The world was a kaleidoscope of fluorescent lights and the rhythmic, mocking hiss-click of an oxygen concentrator. I was floating in a sea of sterile white, the kind of purgatory reserved for those too stubborn to die and too wicked to ascend.
My first conscious thought was a tactical assessment: Left arm restrained by an IV line. Blood pressure cuff on the right. Abdominal pain—dull, localized, persistent. Sensation of dampness—gone. Temperature—stabilized.
I opened my eyes. The ceiling was a blur of acoustic tiles. As my vision sharpened, the shadow in the corner of the room solidified into a man. Dante. He was still in the black wedding suit, though the tie had been discarded and his shirt was unbuttoned at the collar. He looked less like a Don and more like a fallen angel haunting a hospital wing.
In his hand, he held a glass of amber liquid—Scotch, most likely—and he was staring at me with an expression that shifted between clinical curiosity and a simmering, violent rage.
"You're awake," he said. It wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
I tried to sit up, but a sharp spike of agony in my womb forced me back down. I let out a jagged breath. "The... the child?"
Dante stood, his movements languid and predatory. He walked to the edge of the bed, leaning over me until I could see the microscopic flecks of silver in his grey eyes. He smelled of smoke and expensive antiseptic.
"The doctors call it a 'threatened miscarriage,'" he whispered, his voice vibrating with a dangerous edge. "Stress, blood loss from your little bathroom stunt, and a body that clearly hasn't been fed properly in months. You nearly lost it in the back of my car."
He paused, his gaze dropping to my stomach.
"The more interesting question, Isabella, is whose child is it?"
I looked at him, my mind racing. I had Isabella's memories, but they were like shards of broken glass—jagged and painful to touch. I sifted through the wreckage of her last few weeks. A secret meeting in a hotel. A man with a blurred face. Fear. No, not fear—duty.
"It's yours, Dante," I said, my voice steady despite the thrumming pain. "Unless you've forgotten the night of the Black and White Gala three months ago. The balcony of your penthouse? The storm?"
The lie tasted like copper, but the memory was real enough. Isabella had been sent there by her father to seduce him, to bind him to the Montgomerys. Dante had taken her with a cold, mechanical efficiency, treating her like a transaction. He hadn't looked at her face then.
Dante's eyes narrowed. He searched my expression for a tremor, a tell, a sign of the deceit. But Céleste didn't have "tells." I had spent years training undercover agents to lie to polygraphs; I could regulate my own pupil dilation if I tried hard enough.
"I remember," he said finally, his voice like grinding stone. "I also remember that you were a silent, trembling mess that night. You cried when I touched you. You didn't speak a word."
He leaned closer, his hand coming up to trace the line of my jaw, his thumb lingering near my ear.
"This woman... the one who bites my lip until I bleed and threatens my underbosses with broken glass... she doesn't seem like the type to cry in the dark."
"Survival changes the chemistry of the soul, Dante," I replied. "You bought a girl. You woke up with a partner. If you want the girl back, you'll have to dig her up from the bathroom floor of the Montgomery estate."
He let out a short, sharp breath—not quite a laugh. He pulled away, pacing the small room. "The doctors have put you on bed rest. Absolute. If you move, if you stress that heart of yours, the heir to the Moretti empire dies. And if the heir dies, your 'insurance policy' expires."
"Is that what I am to you? An incubator?"
Dante stopped and looked at me, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. "You are a billionaire's daughter, a mafia Don's wife, and now, the mother of the next Moretti. You are the most valuable piece of property in Chicago. But don't mistake value for freedom, Isabella. You are still in a cage. It's just made of gold and medical-grade steel now."
"A cage only works if the prisoner wants to leave," I said, my eyes flashing. "I like it here. It's quiet. It gives me time to think about who I'm going to kill first."
Dante laughed then—a real, dark sound that vibrated in the small room. He walked back to me, reaching out to brush a stray hair from my forehead. For a second, his touch was almost tender, but the coldness in his eyes never wavered.
"My men are outside. The entire floor is locked down. Enzo is... being handled. But the news of your 'illness' has already leaked. The other families think I'm weak for keeping a dying bride."
"Then show them I'm not dying," I said, grabbing his wrist. My grip was weak, but my intent was absolute. "Host a brunch. A press conference. Something. Let them see the new Donna Moretti. Let them see that I'm not just alive—I'm hungry."
