Nessa POV

I lay on the cold floor for what felt like hours, though the clock insisted it had only been minutes.

The silence of the villa was no longer peaceful; it was deafening.

Every inch of my body screamed in protest as I dragged myself to my purse to find my phone. My fingers trembled as I tried to call an ambulance.

Service Suspended.

Panic flared in my chest. I tried to use a ride-share app.

Payment Declined.

Cold realization washed over me. They had frozen everything. My cards, my phone plan, my life.

I was a ghost in my own home.

Somehow, I managed to crawl to the landline in the kitchen and dial a local taxi company. I paid the driver with the diamond earrings I was wearing-the only assets I had left on my body.

Seven days passed.

Seven days of hell.

I was staying in a run-down motel on the outskirts of the city, hiding like a fugitive.

The bleeding had finally stopped, but the cramping was constant, a dull ache that never let me forget the danger. I needed a doctor, but I couldn't go to the family physician. They would report me to Xander in a heartbeat.

I checked social media on a prepaid burner phone I'd bought with cash pawned from my watch.

Rissa had posted photos.

Family Vacation in the Maldives. Healing from the trauma.

They were drinking cocktails on a beach while I was bleeding in a Motel 6.

A notification popped up.

A viral post from a gossip site.

The Truth About the Lino Sisters.

It featured a photo of Rissa's marriage license-the real one.

But the caption twisted the narrative into something unrecognizable.

Sources say Nessa Lino seduced her sister's husband and tried to pass off her illegitimate child as the heir. The brave Rissa Lino finally reclaimed her place.

They were rewriting history. Making me the mistress. Making my child the bastard.

My phone rang. It was Carlo.

"They're moving fast, Nessa," his voice was tight, urgent. "Salvo has called a shareholder meeting in three days. He plans to sell the Lino shares to a shell company owned by Serena."

"He can't," I said, my voice raspy from disuse. "The trust..."

"He's forging your signature on a consent form. If that sale goes through, the assets are gone before the 'Clean Hands' clause can trigger."

"I have to stop him."

"You need to stay hidden," Carlo warned. "There's a hit out on you. Xander told the soldiers you've gone mental and are a danger to the family."

"I'm going to the clinic," I said, ignoring his warning. "I need to check on the baby. Then I'm going to war."

I pulled a hoodie over my head and went to a low-end community clinic nearby.

The waiting room was crowded, smelling of stale coffee and antiseptic.

I kept my head down, but the TV in the corner was playing the news.

My face was on the screen. Wanted for Questioning: Mental instability.

A woman sitting opposite me squinted, her eyes darting from the screen to my face.

"Hey," she said, her voice shrill. "Ain't that the homewrecker?"

The room went quiet.

"Yeah," a man sneered, standing up. "That's the bitch who attacked her pregnant sister."

I stood up to leave, heart hammering against my ribs.

"Not so fast," the woman said, grabbing my arm with surprising strength. "You think you can just walk away after what you did?"

"Let me go," I said, panic rising in my throat.

I dialed Xander's number on the burner phone. I didn't know why. Maybe I wanted him to hear me die.

Rissa answered.

"Well, look who it is," she laughed, the sound grating. "The rat crawls out of the sewer."

"Put Xander on," I gritted out.

"He's busy," she said. "But I'll put you on speaker."

"Xander!" I screamed. "They're going to kill me!"

I heard his voice in the background, cold and detached. "Is that her? Tell her to sign the papers and I'll call off the dogs."

"Did you hear that, sister?" Rissa mocked. "Sign the assets over, and maybe we'll let you live."

The woman in the clinic shoved me hard. I stumbled back, hitting the wall.

"Get her!" someone yelled.

A man picked up a metal chair. He raised it high, aiming for my head.

I curled into a ball, protecting my stomach.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the impact.

Thud.

The sound was heavy, meaty. But I felt no pain.

I opened my eyes.

A shadow had fallen over me, blocking out the harsh fluorescent lights.

A man stood there. He had caught the metal chair with one arm. His suit jacket strained against the muscle as he held the weight effortlessly.

He didn't even look at the attacker. He tore the chair from the man's grip and tossed it aside like it was made of cardboard.

The room froze. The air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.

The man turned to face the crowd.

His eyes were the color of gunmetal. His jaw was set in a line of pure, unadulterated violence.

Killian Qiro.

He looked down at me, huddled on the dirty floor.

Then he looked at the mob.

"Who dares?" his voice was a low growl that vibrated in my chest. "Who dares call a Qiro child a bastard?"

He reached down.

