Damien POV

The world stopped. The low, thrumming jazz of The Onyx Club faded into a dull, meaningless hum. On the grand marble staircase, she looked back at me.

Isabella.

That was the name my Consigliere had whispered to me days ago, a mere footnote in a background check. But the smile she gave me right now—fragile, shattered, yet laced with a silent, desperate plea—was a ghost brought to life. It was Adela. But beneath that haunting resemblance, there was a spine of steel Adela had never possessed. It hit me with the force of a physical blow, locking the air in my lungs.

Beside her, the pathetic excuse for a man, Hudson Higgins, was practically vibrating with terror. The stench of his sour sweat and cowardice drifted up the stairs, polluting the air around her. He gripped her arm, his knuckles white, dragging her toward the exit like a thief fleeing a crime scene. Yet, she didn't stumble. Her back remained perfectly straight, a white rose refusing to snap in the mud.

My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. In that single heartbeat, Isabella Flores ceased to be just a curious replacement. She became a necessity. An absolute obsession.

I didn't linger on the stairs. I bypassed the crowded floor and headed straight for my private suite on the top floor. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn back just enough to let the city lights bleed into the dark room, the air thick with the scent of aged whiskey and expensive Cuban cigars. I stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, a god looking down at the filthy streets of Chicago.

Down below, the valet brought around a cab. I watched as Higgins roughly shoved Isabella into the backseat. Even through the thick glass, I could read the violent, erratic jerks of his body. He was shouting at her, his face twisted in a pathetic display of misplaced authority. He was trying to reclaim his fragile manhood after cowering before me.

And Isabella? She simply turned her head, staring out the window into the night, completely indifferent to his tantrum. Her apathy was a silent, ringing slap to his face.

A dark, violent fury coiled in my gut. Higgins was putting his filthy hands on something that belonged to me. He was dirtying my possession.

The heavy oak door clicked open behind me. Frederick 'Freddie' Solis stepped into the room. As my Consigliere, Freddie was a man with snake-like eyes and a mind built for the family's dirtiest, most delicate negotiations. He was the architect of tonight's little theater.

I didn't turn around. I picked up the silver letter opener from my mahogany desk, the cold metal grounding the violent urge I had to snap someone's neck.

"Was this your idea of a subtle introduction, Freddie?" My voice was dangerously quiet.

Freddie cleared his throat, the sound tight. "I thought you would want to see her in person, Don Falcone. To confirm the... resemblance." He stepped closer, though keeping a respectful distance. "Isabella Flores. Daughter of a ruined legitimate family. She came with a heavy dowry, which went straight to the man who married her—Hudson Higgins, one of our Associates. He's ambitious. He thought offering her up to your attention would earn him a seat at the big table."

I traced the sharp edge of the blade with my thumb. An Associate. A bottom-feeder who sold his own wife for a scrap of power.

I turned to face Freddie, pointing the tip of the silver blade toward the window, toward the street where the cab had disappeared.

"Do you think," I started, the ice in my tone making Freddie stiffen, "that a man like that deserves her?"

Freddie swallowed hard, a bead of sweat forming at his temple. He knew better than to misread my mood. "No, Boss. He is nothing."

I tossed the letter opener onto the desk. It landed with a sharp, final clatter. I thought of Isabella's straight back, her haunting smile, and the crude way Higgins had shoved her into the car.

"A man like that doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as her," I said, my voice dropping to a lethal register. "It's an insult... to my possession. Fix it."

Isabella POV

The cab ride away from The Onyx Club was suffocating. Hudson's fingers dug into my arm, his chest heaving with a mix of terror and misplaced rage. I kept my gaze fixed on the passing streetlamps of Chicago, ignoring his erratic muttering. I didn't need to look at him; my mind was miles behind us, lingering in the penthouse we had just fled.

Even though I wasn't there, the memories of my past life painted the scene with brutal clarity. Right now, Frederick 'Freddie' Solis—the Falcone family's snake-eyed Consigliere—was standing before Don Damien Falcone. Freddie would be laying out my life like a ledger: the daughter of a ruined legitimate family, the heavy dowry that bought my marriage to an Associate, and Hudson's pathetic gamble to trade me for a seat at the table. I knew Damien was listening in that terrifying, absolute silence of his, his dark eyes judging Hudson's worth. And I knew Hudson had already been found wanting.

But the swift execution I expected didn't come.

Days bled into one another inside the Higgins townhouse. The walls, paid for by my dowry, felt like a velvet-lined cage reeking of Hudson's cheap cologne and my own lingering gardenia perfume.

Hudson was unraveling. The silence from the Falcone estate was driving him mad. He paced the halls, jumping at every knock, desperate for the promotion he thought he had bought with my flesh. To soothe his bruised ego, he tried to reclaim his territory—me. Every night, he approached our bed with that sickening, entitled gleam in his eyes. And every night, I used my daughter as a shield.

Josie is crying, I would say, slipping out of his grasp. She needs her mother.

Hudson couldn't argue without looking like a monster. More importantly, his underlying fear of what the Don might do if he bruised his new possession kept his hands tied. He was forced to sleep in his study, leaving me alone in the dark.

Standing before the brass-rimmed mirror in my bedroom, I traced the line of my jaw. I practiced the fragile, shattered smile that had hooked Damien on the stairs. It was Adela's smile. Freddie had taught me how to mimic the Don's dead ghost in my past life, molding me into the perfect, compliant pet.

