The next morning, Lev escalated the war.

He headed down to the basement of a Syndicate-owned warehouse down by the docks. That was where my mother, Rosa Moretti, was being held.

My mother was no fragile trophy wife. Before marrying my father, she had been the daughter of a master counterfeiter in Palermo.

She possessed golden hands that could forge masterpieces. But she was sixty-two now, and her health was failing.

Lev had locked her in a damp, windowless cell that reeked of mildew and copper patina.

Under the harsh glare of an industrial desk lamp, my mother squinted through a jeweler's loupe, etching microscopic serial numbers onto steel plates for counterfeit hundred-dollar bills.

The Syndicate demanded a hundred flawless plates a week. It was precision work meant for laser machinery, not an old woman suffering from arthritis.

When Lev entered the room, flanked by two armed guards, my mother didn't even pause her work. The only sound in the room was the scrape of her etching tool against the steel.

"Mrs. Moretti, the quality of the last shipment slipped," Lev said casually, leaning his shoulder against the concrete wall. "My distributors in New York found flaws in the watermarks."

My mother finally set down her tools. She pulled off the loupe and looked at him.

Her once-bright hazel eyes were clouded over. The endless hours under the glaring lights were rapidly blinding her.

"Go to hell, Lev," my mother said. Her voice was as dry as dust, but her tone was unapologetically cold.

Lev chuckled, though there was zero humor in it. "Is that how you speak to a guest? I remember a time when you used to bake bread for me when I was starving. You used to bandage my cuts."

"I used to think you were human," Rosa shot back, tilting her chin up. "Now I see you're just a rabid dog we made the mistake of letting inside the house."

Lev’s smile vanished. The psychological warfare wasn't working. He needed the Morettis to break. He needed them to curse my name and beg for mercy to justify his blinding rage.

But they refused to give him the satisfaction.

Lev snapped his fingers. Yuri, the hulking guard, stepped forward. He grabbed my mother's silver hair and slammed her face hard onto the steel table.

"Let her go!" I shrieked, lunging forward to claw at Yuri's eyes, only for my fingers to dissolve into thin air.

I wailed, "Mom! Mom, please, just tell him I'm dead! Please!"

But I knew she wouldn't.

Before driving to the docks that fateful night, I had sworn my family to secrecy.

I told them that if Lev ever found out I died for him, the guilt would utterly destroy him.

He had endured a lifetime of abuse; if he knew his survival was bought with my blood, he would put a bullet in his own head.

Even while being tortured, my mother was honoring my dying wish.

Yuri drew a hunting knife from his belt and forced my mother's left hand flat against the steel plate.

Lev stepped up, towering over her.

"Where is Clara?" he demanded, his voice devoid of emotion, terrifyingly hollow.

"Where is that coward of a daughter of yours? Tell me, or you lose a finger. Every day you refuse, you lose another piece of yourself."

My mother turned her head, resting her bruised cheek against the freezing steel surface.

She looked up at Lev. She didn't cry, and she didn't tremble. She looked at him with the fierce, heartbreaking pity of a mother watching a terminally ill child.

"My daughter is in a place you will never reach," Rosa whispered. "She is untouchable. She is ten times the man you are."

A violent flash of agony crossed Lev’s eyes. He gave Yuri a single nod.

The enforcer brought the heavy pommel of the knife down hard, followed by the blade.

The sickening crunch of severing bone and cartilage echoed in the cramped room.

My mother let out a blood-curdling scream. Her body convulsed, but she clamped her jaw shut, refusing to give Lev what he wanted—she wouldn't beg for mercy.

I collapsed beside her, sobbing hysterically, trying vainly to press my ghostly hands over her bleeding stump to stop the hemorrhage. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't want this. I thought I was saving you."

Lev stared at the blood. His chest he heave sharply, a complex storm of emotion flickering across his face before he ruthlessly suppressed it.

He walked over to a small cot in the corner where my mother’s few meager belongings were kept.

He picked up her purse and dumped its contents onto the floor.

A delicate pearl rosary spilled out, clattering crisply against the concrete.

My rosary. The one my father had given me for my First Communion.

Lev froze.

He slowly bent down and picked it up.

He remembered it. I used to wrap it tightly around my knuckles whenever I was nervous.

He stared at the strand of pearls, his thumb gently brushing over the silver crucifix.

For a fleeting second, Lev the Syndicate boss disappeared, and I saw the Leo who used to hold my hand in the dark.

But then, the delusion of betrayal poisoned his mind once again. He assumed my mother kept it as a memento of a daughter who was off living a life of luxury in hiding.

"Damn it!" Lev snapped the rosary with a violent flick of his wrist.

The string broke, sending dozens of white pearls scattering across the filthy basement floor, rolling right into my mother's pooling blood.

My mother gasped, tears finally spilling from her clouded eyes. "No... my baby..."

"Unless you tell me where she is," Lev hissed, his voice trembling with unhinged fury.

He stomped hard on a pearl, crushing it under his heel. "The debt doubles. If you won't give up her safehouse by tomorrow morning, I take another finger. Yuri, clean her up."

Lev turned and stormed out of the room, leaving me kneeling in the blood.

The final confrontation erupted two days later.

Lev had become increasingly agitated and volatile. The dark circles under his eyes were clear signs of extreme sleep deprivation.

His obsession with finding me was eating away at him like a parasite.

He decided it was time to break the only person who could put up a real fight: my brother, Dominic.

Dominic was waiting for him in the ruins of our family's old speakeasy.

A week prior, the Syndicate had raided the place, smashing the mahogany bar and shattering the mirrors.

Dominic stood dead center in the wreckage.

