When the men from Chicago's Callahan family captured me, I sent ninety-nine messages to my fiancé, Killian, begging for help.

He deleted them all.

"After Stanra orchestrated that car crash to hurt Briar, I sent her back to Long Island—but I had my most elite team of bodyguards escorting her. The Callahans couldn't possibly touch her," he scoffed. "I just gave Briar the design rights to that one office, that's all. Now Stanra's overreacting again, trying to get my attention back. It's pathetic."

He paced, his movements sharp with irritation.

"Briar's brother died protecting me. He was my most trusted Capo. I swore I would protect her in his place. Tell Stanra—no matter what tantrum she throws, I will not abandon Briar. If she keeps making a scene over nothing, I'll call off the engagement."

Three days later, he drove to the Caruso estate, engagement ring in hand, ready to make peace with me.

At that very moment, an envoy from the Callahan family delivered a refrigerated box.

Killian glanced at it and breathed a sigh of relief. "Looks like she's given in. All that drama was just Stanra kicking up a fuss over nothing."

The lid was lifted.

Inside was—

My head.

The funeral bells atop the estate's chapel began to toll.

Slow. Heavy. Final.

The chapel doors opened. The priest emerged, dressed in black funeral vestments, his face grim.

"Miss Stanra Caruso, daughter of the Caruso family, has been returned to us. The funeral will begin immediately."

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1

"Don Vitali, an urgent message from Miss Caruso. She says she was taken by the Callahan family three days ago on her way back to Long Island. They're demanding a ransom."

Killian's personal assistant, Nico, stood with a pale face, his hand trembling as he clutched the phone. "Sir, this is the ninety-ninth message she's sent. Are you certain you wish to ignore it?"

Killian Vitali sneered as he deleted the messages from his phone. "Another play for attention. Ignore it. The Caruso estate is on Long Island—that's true—but a few Chicago scumbags aren't about to start a war on New York turf. Captured? Does she take me for a fool?"

Nico swallowed hard, venturing, "The messages are being sent from Chicago, sir. They seem legitimate."

"Enough."

Killian slammed down his whiskey glass, shattering it. Shards skittered across the floor. "She's consumed by jealousy. I show a little kindness to a loyal man's sister, and she tries to have her killed in a staged car crash."

"If she’d truly run into the Callahans, how could she have been captured? I sent my most elite bodyguards with her. It's impossible."

By then, a bullet from the Callahan leader's gun had already torn through my head.

But my soul had returned to Manhattan.

I floated above them, listening to Killian's dismissive certainty, and let out a faint, bitter laugh.

He seemed to have forgotten one thing.

He had once granted Briar Connolly authority that mirrored his own.

Before the entire Vitali family, he had declared: "Briar Connolly's word is my word. Anyone who defies her will answer for it."

Armed with that authority, she used a burner phone, mimicked his voice, and ordered all of my bodyguards to stand down. As I drove down the highway toward Long Island, I had only my driver with me.

Before dusk, the Callahan family's hitters ambushed us.

One of them, like a novice, muttered carelessly, "This is Vitali's future Donna? How come she doesn't have a single bodyguard? Was the intel we got wrong?"

My route had been leaked. That was the only explanation.

So, was it Briar?

That day, in a desperate attempt to cover my escape, my driver slammed our car into the guardrail, his body shielding me from the spray of bullets.

As we fled, he shoved me into a dense patch of woods, drawing the pursuers after him.

The bullets chased him.

They hit him, again and again, until his body was riddled with holes.

I watched him die, my heart shredding in my chest. And I could do nothing.

Soon after, the Callahan leader captured me himself.

“Well, well,” he said, raking his eyes over me, a cruel light in their depths. “An abandoned woman. How do you want to die? In a hail of lead, or on your knees on a cold warehouse floor?”

I swallowed my fear. "You can't do this to me. I'm Killian Vitali's fiancée. Kill me, and you're declaring war."

"Oh?" he sneered. "The Don's fiancée? You look more like a cast-off plaything. I'll give you one chance. Prove it. If you're really the future Donna, I might just let you live."

He allowed me a messenger to carry my words.

But the messages I sent for help went unanswered. No rescue came from Killian.

"Shameless liar," the Callahan leader spat. "You knew the price for deceiving me."

He ordered me to be strung up in the abandoned warehouse for three days and three nights.

Each day, I begged the messenger to take one more message.

Not a single one was answered.

On the morning of the fourth day, as the first rays of sunlight sliced through the warehouse's broken window and fell on my face, he gave the order. A single bullet tore through the back of my head.

They placed my head in a refrigerated box and handed it to the messenger.

