled slightly against Alex's chest.
"I think," I said slowly, meeting his eyes. "I know who."
Alex stilled.
And in the silence that followed, something shifted.