Quinn's POV

When we arrived at the estate, he helped the nauseous, morning-sick mistress up the grand staircase to the master suite and told the kitchen staff to prepare her favorites.

On his way back down, he saw me heading toward the guest wing, dragging my suitcase behind me across the marble floor.

He paused. Then he muttered to the chef without looking at me, "Make two more dishes. The ones Quinn likes. Set three places."

That actually caught my attention. Was that remorse? A flicker of guilt? A weak, pitiful attempt to play house while his mistress slept in the room we once shared?

I didn't know whether to laugh or spit. He couldn't remember the day we met, but sure — go ahead and have the chef whip up my favorite meal. Maybe he thought a plate of grilled rosemary lamb could undo what he did to me. Maybe in his mind, a properly set table at the Montecchio estate still meant family, still meant everything was fine. That the blood oath he'd broken could be mended with a linen napkin and a glass of Barolo.

I clenched my jaw, said nothing, and kept walking.

I stepped into the guest room, closing the door quietly behind me. The silence was heavy, suffocating, as if the walls themselves knew I didn't belong here anymore. The room smelled faintly of cedar and disuse. A crucifix hung above the headboard, its brass Christ figure staring down with hollow pity.

I set my bag down on the edge of the bed and knelt to unzip it. The second the zipper peeled open, I stopped cold.

All of my clothes had been shredded. Torn into ribbons with clean, deliberate cuts. Silk blouses reduced to rags. Cashmere sliced with surgical precision. Damn it. But tucked deep into the lining, right where I'd hidden them, my passport and documents remained untouched.

For a second, I just sat there, stunned. Who would do this?

I didn't have to think long. Of course it was Nina. Who else would be petty and cruel enough to tear my things apart like this? But I had no time to confront her. Not now.

Let her think she'd won. I had more important things to do, like getting out of here alive.

I was crouched by the bed, shoving the last few salvageable items into my bag when I heard the door creak open behind me.

Nina Valducci stood in the doorway, one hand hanging lazily at her side, holding a small black bottle. The kind without a label. Her eyes roamed the room like she was touring a crime scene, her nose practically wrinkling at the guest-wing decor, at the lesser furniture, at the idea that I'd been reduced to this. Then her gaze landed on me, and if looks could kill, I'd already be in a shallow grave somewhere outside the city.

"Wow, Quinn. You're really something." Her voice dripped with theatrical amusement. "After all the humiliation I've put you through in front of every Don and Donna in the region, you still cling to this family like a tick."

She tilted her head mockingly, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe as if this were her house. As if it had always been hers.

"Oh, right. Your grandmother passed last month, didn't she?" Her tone softened into something worse than cruelty. False sympathy. "Now that your only real family is gone, of course you're clinging to Zane like he's your last lifeline."

Then she giggled. A small, bright sound that belonged in a different world, a kinder one.

"Remember how you begged him to fly you out to see her one last time? You know why he didn't?"

She waved her phone, the screen catching the low light.

"Because he promised to take me to the coast that day. We watched the sunset together. This kiss photo? Taken right then."

Her words hit me slowly, like cracks spreading through glass. Each one a fracture, hairline at first, then splitting wider, deeper. The more they sank in, the more something inside me started to boil.

She'd known. She knew exactly what she was doing when she showed me that photo. When she talked about the helicopter. My grandmother. That day I'd begged Zane, on my knees in his study, the mahogany desk between us like a barricade, to let me see her one last time. My nonna. The woman who raised me after my parents were killed. The only person in this world who had loved me without conditions, without transactions, without blood oaths or family politics.

And he chose Nina.

He chose a sunset with his mistress over letting me say goodbye to the woman who gave me everything.

The weight of it all pressed down on me. My jaw clenched, fists tightening at my sides as the room spun with heat and rage. Every survival instinct I possessed stirred, something feral and long-buried growling low inside my chest, just as my self-control snapped clean in two.

"You think this is funny?" I hissed, rising to my feet. My voice came out low and raw, barely human. "You think tearing down what little I have left makes you what? His Donna?"

Nina raised her brows, smiling like a snake sunning itself on a warm rock. Unthreatened. Untouchable. "I don't need to be Donna. I already have everything."

"You have nothing," I snapped, the words ripping out of me before I could stop them. "You're a parasite. A leech clinging to scraps."

Quinn's POV

She shrugged, smug. "Still more than you."

That was it.

I slapped the phone from her hand. It clattered against the marble floor, the screen cracking on impact.

Then I lunged, my hand flying to her throat before I could stop myself.

The bottle slipped from Nina's grip and hit the ground with a hollow clink. The sharp, unmistakable stench of gasoline exploded into the air, hitting my nose like a physical blow. It burned the back of my throat, filling the room in seconds, soaking into the hardwood and the hem of the curtains.

