เข้าสู่ระบบPART ONE: THE DESCENT
11:47 PM - Swiss Alps, Altitude 2,847 metersThe helicopter descended through clouds so thick they looked solid. Aria hung in the open door frame, rappel line secured, her body suspended in the darkness. Below her, invisible, was the monastery. Built into the mountain itself. Built seven hundred years ago by monks who believed they were creating a sanctuary. Now it was a tomb.Her headset crackled. Marco's voice from the ground teamISABELLA POVI walked through Vittorio's penthouse naked.Not tentatively. Not apologetically. But like I owned every square inch of it.The morning light hit my skin, and I watched myself in the floor to ceiling windows. My body was thinner than it used to be prison had stripped muscle and softness away but I was still myself. Still beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with weight and everything to do with knowing exactly what I could do with this body. I wondered why Dante never loved ne, why he never chose me over Aria.I'd spent eight months in a cell, wearing identical jumpsuits, my femininity stripped away like everything else. I'd forgotten what it felt like to move through space and have that movement mean something. Have it be noticed.Watched.Desired.Vittorio was watching me from the couch and licking his lips, I didn't care.He didn't say anything. He just watche
The prison gates opened at dawn.Eight months. Two hundred and forty seven days. Seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty minutes of being caged, controlled, stripped of autonomy.Isabella Rossi stepped into the sunlight and felt nothing.Her body had forgotten how to feel. Prison had taken that from her not just her freedom, but her ability to experience sensation. She'd existed in a state of suspended animation, counting days, planning revenge, waiting for the moment when she could reclaim what had been taken from her.Dante Russo.The man she'd loved. The man who'd chosen a broken, traumatized mafia heiress over her. The man who'd left her to rot while he played house with Aria Moretti.She'd spent eight months imagining what she would do to him. To Aria. The ways she would destroy their love, their family, their carefully constructed world.Now, standing outside the prison, watching the bla
The safe house was on the outskirts of the city.Remote. Secure. The kind of place that didn't exist on any official records. Dante had moved Luca there within hours of receiving the photograph, pulling him from school, telling him it was a surprise getaway.Luca didn't believe the lie.He knew something was wrong. He could feel it in the tension between his parents, in the way Dante's operatives surrounded us, in the way I couldn't stop checking my phone for messages from a sender I didn't recognize."Mama, why are we here?" Luca asked for the hundredth time."Because Daddy wanted to spend time with you," I said, which was technically true. "Away from the city. Safe.""Safe from what?"I didn't have an answer.My phone rang at 2 AM.Unknown number.I almost didn't answer. But something made me. Some instinct that this was important. That this couldn't wait."Hello?" I whispered, moving into the hallway so Dante wouldn't wake."Aria Moretti." A man's voice. Young, but with an edge of
The penthouse was quiet ones again, we had left the whole chaos out in the warehouse to be handled by the federal agents.Luca was asleep in his room, Lucia had returned to her own home and the nanny had retired for the night, and for the first time in weeks, we were alone.I stood in front of the mirror and studied myself.Four months pregnant.My body had changed in ways I wasn't expecting. The soft roundness of my belly was undeniable now, beautiful in a way that made my breath catch. My breasts had swollen, my skin had that pregnancy glow everyone talked about, and the hormones coursing through my veins were making me feel things I'd spent three months not feeling.Desire.Raw, primal, need him inside me right now desire.The doctors had cleared me for "light activity" two weeks ago. I'd been taking that literally, moving slowly, carefully, afraid of reopening wounds that were finally heal
Dante pulled the trigger.The gunshot echoed through the warehouse like a period at the end of a sentence.Ghost's body went still.For a moment, no one moved. No one breathed. The sound of the shot hung in the air like a physical presence.Then Dante lowered his weapon and turned to Marco."Call the federal agents," he said calmly. "Tell them Ghost is dead. Tell them he confessed to being the sniper. Tell them the case is closed.""The documentation," Marco said, gesturing to the laptop. "If we call them..""Will do exactly nothing," Dante finished. "Because every file on that laptop has been compromised for the past six weeks."My breath caught."What?" I asked.Dante didn't look at me. He was studying Ghost's body like he was assessing a piece of furniture."The moment Marcus walked into my penthouse seven years ago," Dante said quietly, "I knew what he was. Council operative. Emotionally compromised. Willing to betray his handlers for a child he felt was his."He finally turned to
The federal agent's phone rang at 2:47 AM.I watched Dante from the holding cell as he was led to a private room. Whatever happened in that room, it took exactly nineteen minutes.When he walked back out, the agent looked like someone had just destroyed his entire career.Dante was free.No bail. No charges. No explanation.Just: "Mr. Russo, you're free to go."I was released ten minutes later.No charges against me either.Which meant someone had made a deal.Someone had ensured my silence in exchange for Dante's freedom.The moment we were in his car, I grabbed his arm."Ghost walked out of the warehouse alive," I said. "I watched him. He left through the south exit after the federal agents arrived. He was bleeding, but he was moving. He's still out there."Dante's hands tightened on the steering wheel."You're certain?"Dante was quiet for a long moment.Then he made a phone call. One call. Three words: "Find him. Now."But as we drove through the dark city, I realized something te
The news broke at dawn.Vincent's lawyers had filed an emergency motion. Challenging..Challenging the arrest. The evidence. Everything."They're claiming entrapment," Alexandra said. On speakerphone. Too early. Her voice crisp. Professional. "That Detective
My first therapy session was Dante's idea."You need someone to talk to," he'd said. Three days after testimony prep began. After watching me...After watching me wake up screaming for the fourth night in a row. "Someone who isn't me. Someone professional. Someone who ca
The drive back was seventeen excrutiating long minutes.Seventeen minutes holding my breathe and of Marco breaking every traffic law. Running through traffic lights. Weaving through traffic and constantly horning. Dante on the phone with security. Me...Me replaying ever
Luca was asleep when we arrived at Gianna's estate to pick him up.Curled on a couch in her library. Ghost beside him. Reading. Watching over him like the guardian angel he'd become."Mama!" Luca woke instantly. Launched himself at me. Small arms wrapping tight around me







