I had become a ghost in my own home.

Dante was rarely there. He claimed he was handling "territory disputes" in the South Side, a vague enough excuse to satisfy the soldiers, but not me. I knew exactly where he was.

I broke the first rule of sanity: I looked.

I created a burner account on Instagram with trembling fingers. I searched for Isobel de Luca. Her profile was public. Of course it was. She wanted to be seen. She wanted to be known.

There was a photo from last night.

It was a dinner table set for a family. The De Luca matriarch was there, looking regal and approving. And next to her, cutting a piece of steak, was Dante.

He looked relaxed. His jacket was off, draped carelessly over the chair. He was smiling at something Isobel was saying. His hand was resting on the back of her chair.

It wasn't just a casual placement. It was a possessive gesture. A protective gesture.

He looked like he belonged there.

I scrolled down. Another photo. Dante's hand resting on her barely-there bump. The caption read: Protecting the future.

I felt bile rise in my throat, sour and hot.

He had never touched me like that. With me, his touch was heavy. It was a claim of ownership, a reminder of duty and contracts. With her, it looked... soft.

He was capable of warmth. Just not with me.

I put the phone down before I could throw it. I went to the bar in the living room and poured myself a glass of vodka. I didn't even like vodka. It tasted like antiseptic cleaning fluid. But I needed to burn the image out of my head.

I drank it in one swallow. Then another.

My phone pinged. It was the group chat with my civilian friends. The ones who thought Dante was a "logistics consultant" with a busy travel schedule.

Bridesmaid fitting next week! So excited!

I typed quickly, my vision blurring.

Wedding is off. Don't ask. Please respect my privacy.

I blocked the notifications before the explosion of questions could hit me. I couldn't handle their happiness. I couldn't handle their normalcy.

The front door opened.

It was 2:00 AM.

Dante walked in. He stopped dead when he saw me sitting on the sofa in the dark.

He sniffed the air. His nose wrinkled in immediate distaste.

"You've been drinking," he said. It wasn't an observation. It was an accusation.

"I had two glasses," I said, my voice sounding hollow to my own ears.

"You smell like a distillery," he snapped. He took a step back, as if my scent was contagious. As if I was dirty.

"Isobel can't be around strong smells," he said, his tone clinical. "It triggers her nausea."

I laughed. It was a dry, brittle sound that scraped against my throat.

"Isobel isn't here, Dante."

"I'm seeing her in the morning," he said, brushing past me. "I can't smell like cheap vodka. It's disrespectful to the mother of my heir."

Disrespectful.

He was worried about offending her nose while he shattered my life.

"Go shower," he ordered. "You're embarrassing yourself."

I stood up. The room spun slightly, but I steadied myself against the arm of the sofa.

"I'm not the one who should be embarrassed," I said.

He narrowed his eyes, his patience evaporating. "We need to have a Sit Down, Nina. We need to discuss the logistics of the christening."

The christening. The baby wasn't even born yet.

"There's nothing to discuss," I said.

I walked past him. I went into the guest bathroom and locked the door. I turned the shower on as hot as it would go.

I scrubbed my skin until it was red. I wanted to wash off the vodka. I wanted to wash off the last twenty years.

I wanted to wash off him.

The next morning, the apartment was silent.

Dante stood in the kitchen, nursing an espresso while scrolling through a file on his tablet.

"Cancel the photoshoot," he said, not bothering to look up.

I paused with my hand on the refrigerator door.

The engagement photoshoot. It was scheduled for tomorrow at the Botanical Gardens.

"Okay," I said simply.

He looked up then, blinking. He had been expecting tears. He had been expecting me to beg for the one public display of affection he had actually promised me.

"Just like that?" he asked.

"You want to cancel it. So we cancel it."

He shifted in his seat, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable.

"Isobel wants to do a shoot," he said.

I stared at him.

"She wants... a wedding shoot?"

"She's dying, Nina. She'll never get married. She wants the experience. She wants photos of her and... the father. To leave for the child."

He wanted to take my photographer, my date, and my fiancé, and gift wrap them for her.

"It's just pretend," he added quickly. "For the kid."

"Sure," I said. "It makes sense."

Dante frowned. "You're taking this well."

"I'm just being a good mob wife, Dante. Putting the Family first."

He studied me for a second, searching for a crack in the armor. But I was hollow inside. There was nothing left to break.

"Good," he said. "I'm taking her to North Shore Island after the shoot. For a few days. The sea air is good for the baby."

North Shore. That was where we were supposed to go for our honeymoon.

"You handle the wedding logistics while I'm gone," he said. "The flowers, the seating charts. I trust your judgment."

He stood, grabbed his keys, and walked to the door.

