Chapter 3

DANTE’S POV

The car was too quiet.

Too quiet for a wedding night. Too quiet for the lies dressed up as vows. Too quiet for the war already bleeding into my veins.

I leaned back in the seat, my arm stretched along the leather, eyes locked on the woman sitting across from me.

My new wife.

Isabella Russo. No, Isabella Moretti now.

Her head was turned to the window, veil trembling, bouquet long gone. She sat still, stiff, like she was carved from marble. But I saw her hands twisting the lace on her lap. I saw the fear in her silence.

Fear of me. Good. Let her be afraid. I never wanted marriage. Hell, I never wanted to marry her. She was Angelo’s girl. His bride. His future.

Not mine.

But now Angelo was on the ground, his throat cut, his body left with bullets in his chest and a black veil covering his face. A message. Clear. Sharp. Unforgivable. Whoever did it wanted me broken. Wanted me to crawl. Wanted me to wear grief like chains.

But I wouldn’t give them that. No.

I’d give them blood.

And maybe, just maybe, my new bride would help me find whose blood it should be.

She didn’t know it yet, but she was my lead. If she wasn’t part of it, then she was close to someone who was. The Russos always played dirtier than they pretended.

My jaw locked. My hands curled.

Angelo’s death wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a street hit. It was staged. Calculated. Designed to rip out my heart and shove it back into my chest.

Slit throat. Gunshot. Black veil.

Whoever did it had studied me well.

But they didn’t know one thing.

I wasn’t breakable.

I glanced at Isabella again. Her lips were pale. Her shoulders hunched under the weight of lace and fear. She hated me. I saw it in her eyes at the altar. Heard it in her whisper.

“I don’t want this. I don’t want you. I don’t want to marry you.”

Good. Her hatred was armor. Her hatred would keep her alive.

Because if she came too close to the monster inside me, I wasn’t sure she’d survive it.

The car slowed. The gates of the Moretti estate opened wide. Steel and stone, high walls, armed men, my new prison as much as hers.

The driver rolled us to a stop in front of the mansion. Lights burned across the windows. Soldiers stood in line. Every man bowed as I stepped out.

Respect. Fear. Both are the same in this world.

I hated it.

Hated the crown I never asked for. Hated the burden of responsibility sitting heavy on my shoulders.

But I was the last Moretti standing.

Which meant this empire was mine.

“Out,” I said flatly.

Isabella moved slowly, her dress catching as she stepped from the car. Her eyes darted across the men, then the house, then finally to me.

Fear. Pure, sharp fear.

I smirked. “Good. Be afraid, Bella. Fear keeps people alive.”

She swallowed, but didn’t answer.

I walked ahead, leading her inside. The marble floors echoed under our steps. The chandelier burned above us, blinding light spilling over her pale face.

I stopped at the stairs. “Your room.”

She blinked at me. “Room?”

Her voice cracked.

I turned, studying her. “What did you think?”

Her cheeks flushed. Her lips trembled. I saw it in her eyes, the thought that I’d drag her into my bed tonight, the same night she buried one man and married another.

I threw my head back and laughed. Dark, sharp, humorless.

She flinched.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “I don’t fuck scared, unwilling women.”

Her eyes widened.

“Get some sleep,” I ordered. “Your things are already inside. They were moved during the wedding.”

Her mouth parted. Shock froze her. “Moved? How…”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”

Silence stretched. Her hands fisted in her skirt. She wanted to ask. She wanted to fight. But she didn’t. Smart girl.

“Goodnight, Isabella.”

I turned, leaving her standing at the doorway of her room. The door shut behind me. And the house swallowed her whole. But I wasn’t done. Not even close.

The night was just beginning.

My men waited in the study, gathered around the long oak table, shadows cast by the dim light. The Moretti Council. Old men, greedy eyes, voices like snakes. They wanted blood, power, and proof that I wasn’t weak.

They doubted me. I saw it in their smirks. Heard it in their whispers.

The bastard son. The enforcer. The mistake who’d somehow survived.

And now their Don.

“Dante,” one of them rasped, “your brother’s death cannot go unanswered.”

“No,” I said. “It won’t.”

“The De Lucas…”

“Not them.”

The room went still.

“They’re too sloppy,” I continued. “Too loud. Angelo’s death was quiet. Clean. Precise. Someone wanted us to look at De Luca and waste our rage there.”

A pause.

“Then who?” another councilman pressed.

My hands curled into fists. My jaw tightened. I thought of the Russos. Of the veil. Of the way Carlo Russo’s face never cracked when his daughter was handed to me like currency.

“Someone close,” I said finally. “Closer than you think.”

The men shifted.

I leaned forward, my voice low, sharp, dangerous.

“I’ll find him. I’ll gut him. And when I do, the streets will drown in his blood.”

Silence. Then nods. They believed me. They had to.

Because I was all they had left.

Later, when the meeting ended and the house fell quiet, I stood alone by the window, a glass of whiskey in my hand.

The night stretched black outside. The city slept.

But I didn’t. Couldn’t. Behind me, in her room, Isabella Moretti slept alone. A bride without a choice. A widow without a grave.

I wondered if she dreamed of Angelo. I wondered if she dreamed of me. I wondered if she knew she was caught in the middle of a war she couldn’t escape. Her hatred of me would keep her safe, for now.

But when I found the bastard who slit my brother’s throat and laid a black veil across his corpse, no hatred in the world would save him. He’d beg for death before I was finished.

And I’d give it to him slowly