We struggled. Pushing, grabbing, stumbling over each other in the fume-thick air. Then she kicked something. Maybe it was the lighter she'd brought with her. Maybe it was her heel striking the metal edge of the fireplace grate. It didn't matter.

Flames erupted like they'd been waiting for a reason to consume us.

Smoke swallowed the room. My body, still weak from the blood they'd stolen, from the child they'd taken, couldn't keep up. I choked, coughing violently, my legs collapsing beneath me. The heat pressed against my skin like a living thing, and the air turned to poison with every breath.

The last thing I saw before darkness claimed me was fire crawling across the ceiling of the Montecchio estate like the hand of God reaching down to pass judgment.

"Quinn!"

"Boss! It's too dangerous! You can't go in! Let the men handle it!"

"Out of the way! Quinn's still in there!"

The sound of Zane's voice tore through the smoke. I tried to open my eyes. Had I imagined it? Did he really say my name? Did he still care?

"Zane, I'm here too. Please save me and our baby!"

Nina's voice. High and desperate and perfectly calibrated.

For a moment, I almost believed he was coming for me.

It was pathetic, really. That tiny flicker of hope that burned inside me just from hearing my name fall from his lips. Like I was still someone he'd fight for. Like the man who had once placed a ring on my finger and sworn a blood oath before God and the Family still existed somewhere beneath the monster he'd become.

But of course, reality slapped the fantasy right out of me. He hadn't come running in because he missed me. Not because he cared. He'd stormed in because he wanted to save face. Wanted to be the Don. The protector. The man whose house was always in order.

And when Nina cried out? He didn't even pause. Just scooped her up like she was something precious, something irreplaceable, while I lay there on the floor of his grandfather's estate, smoke choking the last bit of strength out of me, the taste of gasoline and ash coating my tongue.

Half an hour passed.

After making sure Nina Valducci was safe, tucked into the back of an armored car with a blanket around her shoulders and a doctor checking her vitals, he tore through every hallway of the estate to find me.

But I was gone.

I still wasn't sure how I'd made it out. The flames were everywhere, roaring in my ears and stealing every breath from my lungs. Smoke clawed at my throat, filling me with dizzying heat that made the walls swim and the floor tilt beneath me. My vision narrowed to a tunnel of orange and black.

But when instinct finally took over, it wasn't the quiet, obedient wife who saved herself. It was something older. Deeper. The part of me that had been buried under years of deference and silence and swallowed pride. The survival instinct I'd suppressed for so long it had become almost foreign to me.

It surged up like a fist closing around my spine.

I forced myself to my hands and knees, every muscle screaming. My bag. I needed my bag. The documents Rowan Mancini had slipped me, the medical files, the evidence of what they'd done. Without it, I had nothing. I was nothing. Just another discarded wife with a story no one would believe.

I crawled through the smoke, my fingers finding the leather strap by memory more than sight. I grabbed it, clutching it against my chest like a lifeline. Then I dragged myself toward the window.

The glass was already cracked from the heat. I drove my elbow into it, once, twice, and on the third strike it shattered outward. Shards scraped my arms as I hauled myself through the frame, landing hard on the grass outside. My legs buckled. My chest heaved. Blood ran in thin lines down my forearms where the glass had bitten deep.

But I was alive. Barely.

And I didn't look back.

One of the side corridors must have been untouched, or maybe the fire hadn't reached the east wing yet. I dragged myself along the exterior wall, staying in the shadows, lungs screaming, barely able to stand, until I reached the back service entrance. The one the kitchen staff used for deliveries. The one no soldier ever bothered to watch because it led to nothing but a loading dock and a chain-link fence.

I collapsed outside in the cold night air, coughing so hard I thought my ribs would snap. The sky above me was clear and black and indifferent, and the distant wail of sirens told me someone had finally called it in. Not the Family. They'd never involve outsiders. Probably a neighbor. Someone who saw the smoke and didn't know enough to look the other way.

No one saw me. No one followed.

And I didn't stop. Not even when my knees buckled on the uneven pavement. Not even when I had to use street signs and parked cars for support, leaving smears of blood on every surface I touched. I just kept going, one block, then another, then another, because if I stopped, if I let myself get caught again, if I let them drag me back into that house and that life and that slow, methodical destruction of everything I was, I knew I wouldn't survive it this time.

Not physically. Not in any way that mattered.

I found a payphone three blocks from the Montecchio estate. I called a car service. Paid cash. The driver didn't ask questions. In this city, at this hour, a woman with ash in her hair and blood on her sleeves was not the strangest fare he'd ever picked up.

Then I boarded a flight to the Northern Boroughs.

The moment before takeoff, as the cabin lights dimmed and the engines began their low, building roar, a message came in.

From Zane:

Don't have time for games, Quinn. I'm not playing hide-and-seek.

I stared at the screen. The blue glow of his words illuminated my face in the darkened cabin, and for one long, terrible second, I felt the old reflex. The urge to respond. To explain. To apologize for inconveniencing him with my survival.