But my reflection mocked me. The timeline was wrong. By now, Freddie should have sent his men to collect me. Damien's inaction was a glaring deviation from the past. Had I overplayed my hand? Was the Don's paranoia stronger than his obsession? A cold knot of unease tightened in my stomach. I couldn't afford to be passive. If Damien Falcone was changing the rules of the game, I had to adapt. I would not be a victim again; I would be the architect of my own Vendetta.

A timid knock broke my concentration. "Ma'am," the maid murmured through the door. "Mr. Higgins is asking for you in his study."

I smoothed the skirt of my dress, masking my cold calculation with a veil of wifely obedience.

Hudson's study was a monument to his mediocrity, suffocating under the stench of stale cigars and cheap whiskey. When I pushed the heavy oak door open, I found him standing by the bar cart. His hands were shaking so violently that the amber liquid sloshed over the rim of his crystal glass, soaking into the lapel of his tailored suit.

He didn't even bother to curse. He just stared at the stain, his chest rising and falling in shallow, panicked breaths. When he looked up at me, his eyes were bloodshot, swimming with a pathetic, desperate anxiety. The silence from the Don was breaking him.

"Hudson?" I asked softly, playing my part.

He closed the distance between us, his sour breath washing over my face as he grabbed my hand. His grip was painfully tight, his knuckles white. He was a drowning man trying to anchor himself to the only thing he thought he still owned.

"Isabella," he rasped, his voice trembling with a sickening mix of fear and forced authority. "You're my wife. I need you to stay in our bed tonight. Leave Josie with the nanny. I need you with me."

Isabella POV

I looked down at his white-knuckled grip on my hand. The sheer desperation radiating from Hudson was pathetic. He wanted to use my body to ground himself, to prove he still owned something while the Don's silence stripped him of his sanity. He was trying to mask his possessive jealousy as a husband's need, but I knew better. He was terrified of the phantom touch of Don Damien Falcone on his property.

I slowly, deliberately pulled my hand from his grasp.

"Hudson," I murmured, injecting a perfect note of wifely apology into my voice. "Josie has been waking up in the middle of the night crying. She needs me. I can't leave her alone."

His jaw clenched, the rejection hitting him like a physical blow. But he couldn't argue against his own daughter without sounding like a monster. More importantly, he didn't have the courage to force the issue while his standing with the Falcone family was so precarious. Defeated, his shoulders slumped, and he turned back to his spilled whiskey.

The next morning, the suffocating tension in the townhouse finally snapped.

I was in the nursery, sitting on the plush rug and building wooden blocks with Josie, when heavy footsteps echoed in the hall. One of Hudson's low-level associates appeared in the doorway, breathless and wide-eyed.

"Mr. Higgins," the man panted as Hudson stepped out of his bedroom, still wearing his silk robe. "A message from Mr. Solis. He wants you at the Falcone private club downtown tonight. For a drink."

Hudson's face transformed. The sickly pallor of fear vanished, replaced by a blinding, arrogant ecstasy. Frederick 'Freddie' Solis. The Falcone family's Consigliere didn't just invite Associates for drinks. To Hudson, this was his coronation. This was the promotion he had tried to buy with my flesh.

"Get the car ready!" Hudson barked, not even bothering to dress properly before rushing down the hall, his mind already drunk on the illusion of power.

I pulled Josie into my lap, my heart hammering against my ribs. Freddie's summons meant Damien was finally making his move. But this was wrong. In my past life, there were no polite invitations for drinks. Freddie's men had simply kicked down the door and dragged me away. Damien was altering the rules of the game. He had investigated me, and now he was using his Consigliere to handle Hudson first. The unpredictability of the Don's new strategy sent a chill down my spine, but it also confirmed one thing: I had his attention.

That night, the master bedroom felt like a tomb waiting for a corpse.

When Hudson finally returned from the club, the arrogant swagger from this morning was entirely gone. He looked like a man walking to the gallows.

"Take Josie to the nursery," he ordered the nanny, his voice hollow and trembling.

I sat at the vanity, wearing a silk nightgown, pretending to brush my hair with sleepy indifference. Through the brass-rimmed mirror, I watched him sit heavily on the edge of our bed. He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. It took him a few moments to force the tears, pinching his thigh until his eyes were bloodshot.

"Isabella," he choked out, playing the role of the broken, tragic hero to perfection. "I... I don't know how to say this."

I turned around, letting the hairbrush fall to my lap. "Hudson? What's wrong?"

He looked up, his face a mask of fabricated agony. "It's the Don. Damien Falcone." He swallowed hard, making sure I saw his 'pain'. "Freddie told me tonight. The Don... he saw you at the club. He wants you, Isabella. He demands that I give you to him."

I stared at him, letting the silence stretch. He was shifting the blame entirely, painting his greedy, calculated transaction as a tyrannical Don's Command. He wanted me to believe he was a victim of the Mafia's absolute power, just like me.

"No," I whispered, letting my voice tremble as I stood up, playing the terrified, devoted wife. "Hudson, I'm your wife. You can't."

"I have no choice!" he cried, standing to grab my shoulders. "It's a command! If I refuse, he'll kill me. He'll kill all of us! It's for the survival of this family!"

I let a tear slip down my cheek, masking the cold, burning hatred in my chest. "Then we leave," I pleaded, gripping his lapels, looking up at him with wide, desperate eyes. "We take my dowry and we run. We can go to a small town in Ohio, far away from Chicago. We can hide from him, Hudson. Please."