Chapter 4

Alessandro’s arm was still raised, the gun’s barrel gleaming. He stared at my face—at the blood on my chin, the fear in my eyes—and froze. The mask cracked. Something like horror flickered across his features, as if he was only now seeing what he had done.

"Elena..." His voice cracked. He reached for me, fingers trembling.

I scrambled back, curling around my belly, shielding the twins with my forearms. "Don't," I choked out, my back hitting the cold wall. "Don't touch me."

His hand hovered in the air between us, shaking. Even now, part of me craved his comfort, but my body knew better. It remembered the gunmetal.

Vittoria stood in the doorway, watching with the patience of a spider. She dabbed at her dry eyes with a silk handkerchief. "Alessandro, please... it was my fault. I provoked her. Don't punish her for my carelessness."

She looked at me, gaze dripping with false mercy. "Elena, forgive me. I never meant to come between you. I cannot believe I caused you harm."

Then, as if overwhelmed by her own kindness, she swayed on her feet. "I... I need air. The blood..."

"Wait," Alessandro turned, torn, his hand still hovering in the air between us.

"Go to her," I whispered, my voice hollow.

He hesitated, looking from me to her. Then he strode to the door. But he stopped. He didn't look back when he spoke, his voice dropping into that cold register—the one he used for business, not for me.

"Apologize to her," he commanded. "Tomorrow, at the breakfast table. You will kneel, and you will ask for her forgiveness. Do this, and I will forget this... incident. We can go back to how things were."

My stomach heaved. How things were. As if he hadn't just struck me.

"And if I don't?" I asked, my voice barely audible.

"Then don't expect me back at the house tonight," he said, finally glancing over his shoulder. His eyes were hard, but there was desperation there. He truly thought he was offering me a lifeline. "Don't make me choose between you and the Family, Elena. You know how this ends."

He walked out, the heavy door slamming shut behind him, leaving me alone in the Hole with the smell of gunpowder.

---

I climbed the stairs back to the main floor, my cheekbone throbbing. The gala had moved to the terrace; I could hear the Bratva toasting, the clink of crystal, the laughter of men who had never been locked in basements. I walked through the kitchen, past the staff who averted their eyes, and slipped into the corridor.

I had forgotten my phone—the encrypted burner. Without it, I couldn't disappear.

The hallway was dark. I reached the door to the master suite—the room that should have been mine—and stopped. The door was ajar.

Muffled sounds drifted through. A woman's giggle, low and throaty. The rustle of silk. Then his voice, thick with lust.

"Say it," Alessandro commanded. "Say you belong to me."

"Not with that ring on your finger," Vittoria teased, her voice dripping honey. "Take off her badge. It offends me."

"No," he growled. There was a crash of furniture, a gasp of pleasure. "Let her keep her ring. Let her think she still owns me. It makes this... hotter. The betrayal. Knowing she's somewhere crying while I'm here, claiming the true heir..."

I stumbled back, my hand clamped over my mouth. My blood turned to slush.

He hadn't just hit me. He was wearing my Signet Ring—the one he had fished from the river—and using it as a prop in their debauchery. A trophy. A joke.

My back hit the opposite wall, and I slid down, my knees giving out.

Three years ago, Alessandro had been the Underboss-in-waiting, targeted by the Torrino family. I had been nothing but a bookkeeper with shaky hands. When the bullets started flying at the docks, I had shoved him out of the way. I took three rounds in my back—one inch from my spine—and spent six months in a wheelchair.

I had laundered money through seventeen shell companies until my fingers bled, slept in cars to guard his shipments, eaten the barrel of his own gun during a standoff to prove my loyalty.

And now? I was the maid. The wet nurse for his heirs until Vittoria could take them. The punchline to his bedroom games.

I looked down at my hand. The Signet Ring—he had slipped it back onto my finger after the beating, a silent command to remember my place. It felt like a shackle. I clawed at it, my nails breaking the skin, blood welling under the gold as I wrenched it off my swollen knuckle.

I placed it on the marble side table outside their door. A message. A resignation.

Then I ran, down the service stairs, out into the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan. Behind me, the Plaza burned with lights, a fortress of my dead dreams.

I was done being his ghost.