로그인IreneBy 6:00 PM on Tuesday, I had successfully formatted three commercial zoning permits, finalized the CAD renderings for a boutique hotel in Milan and managed to go an entire eight hours without thinking about the Galante family.It was a personal best.I was currently packing my tote bag when Luca dropped a stack of blueprints onto my desk. Luca was one of the junior architects. He had a nice smile, wore a lot of navy blue, and possessed exactly zero brooding, tragic billionaire tendencies. He was safe. He was normal."Tell me you are escaping this hellhole." Luca said, leaning against my cubicle wall. "Because if Signor Bianchi asks me to revise the lobby dimensions one more time, I am throwing my monitor out the window.""I am officially off the clock." I confirmed, slinging my bag over my shoulder.Luca smiled, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Good. Then let me buy you dinner. There is a new Sicilian place around the corner. Carbohydrates and wine. No spreadshee
RomeoPain, at least, is useful.Pain tells a physician the body is still fighting. A screaming nerve ending is proof of circulation, proof that something inside the patient is still alive enough to resist damage. I understand pain. I manage it every day.Numbness is what terrifies us.When tissue suddenly stops responding, when sensation vanishes entirely, it means blood flow has been compromised. Oxygen has stopped reaching the cells. The damage is no longer temporary.The tissue is dying.Standing in the dark kitchen with Irene looking at me as though I were nothing more than an inconvenience in her evening, I realized I had mistaken her anger for the worst possible outcome.It wasn’t.This was worse.“I’m ignoring you. There’s a difference.”The words settled somewhere beneath my ribs with horrifying precision. If she had yelled at me, I would have known how to respond. I could have fought with her. Matched her fire. Absorbed the impact of her rage and survived it.But this calm d
Irene“You do realize Dante has antique Venetian daggers displayed at exactly toddler height, right?” I asked, tossing a grape into the air before catching it between my teeth.Alessia groaned dramatically from the velvet armchair. “Do not remind me. I pointed it out yesterday, and his solution was to assign future security personnel to follow our daughter around like a presidential motorcade.”“That’s actually impressive,” I said. “Overprotective parenting before the child is even born.”“He has already lost his mind,” Alessia muttered, though the smile tugging at her mouth betrayed her completely. One hand rested over the curve of her stomach. “This little girl is going to destroy him. I am serious. She hasn’t even entered the world yet, and Dante already acts like she personally signs off on his decisions.”“As she should." I replied solemnly, lifting my glass of sparkling water in salute. “Long live the Queen.”Alessia clinked her tea mug against mine.It had been nearly two hours
RomeoIn obstetrics, there is a rare psychosomatic condition known as pseudocyesis. More commonly referred to as a phantom pregnancy.The brain becomes so profoundly convinced of a presence that it forces the body to imitate the symptoms. Hormones shift. Appetite changes. The patient feels movement in a body that is, medically speaking, empty.It is a failure of biological acceptance. The mind refuses to acknowledge absence, so it manufactures evidence instead.I had been back in Rome for exactly four hours, and my entire nervous system was behaving like a textbook case.The private elevator opened directly into Dante’s penthouse with its usual hydraulic hiss. The biometric locks sealed behind me, shutting out the city and restoring the fortress to its preferred state: silent, controlled, and clinically precise.Nothing had changed.The obsidian floors still reflected the recessed lighting with surgical perfection. The glass walls still overlooked Rome like the city belonged beneath u
IreneI didn’t cry when Galante security team dropped my duffel bag back into apartment 4A.And I didn’t throw anything, either.I just stood there in the middle of my tiny living room, listening to the familiar hum of the ancient refrigerator while staring at the front door like it had personally offended me. The locks had been replaced. Heavy brushed-steel deadbolts now sat on the warped wooden frame, absurdly expensive against splintering paint and twenty-year-old hinges.A final courtesy from the ghost of Geneva.I walked into the kitchen and turned on the tap, letting cold water stream over my wrists while I tried to steady the pressure building beneath my ribs.For five years, I had bent myself into impossible shapes for Adrian. I had softened my personality until it became palatable. Lowered my voice. Chosen safer clothes. Trained myself to become smaller, quieter, easier to manage inside his perfectly curated beige life.And I had only just clawed my way out of that suffocatin
RomeoIn maternal-fetal medicine, there is a definitive clinical concept known as viability.It is the exact gestational point at which a fragile, developing system becomes capable of surviving outside the highly controlled environment designed to sustain it.Before that threshold is reached, no amount of intervention, hope, prayer, or sheer force of will can alter the outcome.The system simply is not equipped to breathe on its own.Standing before the floor-to-ceiling windows of my suite at the Hôtel des Bergues in Geneva, I stared out across the perfectly still surface of Lake Geneva and kept thinking about that word.Viability.The city beyond the glass was perfect.Cold. Orderly. Sterile.The kind of place I usually preferred.Everything here operated with mechanical precision. The streets were clean. The air smelled faintly of snow and expensive perfume. Even the lake looked clinically composed beneath the gray Swiss sky.Normally, environments like this calmed me. Today, it fel
Mateo’s POVI had instructed the chef to prepare a feast.Lobster bisque. Truffle risotto. Wagyu beef. The kind of meal that Galante probably couldn't even pronounce properly.I sat at the head of the long table. The room was bathed in the warm glow of two dozen candles."They are ready, sir." The
Isabella’s POVI stared at the screen.Secret Child."Oh my god." Irene muttered as her hand flew to her mouth, her own phone trembling in her grip. "Alessia... look at the timestamp. This went live three minutes ago. It already has two million shares."I didn't move. I couldn't. I was frozen, trap
Isabella’s POVI threw myself forward, stepping directly into the space between the barrel of Russo’s gun and Dante’s body."No!" Dante roared, his grip on Mateo loosening as he tried to grab me with his free hand. "Alessia, move!"I didn't move. I stood chest-to-chest with Dante, facing the barrel
Isabella’s POV I watched Mateo walk back to the bar, leaving his son alone with the nanny again. "He is pathetic." I whispered. "I spent five years terrified of a man who is nothing but a hollow shell." "Fear is a trick of the light, cara." Dante said, his hand resting possessively on my back. "O







