Chapter 2

Victor's footsteps faded down the hallway, and the second I could not hear them anymore, I moved fast.

I locked the door. Dragged the heavy armchair in front of it for good measure. Then I pulled the curtains shut and knelt on the floor beside my bed, reaching under the mattress for the one thing I had never let anyone else touch.

The white jade gourd was cool against my fingers, small enough to fit in my palm, carved with tiny symbols that seemed to shift when the light hit them just right. In my old life, this little pendant was the only reason I survived as long as I did. It held a spatial dimension inside it, a pocket world where I stored food, water, weapons, everything I needed to keep breathing while the rest of the world burned.

And then Serena stole it from me. Told everyone it was a family heirloom that I had snatched from her. Used it to survive in luxury while I starved, and then framed me for trying to murder her so her four rich boyfriends would finish me off.

But that was the old timeline. In this life, the gourd was still mine. And I was never letting anyone take it from me again.

I bit down on my index finger until the blood welled up, bright and hot, and pressed the drop against the surface of the jade. The symbols flared gold for a single heartbeat, and then the world inside the gourd opened up in my mind like a door swinging wide.

I could feel it. An entire dimension, vast and dark and rich with potential. Black soil stretching out in every direction, fertile and waiting. And somewhere near the center, a spring of clear water that hummed with a strange, healing energy, flowing gently over smooth stones.

My chest tightened with something that was not quite relief and not quite joy. It was bigger than both of those things. It was the feeling of holding a weapon that nobody else even knew existed.

I opened my eyes and exhaled slowly, letting the connection settle into my bones.

Four months until the apocalypse. Four months to stockpile food, weapons, medicine, seeds, livestock, and enough supplies to build a life in the ruins of the world. And now I had the one thing that would make all of that possible.

A knock on the door nearly made me jump out of my skin.

"Isabella?" My mother's voice floated through the wood, soft and sweet and dripping with the kind of fake warmth that used to make me melt. "Sweetheart, open the door. Your father told me what happened and I am so worried about you. Let me come in so we can talk about this like a family."

Carmen Moretti. The woman who had pushed me out into the world and then pretended I did not exist for eighteen years while she raised a stranger's daughter in silk dresses and diamond earrings. The woman who had screamed at me for embarrassing her at dinner parties because I did not know which fork to use, because I had been raised on a farm while her precious Serena learned etiquette from private tutors.

"You want to prove you are my mother?" I called out, not moving from the floor. "Wire me one million dollars right now."

Silence on the other side of the door. I could picture her standing there with that pained, martyred expression she always wore when she wanted people to feel sorry for her.

"Isabella, please." Her voice quivered with practiced emotion. "Money is not what this is about. I just want my daughter back. I love you. We both love you. If you would just let me in, we could work this out together."

"One million dollars, Carmen. Transfer it to my account in the next ten minutes or I am calling my lawyer and telling him to file the kidnapping charges today." I leaned back against the bed frame and examined my nails. "Your choice."

"You are breaking my heart." She was crying now, or pretending to cry, which was basically the same thing with her. "How can you be so cruel to your own mother?"

I thought about the last time I had seen Carmen Moretti in my old life. Standing in that warehouse doorway, watching the heirs of the Four Great Families break me apart piece by piece, and saying nothing. Doing nothing. Just watching with those empty, beautiful eyes while her real daughter screamed for help.

"Ten minutes." My voice did not break. "Clock is ticking."

It took them eight.

My phone buzzed with a notification. One million dollars, transferred from Victor Moretti's personal account. I stared at the number on my screen and felt nothing but cold satisfaction. This was not love money. This was not guilt money. This was the first payment in a debt that could never truly be repaid, but I was going to collect every cent anyway.

I tucked the phone into my pocket and pulled up a second number. One I had memorized in my old life, carried in my head like a prayer through the darkest days of the apocalypse.

Dominic Valenti.

