I'm the orphan girl adopted by the Moretti family, which was the biggest mafia family on the East Coast.

The current Don Grayson Moretti was my best friend growing up.

At a family banquet, somebody slipped him an aphrodisiac and I slept with him.

Good news: the experience was incredible. He was absolutely massive and we went at it eight times in a single night.

Bad news: I'm pregnant.

He's just put out a massive bounty, ordering every man he has to hunt down the woman who vanished from his bed a month ago.

The Moretti family has eyes on every street in New York. Not even a rat can dig a hole without him knowing.

I forced my face into something calm and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Gray, that girl from that night — did you find her? What are you going to do?"

Grayson let out a cold laugh.

"Break every bone she's got. Burn her to ash. Scatter what's left."

At a family banquet, I slept with Grayson Moretti, the Don of the most powerful mafia family on the East Coast. The next morning, he put out a citywide bounty hunting the woman who'd disappeared from his bed.

I forced myself to look calm and clapped him on the shoulder.

"What if she's carrying your kid?"

I watched his closed eyes.

Grayson lifted his lids.

His irises were the deepest ice blue, the fireplace flames dancing in them.

"Bastard or not, she's done." He tipped the pills into his mouth and washed them down with whiskey. "I want this woman erased from New York."

The glass hit the oak table with a dull thud.

"Cheap perfume. Trash. Not worth my time."

He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his mouth.

"Sloppy work. Has to be one of Fontaine's pawns. They actually think climbing into my bed gets them the South Side docks?"

My fingers curled against my belly, nails digging into my palm. "Maybe she wasn't after the docks."

Grayson sneered.

"If it's not the docks, it's money. Anyone who tries to play me pays for it."

He stared at the surveillance still, disgust in his eyes.

"Anyone stupid enough to pull this shit under my nose ends up in the East River."

My stomach turned over.

Acid rose in my throat, and I clamped my mouth shut and swallowed it back down. My esophagus burned.

"What's wrong?"

"My stomach's off."

I turned my head away.

Grayson stood up, took the suit jacket off the back of his chair, and draped it over my shoulders.

His shirt had torn open at two of the buttons from his earlier irritation, revealing the hard planes of his chest and the tight stretch of fabric over his cut abs.

I couldn't help swallowing hard, throat suddenly dry, as my eyes dropped lower—to the heavy bulge straining against his pants.

How could something be that big?

I couldn't help but think back to that night. Grayson lost all control, pinning me flat to the mattress with those powerful arms, his massive cock ramming into my soaked pussy again and again.

He fucked me like a man possessed, thick shaft stretching me obscenely wide, pounding deep and relentless until I was sobbing and coming around him over and over.

Even completely feral, he felt fucking incredible.

I bit down hard and shook the image out of my head.

Survival first.

The nausea passed.

I clutched the edge of his suit jacket.

His gaze traveled down my face and stopped at my feet.

The back of my right heel had been rubbed raw by my shoe, and blood was seeping into the leather.

Grayson pulled out his phone and called Ryan, his right-hand.

"Bring a pair of size five flats to the parlor. Soft soles. Three minutes."

A warmth bloomed in my chest. Was he worried about me?

He hung up and dialed another number.

"Mia, come pick her up. Take her to the family doctor for a stomach workup. Give her two weeks paid leave. I don't want to see her face for a while."

Mia's voice came through faintly, asking what was going on.

"She looks sick. It's annoying me."

Right. I needed to lock in what I already knew about this man: he was cold-blooded, and he didn't go soft for any woman. Ever.

Grayson hung up.

Ryan came in carrying a shoebox and set the flats by my feet.

"Grayson, the shoes are here. Tech says the Meridian footage needs three more days to restore."

"Keep at it. Turn the city upside down. Find her."

Ryan stepped out.

Grayson walked over and kicked my heels under the coffee table.

"You're this fragile? The Morettis don't feed you?"

He watched me change shoes and stand up.

"If they don't fit, don't wear them. No one's forcing you."

I looked at the side of his face, his jaw tight.

He was good to me.

