How she had believed — in desperation — that marrying him would protect her.
How instead it had turned into confinement.
Violence.
Control disguised as security.
Ruslan’s men had claimed they rescued her.
That they extracted her from danger.
But the relief was temporary.
Because that monster had tracked her again.
He had found her.
And dragged her back to Italy like property being reclaimed.
Italy’s underworld wasn’t simple.
It wasn’t one family.
It wasn’t one boss.
It was a web.
Families like the Gambino.
The Lucchese.
And others hidden deeper in the shadows — organizations that operated through loyalty, fear, and generational power.
Which one had taken her?
What if they had silenced her permanently?
The possibility haunted me.
A man capable of carving brutality into her skin without remorse would not hesitate to eliminate witnesses.
My stomach twisted every time I pictured her.
The woman who had once been unstoppable.
She had joined the CIA at nineteen.
Brilliant.
Driven.
Relentless.
She had been deployed to Greece with a team of twenty-one elite agents.
Their objective had been clear:
Capture Al-Chapo
