All Chapters of HER ITALIAN BODYGUARD : Chapter 51 - Chapter 55

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONESHAKENDANTE’S POVThe moment I step into Barbara Washington's private sitting room, I know something is wrong. She is already standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan, one hand wrapped around a crystal glass of untouched whiskey, the other gripping the edge of the marble windowsill so tightly her knuckles have turned white. The television mounted on the opposite wall plays a business channel on mute while headlines crawl endlessly across the bottom of the screen, but her attention isn't on any of it. She's waiting for me. Pacing. Thinking. Panicking.The instant the door clicks shut behind me, she turns sharply."What happened?" she demands.No greeting. No carefully crafted pleasantries.Just the question.I close the distance between us before lowering my voice. "I got the prison recording."Barbara's expression hardens."And?"I slide a small encrypted flash drive onto the coffee table between us."I hacked into the prison surveillance syste

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREEDANTE’S POVTHE TRUTHThe moment Gina's phone goes straight to voicemail for the third time, something inside me snaps. It isn't panic at first. Panic is messy. Loud. What I feel is something far more dangerous—a cold, methodical certainty that something has gone catastrophically wrong. Gina never ignores my calls after therapy. She never skips her morning run without telling someone. She is predictable in the small ways people never notice until those patterns disappear. Her smartwatch stopped transmitting fifteen minutes ago. The GPS tracker hidden beneath the chassis of her car shows it parked exactly where it should be. Rita tells me Gina left through the front gates just after dawn wearing black leggings, a gray hoodie and running shoes, saying she wanted fresh air before breakfast. Security cameras capture her leaving. They never capture her returning. By the time I reach the trail, every instinct I've spent years sharpening tells me exactly what I already k

EPILOGUEGINA’S POVThere is something beautifully ironic about how life refuses to end where you think it will. Exactly one year ago, I genuinely believed my story had already been written. I thought my future consisted of pretending to smile beside a husband who had broken me piece by piece until I no longer recognized the woman staring back from the mirror. I believed I would spend decades trapped inside a marriage held together by contracts, public appearances, and carefully rehearsed lies. Back then, happiness felt like something that happened to other people. I had convinced myself that surviving was the best I could hope for. Looking back now, I almost want to hug that version of myself. She had absolutely no idea that everything falling apart was simply making room for something infinitely better.The Washington empire no longer exists in the form the world once worshipped. The board removed Mark as Chief Executive Officer within weeks of the investigations becoming public. On