LOGINALESSANDRO I still could not believe Joselyn had walked into my house like she had done.And started ordering my men around as though my authority meant nothing anymore.And the worst part?They listened to her.That alone told me everything I needed to know.Power was shifting.I barely slept that night. Every sound inside the safe house kept my wolf alert. Every creak of the floorboards made my hand drift toward the gun beneath my pillow.The council had frozen my accounts.Half my men had stopped answering my calls.The others suddenly needed “permission” before moving weapons or vehicles.Permission.For years nobody questioned my orders.Now even my own territory felt unfamiliar.I woke slowly the next morning, my head pounding from exhaustion. For a few seconds I forgot where I was. The room was dark except for the pale light slipping through the curtains.Then I felt someone watching me.My eyes snapped open instantly.Joselyn sat in the chair across the room with one leg cros
EMILY The moment I stepped into my studio, I quickly observed that something was off. I froze by the door, my fingers still wrapped around the strap of my bag while my eyes slowly swept across the room. The curtains were exactly where I left them. The lights were off. My design boards still leaned against the far wall beside the mannequin stand.But the air felt disturbed.Like someone had breathed inside my space while I was away.My chest tightened instantly.I shut the door slowly behind me and took another step forward, my heels clicking softly against the wooden floor. The silence inside the studio made my skin crawl.Then I noticed one of my drawers was slightly open.My heartbeat skipped.I knew I had closed it before leaving yesterday.I moved closer carefully, my eyes scanning everything around me. Nothing looked stolen. My expensive camera was still sitting on the shelf beside the mood boards. The framed sketches near the wall were untouched.But little things were differe
ALESSANDRO The meeting hall smelled like cigar smoke, old leather, and blood hidden beneath expensive perfume.I sat at the end of the long black table with Liam asleep in my arms earlier still haunting my thoughts, his tiny fingers wrapped around mine before I handed him to one of the women assigned to watch him downstairs. Even now, sitting among wolves dressed in suits worth more than most people’s houses, I could still feel the warmth of him lingering against my chest.And maybe that was the problem.Because the moment a man had something to lose, the world immediately sharpened its knives.The high council chamber was quiet except for the ticking of the antique clock mounted against the stone wall. Twelve men sat around the table. Mafia lords.Clan elders.Men whose hands had buried generations.I leaned back slightly in my chair, my expression unreadable even though I already knew where this conversation was going.Elder Romano folded his wrinkled hands on the table.“The issu
EMILYI could still hear the fire long after I stopped running.It stayed in my ears like a living thing, crackling wood, collapsing walls, the sharp chaos of people shouting over sirens. My knees hit the ground the moment I saw Ella, and for a few seconds I couldn’t even form words.“Miriam,” I gasped again, shaking her shoulders harder than I meant to. “Ella, where is she? Tell me she’s—”Ella’s lips trembled. Her face was ash-streaked, her lashes wet, but no sound came out. Only broken breaths. Like her voice had been taken from her.“No… no, don’t do this,” I whispered, my grip tightening. “Ella, please—”Then I saw movement behind her.Firefighters.Two of them emerging from the smoke-filled entrance carrying something between them.A body.My heart stopped so violently I thought I might collapse.“No,” I said instantly, stepping forward before anyone could stop me. “No, no, no—”But then the face turned slightly under the soot and blanket.Miriam.Her eyes were closed, her face
EMILY The house was too quiet.I sat on the edge of the couch staring at the small bracelet in my hand while my mind replayed everything over and over again until it felt like I was slowly losing myself.Liam’s hospital ID band.The anonymous message.The warning.The empty crib upstairs.Every single thing around me felt wrong without my son’s cries filling the house.I barely slept anymore.Every time I closed my eyes, I kept imagining him somewhere cold and crying for me while I couldn’t reach him.My chest tightened painfully.I looked down at the bracelet again and rubbed my thumb against the tiny barcode attached to it.Someone was playing games with me.Someone wanted me terrified.The sound of the doorbell suddenly echoed through the house.I froze.Ella was supposed to come later.Slowly, I stood up from the couch and walked toward the door. My heart beat unevenly as I unlocked it.Nobody was there.Only a small brown package resting on the floor.Fear immediately crawled do
EMILY The drive to West pack felt longer than usual.Every road stretched endlessly before me, every traffic light felt like an insult, and every second that passed without Liam clawed deeper into my chest until breathing itself started to hurt. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel as I forced myself to focus on the road instead of the thousand horrifying thoughts trying to break me apart from the inside.My son was out there somewhere, and I had absolutely no idea if he was crying for me.The thought nearly destroyed me.The media had been relentless since the news broke. Reporters sat outside my house like vultures waiting for a corpse to stop twitching. Every headline painted me differently. Some called me unstable. Others called me negligent. One article outright implied that I had suffered a mental collapse after childbirth and misplaced my own child.I let them destroy me publicly because silence was the only thing protecting Liam right now.If I stood in front of cam
EMILYDinner that evening was painfully awkward.Gabby sat between Julian and me, happily chattering and unaware of the tension thickening the air around him, but I could feel it with every breath I took. A current of awareness pulsed between Julian and me, sharp and undeniable, making even the sma
EMILY South Valley.The name alone had sounded ominous when Julian first spoke it. Now that we were here, I understood why.It was dry and suffocatingly hot deep in the bowels of the constricted valley. For two relentless days we had crossed an arid desert mountain range, following narrow, treache
ALESSANDRO I refused to take a room behind that filthy saloon.The others might have preferred a roof over their heads, but I couldn’t breathe in that town. The air itself felt wrong. So we made camp just outside it instead, close enough to watch, far enough not to be swallowed by it.But the nigh
ALESSANDRO The ground shook beneath the pounding of hundreds of hooves, the thunder of them rolling across the hot desert toward the south . Dust rose in thick clouds, stinging my eyes and coating my tongue. Almost as one, the cavalcade curved and slowed, then came to a rolling halt.“The Rio.”I







