THE DEAL

I didn't sleep.

How could I, when every time I closed my eyes I saw Dante's face? I could still smell him on me. That cold smile. Those merciless gray eyes. The way he'd said our son like the words were a weapon designed specifically to gut me.

By three a.m., I had given up on sleep entirely. Instead, I sat by the window watching the city breathe, my phone clutched in one hand while I debated calling Ghost.

My head of security. The man who had saved my life in Lagos and had been protecting Luca ever since. The closest thing I had to a family.

He would tell me to run. Pack up Luca in the middle of the night and disappear again. New city. New name. New life. A fresh start.

We had done it before. We can do it again.

I considered the idea of running again.

But this time felt different. This time, Dante knew. And men like Dante Russo didn't forget. They didn't forgive. They hunted until they found what they were looking for. He would find me if i left again with Luca.

And what he was looking for was me, but the next time it would be i and our son.

At eight a.m., I stepped into the shower and let the hot scalding water wash away the exhaustion I couldn't afford to show. By eight-thirty, I was dressed in black Armani pants, silk blouse, heels sharp enough to be weapons. Armor disguised as elegance.

If I was walking into hell, I would do it looking like I belonged there.

The address on Dante's business card led me to a building in Tribeca. All glass and steel and the kind of money that didn't need to announce itself. The doorman took one look at me and nodded, like he had been expecting me.

Of course he had. I rolled my eyes.

Dante didn't leave anything to chance. He was meticulously observant and private.

The elevator was private, required a key card that the doorman provided, and moved so smoothly I barely felt it rising. Forty-three floors. Each one putting more distance between me and any reasonable chance of escape.

When the doors opened, they revealed a penthouse that looked like it had been ripped straight from an architecture magazine. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Hudson. Minimalist furniture that probably cost more than most cars. Art on the walls that made my consultant's eye twitch with recognition a Rothko, a Basquiat, a sculpture that looked suspiciously like early Giacometti.

And standing in the center of it all, backlit by morning sun, was Dante.

He had traded last night's tuxedo for dark slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Casual. Comfortable. Like he hadn't just blown up my entire life twelve hours ago.

"You're early," he said without turning around.

"You said not to be late."

"I said nine a.m. It's eight fifty-seven." Now he turned, and I hated how my breath caught. How even now, even knowing what he was capable of, my body remembered his touch. "Eager, Aria? Or just afraid I would make good on my threat?"

"Neither." I stepped into the penthouse, let the elevator doors close behind me. No escape now. "I just wanted to get this over with."

"This." He moved toward a glass table where papers were already laid out, neat and organized. "You make it sound so simple."

"Isn't it? You want a wife. I need protection. We both get something out of this arrangement."

"Arrangement." He picked up one of the documents, scanned it like he hadn't already memorized every word. "Is that what we're calling it?"

"What would you call it?"

His eyes met mine. "A reckoning."

The word hung between us, heavy with meaning I didn't want to unpack.

"I had my lawyers draw up a contract," Dante continued, gesturing to the papers. "Standard terms. Six months of marriage. You'll live here, attend events with me, play the role of devoted wife in public. In exchange, I provide security, resources, and access to my network."

I moved closer, scanning the documents. Legal jargon. Clauses about public appearances and media obligations. Financial arrangements.

Everything business like. Everything cold detailed and proper.

Except for one clause that made my blood freeze.

"Clause seventeen," I said slowly. "Full custody of any minor children produced during the marriage?"

"Standard language."

"This isn't about children produced during the marriage." I looked up at him. "This is about Luca."

He didn't deny it.

"You want me to sign over custody of my son?"

"Our son." Dante's voice was quiet. Deadly. "And I want you to acknowledge that I have rights. That you don't get to keep him from me just because it's convenient for you."

You must be out of your damn mind.. I snarled in controlled anger, "leave Luca out of this."

"I kept him from you to protect him...."

"From what?" The words exploded out of him, all that careful control shattering. "From me? From having a father? From knowing where he came from?"

"From this world!" I threw my hand out, encompassing everything. The penthouse. The city. The violence that lurked beneath every polished surface. "From becoming another casualty in a war he never asked to be part of!"

" I kept him safe "

"He's already part of it." Dante stepped closer, and I refused to back up. Refused to show weakness. "The second you brought him back to New York, you made him a target. Vincent knows about you now, Aria. Which means it's only a matter of time before he knows about the boy."