"Deliver this to Killian Vitali personally. Tell him we've disposed of the liar who tried to deceive us."

My body was thrown into an industrial waste yard in New Jersey.

My family's veteran driver, who had been searching for me relentlessly, finally found my body there and brought it back to the Caruso estate.

After Killian deleted my ninety-ninth message for help, no more messages came.

His birthday dinner was approaching. Every year, I personally selected a gift for him.

This year, his gift for me was ready.

Mine would never be delivered.

He grew restless.

He thought I'd sent men to hit Briar's car over the design of an office. In a fit of rage, he had sent me back to Long Island.

He felt no guilt. In fact, he even considered himself merciful for it—sending his most elite team of bodyguards to escort me home.

Now his men were telling him it was Briar who had dismissed that team in his name.

He must have been thinking: Absurd. Briar might be bold with my favor, but she's fragile by nature. How could she do something like this?

In his eyes, I was petty and jealous. The kind of woman who would fake ninety-nine messages just to get his attention.

Killian threw the gift he had prepared for me onto the table, his face dark. "Stanra, Stanra... When will you ever grow up?"

My soul hovered above him. My body was long gone, but the pain remained.

Briar resented me. She liked to take what was mine. Killian would only say she was young—that I should humor her.

So I did.

Again and again.

I never thought she would dare to go after the office I designed for him.

I refused, and she staged a car crash, framing me for it.

Killian pulled her from the twisted wreck. When he looked at me, the disappointment in his eyes was palpable.

"It was wrong of Briar to covet your design. But how could you be so petty? To send men to crash her car over something so small? If you had just given it to her, none of this would have happened. How can you be the Donna of the Vitali family if you aren't more generous?"

So, the girl who stole from me—who used his authority whenever she pleased—she was the one worthy of being the Vitali Donna?

That day, he ordered me to apologize to Briar.

I refused.

Even when he pressed me with his authority as the Don, I did not bow my head.

He sneered. "The biggest mistake I ever made was falling in love with someone as petty as you."

His words were a blade through my chest.

When he banished me to my own estate, I didn't argue. I packed nothing. I walked out of the penthouse in silence, his bodyguards flanking me.

My heart was already broken.

The night of his birthday dinner arrived.

Killian still hadn't received my gift.

He picked up his phone and dialed my number. "Tell Stanra to come back. Enough with the drama. Her birthday is in three days; we'll hold the engagement ceremony then."

He placed the call. My estate wasn't far from Manhattan, not like Chicago; the line should have connected instantly. But all he got was a busy signal.

My soul floated above them, cold and numb.

I saw his phone ring just once before it was taken by one of Briar's accomplices.

They spoke in low voices for a moment.

Then the man handed the phone back to Killian.

"She rejected your call. She said... she'll never forgive you unless you go to the Long Island estate to get her yourself."

If the call had gone through, he would have heard my mother's heart-wrenching sobs as she prepared for my funeral.

My family's veteran driver had already brought my body home.

All of it except for my head.

Killian knew nothing of this.

The lie stoked his anger.

"If she won't come back, then let her stay on Long Island."

The next morning, Briar burst into Killian's study, her arm in a sling.

"Kian," she sobbed, "I failed… I angered Stanra. She sent men to shoot at me. But don't blame her, it's all my fault."

Rage flared in Killian's eyes. He pulled her into his arms.

"Get the family doctor! Now! If anything happens to Briar, I'll have all your heads!"

Then, his face turned to ice.

"Bring Stanra to me. Now. If she won't come and beg Briar for forgiveness, I'll desecrate Marco's mausoleum."

Marco. My father. The late Consigliere of the Caruso family.

I watched him, hollow.

Even as a ghost, I could feel it—the tremor in my chest.

But I was already dead.

How was I supposed to beg for forgiveness?

This time, the men he sent did not delay. They raced to Long Island.

They brought back my mother.

Isabella Caruso knelt, trembling, before Killian.

"Don Vitali, Stanra is dead. I'm begging you—leave our family in peace."

"What?"

Before he could rise, Briar collapsed into his arms. "Kian, Stanra would rather fake her own death than admit she hurt me. It was foolish of me to hope she might even apologize."

"If she hates me this much, I'll leave New York. That must be what she wants."

She slid from his arms and knelt on the floor. Her face was pale, and a smear of blood stained the corner of her mouth. She gave him one look—long and wounded—then turned as if to leave.

Killian caught her.

His gaze shifted to my mother, turning as cold as a winter grave.

"So Stanra still refuses to see me?"

My mother trembled on the floor. "She's gone. She's really gone."

He studied her, his patience finally snapping.