"The morning I collapsed beside Adrian Moretti’s grave at Saint Gabriel Cemetery, I pressed my hand against his name and finally whispered that I had loved him. My wedding dress dragged through the dirt as I begged a dead man to forgive me. Then I heard a shoe scrape against the stone behind the mausoleum. I turned, but whoever had been watching me disappeared before I could see his face. Hours later, I discovered something inside the flowers on Adrian’s grave that could only have come from him. And there would be no coming back from it.

The holding facility beneath the federal courthouse in downtown Cleveland was a tomb of concrete, fluorescent hums, and absolute isolation.

Elena sat on a bolted metal chair at the center of a windowless interrogation room. The oversized black sweater she wore felt suffocating beneath the harsh overhead lights. The heavy steel door clicked open, and Daniel walked in, carrying a single manila folder which he dropped onto the cold metal table with a heavy thud.

He pulled out the opposite chair and sat down, resting his elbows on the table, studying her the way a prosecutor studies a hostile witness on the stand.

“You threw away two years of stability, Elena,” Daniel said quietly. “A respectable wedding, a home, a future free of sirens and blood, all for a man who lied to your face for a year and let you mourn an empty grave.”

“He didn't lie to hurt me, Daniel,” Elena said, her voice steady despite the fatigue weighing down her bones. “He did it to keep me alive. Something you apparently have no concept of, given that you’re currently in business with Luca Moretti.”

Daniel’s face darkened. “Luca offered a path to dismantle the entire syndicate from the inside. With Adrian locked away and Luca neutralized once the federal case is sealed, the corruption in this city ends permanently. I’m doing my job.”

“No,” Elena whispered, leaning forward into the light. “You’re feeding a monster because your ego couldn't handle the fact that I walked out on you at the altar. You didn't come for justice, Daniel. You came for revenge.”

Daniel stood up abruptly, the metal legs of his chair scraping harshly against the concrete floor. “You are legally my fiancée until that marriage certificate is dissolved, Elena! You think you can just run off into the woods with a dead criminal? Tomorrow morning, the federal magistrate signs Moretti’s transfer order to a maximum-security black site. And you will be cited as a material witness to harboring a fugitive.”

He turned toward the door, pausing with his hand on the heavy steel handle.