Then I powered off the phone.

The plane lifted into the darkness, and the city that had been my prison for five years shrank to a scattering of lights below me. I pressed my forehead against the cold window and closed my eyes.

I was done being found.

Zane's POV

Tomorrow at 10 AM, Nina's got her prenatal exam. You'll come with her. Get your lungs checked while you're at it.

I typed the message and set the phone down on the nightstand, screen facing up, waiting for the familiar pulse of a reply. There was none. And honestly, I wasn't surprised. I didn't know it at the time, but Quinn had already pulled her SIM card and powered the phone down. Just like that, she was gone. Cut me off entirely, with all the finality of a slammed door that would never open again.

...

The next morning, Dr. Mancini's private clinic hummed with the low murmur of medical staff and the antiseptic bite of disinfectant beneath something softer, lavender oil diffusing from a corner table. Nina clung to my arm like she'd collapse without it.

"Zane, is the baby okay?"

I nodded, keeping my voice even. "Rowan said the baby's strong. No lasting damage from the fire."

She sagged with relief. "Thank God. You've been so quiet since we got here. I thought something happened."

Something had.

I couldn't get Quinn's face out of my head. The way she looked at me through the smoke, not desperate or pleading, just resigned, like she already knew I wouldn't come back for her. And the worst part? She was right. I didn't carry her out of that burning house. I carried Nina.

...

After lunch with Nina, I dropped her off at the estate and went straight to the main hall.

It was then that my underboss caught up to me.

"Don Montecchio, your grandfather has returned. He's called for a full sit-down with the senior capos."

I nodded and kept walking, but underneath the calm, something sharp twisted in my gut — tight, restless, and entirely wrong. Quinn was nowhere to be found. She hadn't gone to the clinic. She hadn't returned to the estate. None of the men stationed at the perimeter had seen her leave through the gates. Not a single camera had caught her passing. She'd vanished, and I had no idea how or when she slipped through the cracks.

Where the hell had she gone?

As I started to walk faster, I turned to my underboss again and said, "Get someone to pick up a few of the newest designer bags and some jewelry."

"For Donna Nina?"

I paused. The title sounded wrong in his mouth. It had always sounded wrong. "Send it to the Ferrante estate."

If Quinn was anywhere, it'd be there.

But if she wasn't?

I didn't want to finish that thought. Something primal had started pacing inside me, unsettled, like a caged animal sensing a change in the weather it couldn't name.

What if she was hurt? Still recovering somewhere alone?

What if she'd really left?

...

One week later, just past midnight, I came home bone-deep tired from a strategy session with the men running our border operations along the waterfront. I stepped into the main hall of the estate and saw a soft figure curled on the leather sofa in silk, like a memory that hadn't let go.

I chuckled. "Quinn, I told you… Once I finish work, I always come back. You don't have to—" I stopped.

It was Nina. Not Quinn.

Her face fell when she looked up. "Zane, she hasn't returned. Not once. I sent her so many apology messages. She won't reply. Maybe I should move out." She sniffled, on the edge of tears.

I let out a long breath and sat beside her, leaning in to kiss her forehead — not out of affection, but more out of routine. "Don't think too much about it. The baby needs a calm environment." I didn't want to say it, but I forced the words out anyway, because I knew she was waiting to hear them. "This is your home now. Yours and the baby's. Whether Quinn likes it or not."

The words tasted like ash before they even left my mouth. But Nina smiled, small and grateful, and pressed her face into my shoulder. I let her stay there. It was easier than pulling away. Easier than explaining why the rooms of this house felt emptier than they had any right to feel, when nothing of substance had actually been removed from them.

...

Later that night, I stood alone on the open terrace off the master bedroom, wearing nothing but a robe. The city sprawled below, glittering and indifferent. I lit a cigarette — something I hadn't done in years. But tonight, I couldn't stop. The craving wasn't for the smoke. The desire was to soothe the restlessness that was gnawing at me from within.

The first drag burned. The second tasted like nothing. By the third, I realized no amount of nicotine was going to fill the silence where her voice used to be.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled all the way down through my contacts until I found Quinn's name sitting quietly at the very bottom. I stared at it, thumb hovering over the call button, frozen with everything I wanted to say but didn't. How long I stood there, I couldn't tell. The cigarette burned down to the filter between my fingers, the ember kissing my skin before I noticed.

In the end, I didn't call.

I sent a message instead:

Quinn, tomorrow is Don Thorn's 80th birthday. Don't cause a scene. Don't start anything with Nina or the baby.

I waited. The wind came off the rooftops cold and sharp, pressing the robe flat against my chest, and for a second I couldn't tell if the tightness I felt was from the chill or from something else entirely. Something I refused to name.

No. It couldn't be panic.

The screen stayed dark. No reply. No read receipt. Nothing but my own reflection staring back at me from the black glass, looking like a man who had already lost something he hadn't yet admitted he wanted to keep.