"I'll see you in a week."

He didn't say goodbye.

The door clicked shut.

I waited exactly one minute. Then, I walked to the closet.

I pulled out a heavy-duty trash bag.

I started in the bedroom. I swept every photo of us off the nightstand. I took the clothes he had bought me. I took the books he had never read.

I moved to the bathroom. I threw away his spare toothbrush. His razor. The cologne I had bought him for Christmas.

I went to the living room and took down the art we had picked out together.

I stripped the apartment bare.

By noon, the walls were naked. The shelves were empty.

It looked like a hotel room. Sterile. Cold. Impersonal.

It looked exactly like our relationship.

I sat on the floor in the center of the void I had created. I looked at the calendar.

12 days.

I wasn't planning a wedding anymore. I was planning a funeral for the girl I used to be.

Dante was gone, but his ghost haunted my screen.

I tracked his vacation on Instagram. Isobel posted everything, chronicling their escape like a victory lap.

There was a video of them walking on the beach at sunrise. Dante was holding her strappy sandals. He was barefoot, his dress pants rolled up to his calves.

He loathed the sand. He used to complain if we even drove past a shoreline, muttering about the mess.

But there he was, digging his toes into the wet grit, laughing as a wave chased them up the bank. He didn't look like the Don. He looked like a man unburdened. He looked... happy.

I placed the phone face down on the table. I was finished breaking my own heart.

I drove straight to my parents' estate in Lake Forest.

My father was the Consigliere. The advisor. The shadow who whispered in the Don's ear. He was sitting in his study, entrenched in a fortress of leather-bound books and the heavy, sweet scent of cigar smoke.

My mother was arranging white roses by the bay window.

"I'm going away," I stated, my voice steady.

My father looked up over the rim of his reading glasses. "For the honeymoon?"

"No. For a fellowship. In Lalan."

My mother dropped a rose. It hit the floor with a soft thud. "Lalan? That's halfway across the world, Nina. What about Dante? What about the wedding?"

"The wedding is off," I said.

The room went so quiet I could hear the grandfather clock slicing through the silence.

My father took off his glasses, folding them slowly. "Did he hurt you?"

"No," I said. "We just... want different things."

"He's the Don, Nina," my father said, his voice dropping to that stern, advisor tone. "You don't just walk away from the Don. It's an insult."

"He won't mind," I said hollowly. "He's occupied."

I didn't tell them about the baby. I didn't tell them about Isobel. The shame would kill my mother. And my father... my father would be forced to choose between his blood and his oath. I knew which one he would choose. The Code came first. Always.

"I'm leaving in ten days," I said. "I just wanted you to know."

My father looked at me for a long, agonizing moment. He saw something in my eyes. Maybe he saw the bone-deep exhaustion. Maybe he saw a resolve that mirrored his own.

"Don't look back, Nina," he said softly, breaking character. "If you go, you never look back."

I nodded. I turned on my heel and walked out.

I drove straight to Linda's apartment.

Linda was the only wife in the circle who despised the life as much as I did. Her husband was a soldier, a low-level enforcer. She knew the darkness that lurked behind the glamour.

She opened the door and gasped the moment she saw my face.

I told her everything. The dossier. The pregnancy. The "Life Debt."

She sat on her coffee table, her mouth slightly open, processing the horror.

"He thinks she saved him?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"But..." Linda stood up, her hands balling into tight fists at her sides. "You saved him! I was there, Nina! I drove the getaway car! I scrubbed his blood out of your clothes!"

"I know," I said quietly.

"You have to tell him, Nina! You have to tell him that Isobel de Luca was probably getting a manicure while you were digging a bullet out of his femoral artery!"

"It doesn't matter," I said.

"It matters! It changes everything!" She was pacing now, frantic. "He's ruining his life-and yours-based on a lie!"

"He made his choice, Linda. He chose her. Even if he knew... he still slept with her. He still humiliated me publicly."

Linda stopped pacing. Her eyes blazed. "I'm going to kill him. I'm going to march into his office and scream the truth in his face."

"No," I said, my voice sharp as a scalpel. "You swore an oath, Linda. Omertà."

I took a breath. "If you tell him, you implicate me. My father will know I was practicing field medicine without authorization. He'll disown me. Or worse."

Linda stopped. She looked at me, tears welling in her eyes, defeated by the logic of our world.

"So you're just going to let him believe she's the hero?"

I stood up and slung my purse over my shoulder.

"Let him have his hero," I said. "I don't want a man who needs a receipt to prove he loves me."

I walked to the door, my hand hovering over the knob.

"Ten days, Linda. Then I'm gone."

And Dante de Rossi will be the only man in Chicago who doesn't realize his queen has already left the board.