“GET THAT OLD WOMAN BACK UPSTAIRS! AND IF YOU CAN'T FOLLOW SIMPLE ORDERS

By midnight, the storm had passed, leaving behind a cold, crystalline stillness over the city.

The battle at the Moretti estate had been a trap. Luca had known about the Bellini-Petrov alliance forty-eight hours before it happened. He had allowed the mercenaries to breach the outer perimeter precisely so he could catch Anthony Bellini in the act of high treason against the Commission.

While Luca had raced back to personally secure the house—and me—Matteo had led eighty Moretti soldiers into the Bellini compound downtown.

By two in the morning, the news broke across underground channels like wildfire:

Anthony Bellini was dead, killed in a firefight at his private docks while trying to flee to Canada. The Petrov syndicate’s assets in Chicago had been systematically seized, their enforcers either captured or fleeing back to Detroit.

And Vanessa Bellini was in federal custody.

Luca hadn't killed her. That would have been too merciful.

Instead, he had delivered an encrypted drive to the FBI containing ten years of Vanessa’s personal financial ledgers, video surveillance of her poisoning Teresa, and audio recordings of her negotiating Sophie’s kidnapping with the Marcones. She was looking at forty years in a maximum-security federal penitentiary for attempted murder, child trafficking, and racketeering.

Her high-society life, her vanity, her money—all of it was reduced to ash.

Back at the Moretti mansion, the morning sun rose over a clean, secure estate. Repair crews were already replacing the broken windows, and the blood had been scrubbed from the stone floors.

In the gardens, Sophie was running across the dew-kissed grass, laughing as she chased a golden retriever puppy Luca had bought her that morning to replace the trauma of the past week.

Teresa sat on a teak bench in the sunlight, holding a real porcelain teacup in both hands, taking slow, steady sips of pure, sweet tea. She didn't need a nurse today. She didn't need a wheelchair. Her recovery was nothing short of miraculous.

I stood on the stone veranda, watching them from afar.

In my hands, I held a small, battered duffel bag containing my old clothes, my worn sneakers, and my mother’s favorite prayer book.

My work here was finished.

Sophie was safe, happy, and healed. Teresa had her voice back and her son by her side. My mother’s medical care had been secured for life through the private trust Luca had established.

I was just Hannah Collins. A girl from the south side of Chicago whose mother cleaned offices and whose father died of lung disease. I didn't belong in a palace made of marble and blood. Luca was a king; I was a girl who had swept his floors.

The kiss in the library had been born of adrenaline and terror. I couldn't allow myself to believe it was anything more, no matter how much my heart screamed against my ribs.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, cast one last loving look at Sophie playing on the lawn, and turned toward the service gate to leave.

"Leaving without saying goodbye, Miss Collins?"

A deep, commanding voice stopped me dead in my tracks.

I turned around.

Luca stood at the edge of the terrace, framed by the morning sun. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, looking breathtakingly handsome and unmistakably powerful.

His eyes locked onto the duffel bag in my hand. His jaw hardened.