For as long as I could remember, the number of women who got to stay close to him could be counted on one hand. I was the one he was most generous with — money, patience, all of it.

But if he ever found out that I was the trash he was talking about, the pawn who'd played him, I knew he'd drag me to the family's execution ground himself and put a bullet in my head.

I folded the suit jacket and laid it on the couch.

"I'm heading back."

Grayson turned, his eyes settling on my waist.

"Quinn."

"Why do you keep touching your stomach lately?"

The family's private clinic was quiet, with only the soft beeping of the machines.

"Six weeks. Your uterine wall is unusually thin, and it's congenital. If you terminate, there's a high chance you'll never carry again."

The doctor paused.

"This is probably your only chance to be a mother."

Twelve years ago, when I was eight, Grayson brought me home from the orphanage to the Moretti estate.

That day, he leaned down and told me: this is your home now. Nobody hurts you anymore.

I pressed my palm flat against my belly.

I pushed open the door to the main hall.

Camille Fontaine was inside, on her toes, fixing Grayson's tie. A cloud of expensive perfume hit me at the door.

The Fontaines and the Morettis had been locked in a cold war in New York for twenty years.

This marriage was a truce hammered out by the two old men at the top, and Grayson was just a piece on the board.

"Grayson, the board's pushing. We're setting the wedding for the sixteenth, right?"

Grayson didn't answer. His eyes went past her shoulder.

"You're back."

He pushed Camille's hand away.

"Oh, Quinn's back," Camille said, turning. She hooked her arm through Grayson's and pressed against him. "Grayson and I are almost engaged. As one of his people, I'll allow you to ask me for a gift."

I looked at their joined arms.

"I'm fine. I don't need anything."

Grayson sat down on the couch and picked up a folder.

Camille turned, her eyes landing on me.

"Quinn, that South Side docks file. I read your draft." Her tone was light. "Detailed, sure, but the Fontaine network down there has blind spots you'd never find. I worked that area for twenty years. Let me run the negotiation. I'll save you three months of groundwork."

She turned to Grayson, smiling, waiting for him to weigh in.

I stopped, half-bent over my shoes.

"That draft took me two weeks. Every block on those docks, every local boss, I mapped them all myself." I looked at Camille. There was contempt in her eyes, smug and cool.

Grayson didn't look up. "Since you're so eager to help, Quinn still runs the South Side. You assist. She gathered the intel, so she calls the shots at the table. You fill in the Fontaine blind spots."

Camille's smile froze for a second. "What?"

Grayson had already picked up his folder again. Not a word wasted. "Do I need to repeat myself?"

My mouth was twitching upward like crazy. I looked at Camille. Her face went gray, but she didn't dare say another word.

I lifted my chin and sauntered out, feeling great. On the way I threw her one last look, the kind that said she'd grab at everything without any idea what she could actually hold.

Back in my room, I contacted a black market broker and ordered a full new set of ID.

The door swung open.

Camille marched in. "Don't think you've won. You're nothing but a tool he keeps around. I'm the one who's going to be the next Donna Moretti." Her eyes dropped to the desk and lingered.

She picked up the appointment slip and read it carefully.

"Abortion appointment."

She didn't say it loudly, but the door was wide open.

The footsteps in the hallway stopped.

I lunged for it. "Give it back."

Camille didn't move. She just tilted her head toward the door.

"Gray, come look at this."

Grayson walked in fast.

He snatched the slip from her and scanned it. His face dropped.

"Who's the man."

His voice was low, like he was barely holding it together.

I didn't say anything, but I knew I was done.

"Quinn. Talk. I'll go handle him right now."

Camille sighed beside us, pitying.

"Gray, honestly, I could tell something was off with Quinn lately. I just didn't think —" She paused. "Forget it. Feelings are messy."

Grayson glanced sideways at her.

"Get out."

Camille smiled. "Sure. I'll leave you two to it."

Grayson turned back and gripped my chin, his fingers digging into my jaw, forcing my head up.

"The Morettis have raised you for twelve years. You see me every day, a man like me, and you let some piece of shit out there talk you into bed? I'm going to gut him right now."

