New York’s most feared crime boss slipped a gold ring onto my swollen finger and told my unconscious body, “Anybody who comes for you comes through me.”

"Let him live."

My voice was quiet, but in that breathless, lethal silence, it carried to every corner of the room.

Dominic didn't blink. The blade remained pressed against Costa’s throat, just deep enough that a single bead of crimson welled along the steel. "Give me a reason, Tessa."

"Because a dog dying on a table doesn't give me answers," I said, rising to my feet. Every muscle in my torso screamed in protest, but I kept my back straight, my chin lifted, staring directly at Costa’s bleeding, ruined face. "And because I won't have his dirty blood staining my dress."

A low murmur passed among the arbiters. Don Moretti looked at me with something resembling profound respect.

Dominic held Costa down for two agonizing seconds longer, letting the man suffocate against his own blood, before violently shoving him back into his chair. Dominic wiped the blade on a cloth napkin, folded it, and slipped it back into his tailored pocket.

"The conclave is over," Dominic announced, looking at Moretti. "My marriage stands. My wife is a Rossi. If Victor Costa breathes in her direction again, I won't call a council. I will execute every man carrying his last name."

Without waiting for a response, Dominic turned, wrapped his arm firmly around my waist to support my trembling frame, and escorted me out of the Metropolitan Club.

The ride back to the Hudson estate was suffocating.

The rain poured in violent sheets against the bulletproof windows of the Maybach. Dominic sat beside me, his hands resting on his knees, his jaw tight. Neither of us said a word until the iron gates of the estate closed behind us and we stepped inside the grand foyer.

Isabella was waiting in the drawing room, holding a rosary, pacing before the roaring fireplace.

When she saw us enter, her face lit with relief. "Dominic! Thank God. We heard there was a disturbance—"

"Did you sign it?" I interrupted, stepping out of Dominic's hold.

Isabella froze. The rosary beads stopped clicking between her manicured fingers. She looked at me, then slowly shifted her gaze to her son.

"Tessa, you're exhausted," Isabella began, her voice dipping into that sweet, maternal tone that had comforted me for weeks. "Let the doctor look at your stitches—"

"Did you sign the order to execute my father?" I demanded, my voice cracking, echoing through the cavernous foyer. "Marcus Vance. Chicago. Ten years ago. Did you give the order?"

The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush bone.

Isabella didn't look away. The warmth drained from her aristocratic face, replaced by a cold, ancient sadness that revealed the steel beneath her velvet exterior.

"Yes," she said quietly.

The word hit me harder than any bullet ever had. I stumbled back, my hand instinctively pressing against my chest where my heart hammered wildly against my scar tissue.

"Why?" I sobbed. "He was an accountant! He was just trying to do the right thing!"

"He was going to the Department of Justice, Tessa!" Isabella’s voice rose, not with anger, but with a fierce, uncompromising ferocity. "Salvatore was dying. Dominic was only nineteen. If Marcus had handed those books to the federal prosecutor, the entire Rossi family would have spent the rest of their lives in federal penitentiaries. Dominic would have been indicted as an accessory before his twentieth birthday. They would have destroyed us."

She stepped toward me, her eyes shining with unshed tears, but her head remained high.

"I am a mother," Isabella whispered fiercely. "Before I was a Rossi, before I was a don’s wife, I was Dominic’s mother. I have spent my life doing monstrous things so that my son could survive this world. If I had to make that choice a thousand times, I would sign Marcus Vance’s death warrant a thousand times over to keep Dominic out of a cage."

"And you let me bleed for you!" I screamed, the tears finally cascading down my face. "I threw myself in front of seven bullets to save you! The woman who murdered my father!"

"And I would have traded my life for yours on that operating table!" Isabella cried, her composure finally breaking. "When Dominic told me who you were... when I realized whose daughter was lying in that pool of blood... I fell to my knees in that hospital chapel and begged God to take me instead! Why do you think I let him marry you? Why do you think I welcomed you as my daughter? Because everything we have—this empire, this wealth, our lives—is stained with your father's blood! We owe you everything, Tessa!"

"I don't want your empire!" I yelled, ripping the emerald necklace from my throat.

The clasp snapped, and precious stones scattered across the marble floor like frozen drops of poison.

"I wanted my dad!" I sobbed, collapsing onto the bottom step of the grand staircase, burying my face in my trembling hands. "I just wanted my dad... and you took him from me."

Isabella closed her eyes, turning away, unable to look at the devastation she had wrought.

Dominic didn't defend his mother. He didn't speak. He walked over to where I was crumpled on the stairs. He sank down to his knees on the hard marble, heedless of his expensive suit, heedless of his pride.

He reached for my hands, pulling them away from my face.

"Look at me, Tessa," he pleaded, his voice ragged, stripped of all power and pretense.

I looked at him through my tears. The New York kingpin. The man who had made the city tremble an hour ago. He was kneeling at my feet, his amber eyes shattered, holding my bruised, scarred hands as if they were the only sacred thing left in his world.

"I won't ask you to forgive her," Dominic whispered, his breath warm against my trembling fingers. "I won't ask you to forgive me. We are damned, Tessa. Both of us. But if you want to walk away... if you want to leave this house, I swear to you on my soul, I will put you and your mother on a private plane to anywhere in the world. I will fund your lives forever, and you will never see my face again."

He swallowed hard, a single tear slipping down his carved cheek.

"Just say the word. Tell me to let you go."

I stared at him, my chest heaving, the agony in my heart far surpassing the pain in my flesh.

I opened my mouth to say the word.

To say *let me go.*