In my previous life, I did not meet Dominic until it was almost too late. He had found me half dead, tied to a wooden beam in an abandoned building, with zombie teeth marks covering my arms and legs. He had cut me free, carried me to safety, and spent the next three months keeping me alive while I healed. He was the only person in that entire ruined world who ever treated me like I was worth saving.

And before he died, he had given me one thing. A secret. His childhood nickname, the one that only his immediate family knew before he turned four years old.

Dom.

He had pressed his bloodied hand against mine and whispered it like a promise. If you ever get a second chance, use this name. Find the younger me. He will help you. He will believe you because nobody else in the world could possibly know it.

My fingers trembled as I typed the message. Just three lines.

Dom. I need your help. Send me a lawyer who is not afraid of anything.

I stared at the screen for a long moment after I hit send, my heart hammering so loud I could hear it in my ears. This was the biggest gamble I had ever taken. If the young Dominic Valenti did not react the way his future self promised he would, I was on my own. And being on my own meant fighting five of the most powerful families in Creston Bay with nothing but a spatial dimension and a million dollars that would not last a month.

I set the phone face down on the carpet and closed my eyes.

Please. Please let this work.

Three thousand miles away, in a penthouse overlooking the Manhattan skyline, Dominic Valenti was stepping into the passenger seat of a custom racing car when his phone vibrated in his jacket pocket.

He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and went completely still.

The driver, a friend named Christian Ashford who had been grinning about the race all morning, leaned over to check the course map.

"Ready to go?" Christian's smile was wide and easy, the kind of smile that hid poison underneath. "The track on the mountain is gorgeous this time of year. You are going to love it."

But Dominic was not listening. He was reading three lines of text from an unknown number, and the blood was draining from his face because the nickname in that message had been buried for twenty years. Sealed away in family records that even his closest friends could not access.

Dom. Only his mother had ever called him that. And she had stopped when he was four.

He climbed out of the car without a word.

"Hey!" Christian's smile faltered. "Where are you going? The race starts in twenty minutes."

Dominic was already on the phone, his voice low and sharp as a knife's edge.

"Marco. Cancel everything. Get the jet ready. We are flying to Creston Bay tonight." He paused, listening. "Bring the full legal team. And call Sal Ferrante. Tell him I need the Moretti mansion address and I need it before we land."

He hung up and walked toward the elevator without looking back. Behind him, Christian Ashford stood beside the rigged car with its sabotaged brakes and its carefully loosened steering column, watching his childhood friend walk away from the trap that was supposed to kill him.

Two hours later, a private jet touched down at Creston Bay Regional Airport. Marco Bellini, one of the most feared international lawyers on the East Coast, stepped onto the tarmac beside Dominic Valenti with a briefcase in one hand and a phone in the other.

A black SUV was already waiting. Sal Ferrante, the man they called the Iron Fist of Creston Bay, leaned against the passenger door with his arms crossed over his massive chest.

"The Moretti place is twenty minutes from here." Sal's voice was a low rumble, like thunder rolling across a flat field. "The old man and his wife are home. So is the girl."

Dominic nodded once. His jaw was set, his eyes dark and unreadable, and when he spoke, his voice carried the weight of a man who had already made every decision that mattered.

"Take us there. Now."

The SUV pulled through the iron gates of the Moretti Mansion at exactly 9:47 PM. When Victor Moretti opened the front door and found Sal Ferrante standing on his porch with Dominic Valenti and Marco Bellini behind him, the color left his face so fast that he grabbed the doorframe to keep from falling.

"I am here for Isabella." Dominic's voice was quiet, but it filled the entire entryway like smoke filling a sealed room. "Bring her to me. Now."

Victor's mouth opened, but no sound came out. He looked from Dominic to Sal to Marco, and whatever he saw in those three faces told him that this was not a conversation. This was a command.

And the Moretti family had just run out of time to pretend they were in control.