Dante looked down at my hand on his wrist, then back at my face. He leaned down, his lips inches from mine.
"You're a terrifying creature," he whispered. "I can't decide if I want to keep you or put a bullet in your brain before you find a way to stop my heart."
"Why not both?" I challenged.
He didn't answer with words. He pressed his mouth to mine—a hard, bruising kiss that tasted of Scotch and possessiveness. It was a seal on a contract I hadn't fully read yet. When he pulled away, he straightened his suit.
"Rest, Isabella. If the baby survives the night, we'll talk about your 'hunger.' If not... pray you don't wake up."
He turned and strode out of the room, the heavy door clicking shut behind him.
I lay back against the pillows, the silence of the room rushing back in. My hand moved instinctively to my stomach. I didn't feel a maternal spark. I didn't feel love. I felt a cold, calculating weight. This child was a shield. It was a weapon. It was the only thing keeping Dante Moretti from realizing that the woman in his bed was a ghost in a stolen body.
But there was a problem.
As I closed my eyes, a memory that didn't belong to Céleste surfaced. It was Isabella's memory, vivid and terrifying.
A dark room. The smell of cheap cigars. A man's voice, rough and distorted.
"The child must be born, Isabella. It is the key. The Moretti blood must be harvested."
It wasn't a memory of a lover. It was a memory of a command.
I sat bolt upright, ignoring the flare of pain in my abdomen. Isabella hadn't been a victim of her father's gambling. She had been a plant. A sleeper agent. But for whom?
The monitor beside my bed began to beep rapidly as my heart rate spiked. A nurse rushed in, but I didn't see her. I was looking at the window, at the reflection of the pale, beautiful girl in the glass.
I wasn't just in a war between mafia families. I was in the middle of a conspiracy that had started long before Céleste had ever died.
"Check the IV," I whispered to the nurse as she approached.
"What? Why, Donna?"
"Just check it," I snapped, my voice regaining its authority.
She looked confused but checked the bag. Her face went pale. "This... this isn't the saline and progesterone the doctor ordered. This is..."
She didn't finish. She fell to the floor, a small, silenced dart protruding from the back of her neck.
I didn't scream. I rolled out of the bed, dragging the IV pole with me, my bare feet hitting the cold tiles. The door to the room swung open. It wasn't Dante. It wasn't his guards.
It was a man in a doctor's coat, but he moved with the precision of a soldier. He held a syringe filled with a milky-white liquid.
"Isabella," he said, his voice the one from the memory. "The Experiment is falling behind schedule. We need to stabilize the asset."
"I'm not an asset," I snarled, grabbing the silver fruit knife I had hidden under my pillow—the same one I had used to 'suicide' earlier that day. I had palmed it when the stylists weren't looking.
He smiled, a cold, robotic expression. "You're not Isabella either, are you? The profile doesn't match. No matter. The womb is what we need. The mind is... expendable."
He lunged.
I moved. I wasn't as fast as I used to be, but I was smarter. I didn't try to block him. I dropped to the floor, swinging the heavy IV pole at his shins. He tripped, and as he fell, I drove the fruit knife into the soft tissue of his inner thigh—the femoral artery.
He let out a choked sound, blood spraying the white linoleum. I didn't stop. I scrambled on top of him, pressing my thumb into the wound to increase the pain.
"Who do you work for?" I hissed.
He gasped, his eyes rolling back. "The... The Phoenix Group... The Billionaire's Club... You're just... a vessel..."
He convulsed and went still. Cyanide pill. A professional.
I stood up, gasping for air, my black silk nightgown stained with a fresh layer of blood—not mine this time. The alarm on the monitor was still screaming.
The door burst open again. Dante stood there, gun drawn, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated carnage. He looked at the dead man, then at me, standing there with a bloody knife and a cold, vacant stare.
"Isabella?" he breathed.
"They're coming for the baby, Dante," I said, my voice cracking. "And they're not your rivals. They're something much, much worse."
I felt my legs give out. Dante caught me before I hit the floor, his arms wrapping around me with a strength that felt like a sanctuary and a prison all at once.
"I have you," he growled into my hair. "I have you. No one touches what belongs to me."
As I drifted into a forced sleep, my last thought was a cold realization:
In this world, a psychopathic profile wasn't just a trait. It was a survival requirement.