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.