His teeth were clenched. A vein stood out from his neck to his temple.

"You'd debase yourself like this for some bastard's kid? Run to a back-alley clinic?"

Pain shot through my jaw.

I bit the inside of my lip and stared at him without making a sound.

I didn't dare tell him that this "bastard's kid" was his blood. Mafia families lived and died by loyalty. He was this furious because he thought I'd been with some other man. If he ever found out I was the woman who'd played him, he'd treat me as a disgrace, and I'd end up in pieces.

"Talk!"

He squeezed harder.

"Let go."

He shoved my face away. I stumbled two steps back, hitting the edge of the desk with the small of my back.

He looked at how pale my face had gone and yanked his tie loose, agitated.

"Who is he?"

He took another step, blocking the light from the window.

"You'd throw your life away for him?"

"There's no one."

I gripped the edge of the desk and steadied myself.

Grayson let out a cold laugh. He tore the appointment slip into pieces and threw them in my face.

"Fine. Great."

He turned for the door.

At the threshold, he stopped.

"Tell security. Lock down every exit on the Moretti estate. Anyone who lets Quinn out, break their legs and feed them to the river."

I was done.

Shaking, I got hold of Mia. I had to run, and I had to run fast.

She didn't ask, just said, "I'll set it up."

My phone screen lit up on the desk.

An anonymous text.

I opened it.

The image was blurry, but I could still make out myself: drugged, staggering out of the Meridian suite, my back to the camera.

Camille had pulled that night's surveillance from the Fontaine archives, restored it, and was using it to blackmail me.

Quinn, don't even think about taking Grayson from me.

The second he saw a clean version, it was over.

He'd be sick to look at me, and he'd throw me in the East River himself.

Outside, the rain was coming down in sheets.

Eleven-thirty at night. I heard Mia arguing with the guard outside my door.

She smashed a vase to pull the hallway security off.

I shoved the window open, and the rain instantly soaked me through.

I slid down the drainpipe on the second floor. My palm tore open on the metal, blood smearing along it.

The second my feet hit the ground, there was a crash from above. My door had been kicked in.

"Quinn!"

His roar tore through the rain.

I didn't look back. I just ran.

Rain stabbed into my eyes, and I couldn't keep them open.

Behind me, he was screaming my name like a man losing his mind.

I cleared the gate and threw myself into a taxi parked at the curb.

"Drive."

The car cut through the rain.

I leaned back against the seat, shaking from the cold and the fear.

The clinic was tucked deep in an alley in one of the city's roughest neighborhoods, with moss climbing the walls and the air thick with disinfectant and damp rot.

This doctor owed the Morettis his life. He usually patched up the wounds that couldn't see daylight. Tonight, he was going to help me.

The surgical lamp clicked on.

I lay down on the table.

"Wait."

I raised a hand to stop him.

"Take this out first."

I pointed at the inside of my left wrist, where a small scar marked the chip the Morettis had implanted when I was eight, the day Grayson brought me home.

A family tracker.

Every Moretti carried one. Even me, the orphan girl they'd taken in.

Local anesthetic went into my skin. My wrist went numb, and then came a brief sharp pain.

The doctor set the chip on the tray. It was smaller than a grain of rice, and the metal hit the porcelain with a soft chime.

Nobody could find me anymore.

---

At the same moment, the Meridian Hotel, top floor.

The tech screen lit up.

"Grayson. We've got the Meridian footage."

Ryan's voice came through the phone, trembling slightly.

"Whole hallway, that night."

Grayson set his glass down.

The image was gray and grainy.

A figure staggered out of the suite, turned, and ran down the hallway.

Half a profile was all he got, but it was enough.

He knew her.

From the day she'd walked into the Moretti house at eight years old, he'd known her face from every angle.

"Grayson?"

Ryan called from the other end.

He didn't answer.

Another notification buzzed through. It was the family tracking system, and Quinn's chip signal had just gone dark somewhere in the south of the city.

His phone hit the desk.

"Get the car."

(付费点)