جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 60

Adrian's POV I met them in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts at 3 a.m., the kind of place where bodies probably got dumped on a regular basis. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking as I walked in. Not from the cold. From the fact that I was really doing this. Selling what was left of my soul to the same people who’d put a bullet in my ex-wife. Rossi was already there, leaning against a rusty metal table with two other guys I didn’t recognize. They all looked at me like I was trash they’d found on their shoe. I probably looked it too — wrinkled clothes, week-old beard, eyes bloodshot from too much whiskey and not enough sleep. “You’re late,” Rossi said. “Traffic,” I muttered, even though we both knew it was a lie. I just didn’t want to seem too eager. Too broken. One of the other men, older, with a thick scar across his cheek, stepped forward. I recognized him from pictures. Don Savio Greco himself. Smaller than I expected, but the way he carried himself made the whole room feel sma

Elise's POV We never should have gone to that meeting. The warehouse on the river was supposed to be neutral ground. A quick sit-down with one of Greco’s mid-level guys who claimed he wanted to talk terms. I knew it smelled like a trap, but I went anyway. I was tired of waiting for them to hit us first. Nico didn’t want me there. He argued the whole drive over, voice low and tight. “This feels wrong. Let me go alone.” “I need to be seen,” I told him. “They need to know I’m not hiding behind my men anymore.” He didn’t argue after that. He just checked his gun twice and stayed glued to my side when we stepped out of the car. The warehouse was dark and damp, smelling like rust and old fish. Three Greco men were waiting. The conversation started civil enough — threats wrapped in polite words. Then everything went to hell. Gunfire exploded from the rafters before we even finished talking. “Ambush!” Nico shouted, shoving me behind a stack of crates so hard I hit the ground. Bullets

Adrian's POV The bank guy showed up at the motel with two security guards like I was going to cause a scene. I didn’t. I just stood there in the doorway in my dirty T-shirt while he handed me the papers and explained in that fake-sympathetic voice that the last car had been repossessed and the motel manager wanted me out by noon. I didn’t argue. What was the point? I packed the little I still had into a black trash bag — some clothes, my cracked phone charger, the last bottle of whiskey. The manager watched me from the office window like I might steal the shitty towels. I wanted to laugh but it came out more like a cough. By the time I walked out to the parking lot, my black Mercedes was already gone. Just an empty space where it used to sit. I stood there staring at the oil stain on the concrete for a long time. That car was the last nice thing I owned. Now it was gone too. I started walking. The streets felt longer when you didn’t have a destination. My feet hurt. My head hurt

Elise's POV I couldn’t sit still. The second I left my father’s room, the truth he’d dropped on me started burning hotter and hotter in my chest until I felt like I was going to explode. I stormed down the hallway, past the nurses and the guards, not caring who saw the tears still drying on my face or the way my hands were shaking. My mother had tried to sell us out. She had planned to take me and run. To leave my father behind. To trade our family’s secrets for a new life. And the Grecos had killed her for it. I ended up in the study, the one place that still smelled like him — old paper, cedar, and that specific cigarette brand. I slammed the door behind me so hard the portrait of my mother on the wall rattled. I stared at her face. The soft smile. The kind eyes I barely remembered. The woman I had spent my whole life missing. “You bitch,” I whispered at first. Then louder. “You fucking bitch!” I grabbed the nearest thing — a heavy crystal paperweight — and hurled it at the po

Elise's POV I was in the middle of changing my father’s oxygen tube when Marco knocked on the door. One look at his face and I knew it wasn’t good news. I finished what I was doing, kissed my father’s forehead even though he was barely awake, and stepped out into the hallway. “Another one?” I asked, already tired. Marco nodded. He looked like he hadn’t slept either. “Closer this time. It’s Paolo. One of the guys who’s been on your father’s personal security detail for the last four years.” I felt the anger hit me low in the stomach. Paolo. The quiet one who always stood by the door during meetings. The one who brought my father coffee without being asked. The one I’d started to trust. “Tell me,” I said. Marco rubbed his jaw. “We caught him trying to pass the new safe room codes. The ones we set up for your father. He was sending them to a burner phone. We traced it. Greco’s side.” I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes for a second. My head was pounding. “How long?” “Mont