"Don't call him that. His name is Luca."

Something flickered across Dante's face. "Luca," he repeated softly. "You named him after your brother."

My throat tightened. Luca Moretti. My older brother. The one who'd died trying to protect me the night of the massacre. The one who had pushed me toward the secret passage and told me to run while he held off the gunmen.

"Yes."

Dante was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had lost some of its edge. "He would have been honored."

I blinked back the tears that threatened. I hadn't cried in seven years. Wasn't about to start now.

"The custody clause," I said, forcing my voice steady. "I am not signing it."

"Then we don't have a deal."

"Fine." I turned toward the elevator. Called his bluff. "Good luck finding another wife on such short notice..."

"Aria."

I stopped. Didn't turn around.

"Vincent's man followed you from the gala last night. He knows which hotel you're staying in. Right now, he is probably assembling a team. They will come for you tonight, maybe tomorrow. Clean. Professional and fast. You will disappear, and this time, no one will ever find the body."

My hands curled into fists.

"But if you marry me," Dante continued, "if you take my name and move into this penthouse, you become untouchable. No one touches what's mine. Not Vincent. Not anyone."

"I'm not yours."

"No." His voice was closer now. Right behind me. "But you could be. For six months. Long enough to find whoever killed your family. Long enough to keep our son safe."

I turned slowly. He was standing so close I could see the shadows under his eyes. The tension in his jaw. The way his hands were clenched at his sides like he was stopping himself from reaching for me.

"Change the custody clause," I said.

"No."

"Then change the terms. Joint custody. We both have equal rights. Equal say."

He considered this. I could see him calculating, weighing options, looking for the trap.

"Joint custody," he finally said. "But he lives here. With us. I'm not negotiating on that."

My heart clenched. Luca, living here. In this glass tower with a father he didn't know. Away from the only home he'd ever known.

But safe.

Protected by the kind of power I could never give him on my own.

"He's six years old," I said quietly. "He's going to have questions. About why we're suddenly living together. About who you are."

"Then we tell him the truth."

"Which is what, exactly? That his father is a criminal who runs half of New York's underworld? That his mother is a dead woman walking? That we're only pretending to be a family to keep him alive?"

"We tell him," Dante said carefully, "that we're his parents. That we love him. And that we're going to keep him safe. The rest? He doesn't need to know. Not yet."

The rest. All the blood and lies and broken promises that had brought us here.

I looked at the contract again. At the clause about joint custody with Dante's handwritten changes already noted in the margin. At my name typed out next to his.

Aria Moretti-Russo.

A name I'd never thought I'd see. A life I'd never thought I'd live.

"Six months," I said.

"Six months."

"And after that?"

"After that, you're free to go." His eyes held mine. "Unless you want to stay."

"I won't."

"We'll see."

He pulled a pen from his pocket. Offered it to me.

I took it. Let the weight of it settle in my hand. This pen would sign away six months of my life. Would bind me to a man who had every reason to hate me. Would change everything.

But it would also save my son.

And I'd burn the whole world down for Luca.

So I signed.

My signature looked strange next to Dante's smaller, more careful, like even my handwriting knew this was a mistake.

Dante took the contract, added his own signature with quick, confident strokes.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Russo," he said, and the name sounded like a threat and a promise all at once. "Welcome home."

Before I could respond, before I could process what I'd just done, his phone buzzed. He glanced at it, and his entire expression changed.

"What?" I asked.

He turned the phone so I could see the screen. A text message. No number. Just words:

WE KNOW ABOUT THE BOY. TELL MORETTI'S DAUGHTER SHE HAS 24 HOURS.

My blood turned to ice.

Dante's hand was already moving, making calls, his voice sharp with commands I barely heard through the roaring in my ears.

Twenty-four hours.

Vincent wasn't waiting. Wasn't watching.

He was already moving.

And the only thing standing between my son and a bullet was a marriage contract still drying on the table and a man who had just become the most dangerous husband in New York.

Dante ended his call. Looked at me.

"Get your son," he said. "Now. My men will meet you there. You have two hours before Vincent realizes you're moving him."

"Two hours..."

"Two hours, Aria. After that?" His eyes were cold. Flat. The eyes of a killer. "After that, we go to war."