My reflection stared back at me, eyes bright with fury and hunger and something that looked almost like hope. The storm building inside my chest wasn't fear. Wasn't shame.
It was possibility.
For twenty-three years, I'd been whatever everyone else needed me to be. Obedient daughter. Grateful adoptee. Mafia princess. Cartel bride.
But those versions of me were gone. Burned away in the heat of Dante's touch and the clarity of Miguel's death.
I didn't know who I was becoming. Didn't have a roadmap for this new territory.
But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
I was done belonging to anyone but myself.
And if Dante Taviani thought he could cage me—even in silk and luxury—he was about to learn exactly how dangerous a mafia princess could be when she finally stopped playing nice.
I smiled at my reflection. It wasn't a gentle smile. Wasn't the practiced, demure expression I'd perfected over years of training.
It was feral. Wild. Free.
The city lights glittered below like promises. Like possibilities.
And for the first time in my life, I felt powerful enough to reach out and take them.
CHAPTER 7
Dante
By morning, she'd transformed.
The monitors cast her in shades of silver and shadow, the security feeds painting her in grayscale as she moved through the penthouse's upper corridors. Last night, I'd watched her pace restlessly in her nightgown, staring out windows like a caged bird. Now she moved with purpose—showered, dressed in black silk, methodical in her exploration.
Each camera angle caught fragments of her—a glimpse of dark hair, the elegant line of her spine, the precise way she placed each foot as though testing the floor itself. The screens were arranged in a grid across the wall of my private office, each one a window into her world, and the cold glow of the displays reflected off the blue of my eyes as I watched.
The image quality was crystalline, military-grade cameras I'd installed specifically to track every movement within these walls, and yet she appeared almost ethereal on the screens, like a ghost haunting rooms that were supposed to confine her. The shadows between the monitored spaces fascinated me more than the lit ones—those gaps where she disappeared from view, where I couldn't see what she was doing, what she was thinking, and that invisible frustration burned hotter than any rage.
She was planning something.
The thought should have irritated me. Instead, it made my pulse quicken.
I turned away from the screens, bourbon in hand, and tried to convince myself that monitoring her was standard security protocol. That the way my chest tightened watching her examine the locked doors and windows had nothing to do with possession and everything to do with control.
I was lying to myself. Had been for days.
The truth was uglier and more complicated than strategy. The truth was that I'd had two million reasons to move against Lorenzo Altieri this year alone—trafficking operations, territorial disputes, a weapons deal gone wrong. But I'd moved now. Extracted Julietta now. Because the thought of her wedding that cartel prince, of her belonging to anyone but me, had made something feral and ancient wake up inside my chest.
Obsession. Pure, unfiltered obsession.
I finished my drink and set the glass down hard enough that it cracked against the mahogany desk.
My phone buzzed. Vince.
I didn't answer, just listened to the voicemail he left:"Need to talk. Now."
Five minutes later, my second-in-command walked into my office without knocking. The privilege of a man I'd trusted for eight years. The privilege of a man who'd watched my empire grow from blood and calculation.
The privilege of a man who was about to tell me something I didn't want to hear.
Vince closed the door behind him and didn't bother with pleasantries.
