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.

Zane's POV

Don Thorn Montecchio's eightieth birthday was the kind of affair that demanded perfection — the right suits, the right smiles, the right words spoken at precisely the right moment. Every allied family in the Silverclaw District had been invited. Every capo, every associate, every wife and mistress who mattered enough to merit a seat at the long tables draped in cream linen and heavy silver candelabras. It was a night that required an iron grip on image.

I arrived at the ancestral estate with Nina on my arm. Her belly was beginning to show now, enough to draw attention beneath the fitted black dress she wore. Whispers drifted through the crowd as we crossed the marble foyer, glances sliding from her midsection to my face and back again. I heard them. I felt them. None of it mattered. I kept my expression blank, unmoved, the way my grandfather had taught me a Don should look when lesser men talked.

Only when the old man himself entered the grand hall did I release Nina's hand.

The room fell silent. Not gradually, the way conversations fade at a party, but all at once, as if someone had pressed a blade to the throat of every sound. Don Thorn Montecchio walked with his silver lion-head cane, his steps measured and deliberate, his posture unyielding despite eighty years of gravity and violence. Two of his personal guards flanked him at a respectful distance. He wasn't just the retired Don. He was the living foundation of the Montecchio name, the man who had built the Silverclaw District from blood and limestone when this city was still tearing itself apart. And I knew, with a certainty that sat like a stone in my chest, that he had always loved Quinn like his own daughter.

"Where is Quinn?" Don Thorn asked me directly, his voice carrying the quiet authority of a man who had never needed to raise it.

I shifted my weight, adjusting the button of my jacket. "She's been busy preparing a gift for your birthday." I tried to sound more certain than I felt. "She'll arrive later."

He studied me. Those pale, ancient eyes moved across my face the way a jeweler examines a stone for fractures. He said nothing. He didn't need to. The silence itself was a judgment.

Two hours passed.

The hall hummed with the low murmur of conversation, the clink of crystal, the careful laughter of men who understood that joy in this world was always performed for an audience. Waiters in white jackets circulated with trays of prosecco and aged whiskey. A string quartet played Vivaldi from the far corner, their notes threading through cigar smoke and candlelight.

The gift-giving was about to begin, but still no sign of Quinn. I kept glancing at the tall double doors at the entrance, trying to appear as though I wasn't waiting, but something primal inside me was pacing, growling beneath the surface of my composure. Every instinct I possessed had sharpened to a single, restless point. The longer she stayed gone, the more I could feel the nerves crawling up my spine like cold fingers. I reached for my whiskey and found the glass already empty.

Where the hell was she?

Just as I was about to step out into the corridor and make a call, the doors opened.

It wasn't Quinn.

A courier walked in, a young man in a dark suit, carrying three neatly wrapped packages stacked in his arms. He paused just inside the threshold, scanning the room with the wide eyes of someone who had never been inside a place like this before. His gaze moved between me and the old Don at the head table, uncertain who to address. His fingers tightened slightly around the packages, as if they were heavier than they looked.

"Delivery for Don Thorn Montecchio," he announced, his voice respectful but strained. "They're from Donna Quinn."

My heart stopped at the mention of her name.

The conversations nearest to us died. A capo at the adjacent table set down his fork. One of my grandfather's guards shifted his position, hand drifting toward his hip out of pure reflex.

I cleared my throat. "Give them to me."

The courier hesitated. His eyes flickered to the old Don, then back to me. "I was told to deliver them directly to Don Thorn, sir. Her instructions were very clear."

Of course they were.

A low sound escaped my throat, something between frustration and reluctant respect. I stepped aside and gestured toward my grandfather. "Then do as she asked."

Don Thorn was in the middle of a quiet exchange with one of the senior capos when the courier approached the head table. The young man stopped at a respectful distance, inclined his head, and spoke with careful precision. "These are from Donna Quinn, sir. She wishes you a happy birthday."

The old Don blinked, and for a fraction of a second, something cracked in that granite composure. Surprise. Genuine surprise. "Why didn't she deliver them herself?" His voice dropped, and the question that followed carried the weight of a man who already suspected the answer. "Where is my granddaughter-in-law?"

The courier gave a small shake of his head. "I'm sorry, sir. I was only told to deliver these to you. Nothing more."

A shadow passed over Don Thorn's face. His jaw tightened. The hand resting on his cane shifted, knuckles whitening around the silver lion's head. He looked visibly dismayed, his eyes clouded with confusion and something deeper, something that looked like grief arriving ahead of its cause. Still, he accepted the gifts with quiet grace and placed them carefully on the table beside him. His weathered hand lingered on one box, his thumb tracing its edge, as if hoping the wrapping paper might speak for her.

I walked to my grandfather's side, close enough to see the slight tremor in his fingers. "Do you want me to open them for you?"

He shook his head. "No. I'll do it."

The first box yielded an intricate embroidery piece, a hand-stitched tapestry depicting the Montecchio family crest surrounded by symbols of longevity and ancestral blessing, rendered in silk thread so fine it caught the candlelight like spun gold. It had taken her months to complete. I knew, because I had seen her fingers bleed while stitching it, had watched her hunch over the frame late into the night without complaint, pricking herself again and again on the needle until the linen beneath was spotted with tiny constellations of her own blood.

Don Thorn's eyes glistened. He pressed his lips together and said nothing, but the muscles in his throat worked as he swallowed hard. He set the tapestry down with the reverence of a man handling a holy relic.

He opened the second gift with a slower hand this time, as if he too was beginning to sense where this was going. It was a velvet box, deep burgundy, the kind used for heirloom jewelry. He lifted the lid.

Inside lay the pieces that had been passed down from his late wife, the woman he had buried thirty years ago and never stopped mourning. The necklace. The earrings. The bracelet of old Florentine gold. The same set Quinn had worn on our wedding day, when she had walked down the aisle of the family chapel and become a Montecchio.

My throat tightened. My palms began to sweat, dampening the cuffs of my shirt. The room seemed to contract around me, the string quartet's notes turning thin and distant. Why would she send this back? The jewelry was hers. It had been given to her. Returning it meant only one thing, and the realization clawed at the inside of my ribs before my mind could fully form the thought.

Then came the third box.

I couldn't take it anymore. My hands moved on their own, driven by something raw and desperate that had nothing to do with reason. I reached forward and snatched the final package from the table. My grandfather shot me a sharp look, those pale eyes flashing with the cold authority that had once made capos twice my size lower their gaze. But he didn't stop me.

I tore open the third gift box, ripping through the wrapping with no ceremony, no care, my fingers clumsy with a dread I refused to name.

But when I saw clearly what lay inside, the blood drained from my face.

I froze in place, utterly still, as if the contents of that box had reached up and seized me by the throat.