I flinched, instinctively bracing for another blow.

He paused, his expression softening for a fraction of a second.

"Easy," he whispered. "I've got you."

He scooped me up into his arms as if I weighed nothing.

I pressed my face against his chest. He smelled like rain, aged scotch, and the metallic tang of gunpowder.

"Xander..." I whispered, my vision blurring.

Killian stepped over the cowering attackers, his stride steady and lethal.

"Xander is a dead man walking," Killian said. "He just doesn't know it yet."

Nessa POV

The world dissolved into a smear of gray concrete and the pale, terrified faces of the clinic staff as Killian Qiro carried me out.

By all logic, I should have been terrified.

I was in the arms of the most dangerous man in Chicago, a man whose mere name made my father check the locks twice at night.

But all I registered was the rough texture of his wool suit jacket against my cheek and the steady, heavy thud of his heart beneath it.

It was a slow, controlled rhythm.

In stark contrast to the frantic staccato of my own heart, his was the sound of a predator who feared nothing.

He didn't run. He moved with a terrifying calm, his strides long and purposeful, carrying my weight as if I were made of smoke.

We burst through the back doors into an alley where the air smelled sharp with wet asphalt and ozone.

A sleek black helicopter sat idling on a private pad I didn't even know existed, its blades slicing through the rain with a rhythmic thwup-thwup-thwup.

"Put me down," I whispered, though my voice was barely a dry croak. "I can walk."

"You're bleeding," Killian stated flatly.

He didn't look at me. He looked straight ahead, his jaw set in a line of granite. "You don't walk until I say you walk."

He lifted me higher, stepping onto the metal rail of the chopper with effortless grace.

He secured me into the leather seat himself, his large hands moving with surprising precision over the buckles.

For a heartbeat, his knuckles grazed the swell of my stomach.

He froze.

His gray eyes locked onto mine, dark and unreadable.

"Mine now," he murmured, the sound low enough to be lost under the whine of the engine, yet it vibrated through my very bones. "Every cell. Every heartbeat."

He signaled the pilot, and the ground fell away.

I looked down at the shrinking city. Somewhere down there, in a cheap motel room, was the life I had tried so hard just to survive.

Gone.

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

For the first time in two years, I didn't have to watch my back.

The monster had me, and he wasn't letting go.

Xander POV

The sun in the Maldives was oppressive, a blinding white glare that drilled into my skull.

Rissa lay on the lounge chair next to me, complaining about the humidity frizzing her hair.

"Baby," she whined, poking my arm with a freshly manicured nail. "When are you going to divorce her officially? I want a winter wedding."

I swirled the ice in my scotch, watching the amber liquid catch the light. "Soon, Rissa. You know the plan. We need her signature on the trust transfer first."

"She's probably crying in a corner somewhere," Rissa giggled, taking a sip of her cocktail. "She's so weak. It's pathetic."

A sudden, cold dread coiled in my stomach.

It wasn't the heat. It was instinct.

I hadn't checked the tracker on Nessa's phone in three days. I had been too busy drowning in Rissa's skin, celebrating a victory I hadn't quite secured yet.

I pulled out my phone.

The tracking app opened.

Signal Lost.

I frowned. Maybe the battery died.

I opened the banking app to check the joint account we used for household expenses.

Balance: $0.00.

My breath hitched.

I quickly switched to the credit card portal.

Account Frozen. Contact Administrator.

"Xander?" Rissa asked, sitting up. "You look like you saw a ghost."

"Shut up," I snapped.

I dialed the villa landline. No answer.

I dialed the security gate.

"Mr. Vane?" the guard answered, sounding breathless and nervous.

"Where is my wife?" I demanded.

"She... she hasn't been home in a week, sir. We assumed she was with you."

The crystal glass in my hand shattered.

I didn't feel the shards cutting into my palm.

"What do you mean she hasn't been home?" I roared.

"The house is empty, sir. And... there was a courier today. From the Qiro family. They dropped off a notice."

Qiro.

The blood drained from my face.

"What notice?"

"A cease and desist on the Lino assets, sir. And a demolition order for the guest house."

I hung up.

I looked at Rissa, who was applying sunscreen to her legs, oblivious.

She wasn't a prize. She was a liability.

I had played the long game for two years. I had romanced a woman I felt nothing for, just to get my hands on the clean millions her mother left behind.

And now, the mouse had not only escaped; she had burned down the trap.

"Pack your bags," I said, standing up.

"But we have three more days!" Rissa protested.

"We have nothing!" I screamed, throwing the phone into the sand. "She's gone. And she took the money."