He was twenty-eight, built like a middleweight boxer, and possessed the deadly, cold precision of a master sniper. In his right hand, he gripped a customized 1911 pistol.

Lev walked in alone, locking the heavy oak doors behind him. He unbuttoned his suit jacket, revealing the shoulder holster beneath.

"You're a dead man, Tarasov," Dominic growled, aiming his pistol squarely at Lev’s chest. "I should have put a bullet in your skull the day my father dragged you out of that alley."

"We fed you, put clothes on your back. I treated you like a brother, and we covered for you! And this is how you repay us? Torturing an old man and butchering my mother?"

"Your mother made her choice," Lev roared back, his eyes wild. "Covered for me? Bullshit! You all looked down on me. I was just a stray dog you kept for amusement. And your sister... to save her own skin, she sold me out to The Commission the second things got hot."

"You arrogant, ignorant son of a bitch!" Dominic bellowed. "You don't know the first thing about Clara."

"Then enlighten me!" Lev screamed, drawing his own weapon with lightning speed.

The gunfight was deafening, bullets tearing through the remnants of the speakeasy.

Dominic was a dead-eye, but Lev fought like a man with a death wish. Once their magazines ran dry, the shootout devolved into a brutal, primal brawl.

They crashed through overturned tables, trading bone-shattering blows.

Dominic landed a heavy right hook that shattered Lev’s nose, but Lev swallowed the agony and drove his knee fiercely into Dominic's ribs. Lev had spent five years clawing his way up through the bloodiest corners of the Russian underworld; his fighting style was purely lethal.

Grappling on the floor, Lev managed to draw a tactical karambit knife from his belt. In one horrifyingly precise arc, he slashed deeply into the tendons and muscle of Dominic's right arm—his shooting arm.

Dominic screamed in agony, his weapon clattering to the floor.

The blade bit down to the bone, leaving him permanently crippled.

The arm was practically severed.

He collapsed back against the splintered bar, clutching his ruined arm as blood pulsed rhythmically onto the floorboards.

Lev stood over him, chest heaving, blood streaming from his broken nose. He wiped his face, staring down at my brother with absolute contempt.

"Pathetic," Lev spat. "You used to be the untouchable Dominic Moretti. Look at you now. You can't even protect yourself, let alone your family."

Lev snapped his fingers toward the back door.

The heavy iron door swung open, and Yuri walked in, dragging a small figure by the hair.

It was Mia. My eight-year-old baby sister.

She was in her pajamas, barefoot, and covered in grime. Her face was bruised, her eyes wide with sheer terror.

She was crying hysterically, screaming Dominic's name.

"No! No! Leave her out of this!" I shrieked, flying across the room to place myself between Yuri and my little sister.

But I remained entirely unseen—a phantom made only of memories.

"Let her go!" Dominic rasped. Dragging his profusely bleeding arm, he tried to crawl forward, but a Syndicate thug kicked him right back to the floor.

Dominic screamed in pure rage, "Lev, you coward! She's a little girl! She loved you! She used to draw pictures for you, you sick bastard!"

Lev’s face twitched.

He looked at Mia, and for a fraction of a second, I saw profound disgust flash in his eyes. He hated what he was doing.

But his trauma, his desperate, clawing need to force me out of hiding, overpowered his humanity.

Lev crouched in front of Mia. He extended a large, bloodstained hand and slowly wrapped his fingers around her slender, fragile neck. He didn't squeeze, but the threat was unmistakable.

Mia gasped, freezing like a trapped rabbit.

"Call her," Lev told Dominic, his voice low and blood-chilling.

"I know you have a way to reach her. Call Clara. Make her come out of hiding. Make her walk through those doors right now, or I swear to God, Dom, I will snap this little girl's neck."

Mia whimpered, struggling to breathe as Lev’s thumb pressed against her windpipe. Her face began to flush red.

"Tell him, Dom!" I screamed, dropping to my knees beside my brother, phantom tears streaming endlessly down my face. "Break the promise! Please, just break it! Save her!"

Dominic stared at Mia's panic-stricken face.

He looked at the monster Lev had become. In that agonizing moment, he realized there was no reasoning with a man driven completely insane by grief and perceived betrayal.

"Fine!" Dominic's voice was hoarse with pain, desperation, and utter defeat. "Fine, you want her?! You want the truth, you psycho?! Let her go, and I'll tell you!"

Lev’s eyes widened slightly. He loosened his grip on Mia's neck, letting her gasp for air, but he didn't pull his hand away. "Where is she, Dom?"

Dominic slumped against the bar, tears mixing with the blood and sweat on his face.

His chest heaved as he prepared to deliver the killing blow that would utterly destroy Lev Tarasov.

"She's not in hiding," Dominic choked out, his voice a guttural rasp. "She didn't run off to Europe. And she didn't sell you out to The Commission."

"Stop stalling with your lies—" Lev began.

"Listen to me!" Dominic roared, slamming his good hand against the floor.

Lev’s mouth twitched, and he fell silent.

"When The Commission found out you were Sergei's bastard son, they put a million-dollar bounty on your head. Clara found out."

"She knew you would never leave without her. She knew if you stayed, you were a dead man. So she staged that fight. She said those vicious things to break your heart, just so you would get on that boat to Moscow and never look back."

Lev froze.

The air seemed to instantly vanish from the room.

The arrogant posture of the mafia boss evaporated, replaced by a chilling, deathly silence.

"What are you talking about?"

"She knew The Commission wouldn't stop until they had a body," Dominic wept, his defenses utterly shattered. "They were waiting at Pier 39."

"So, after she chased you away... she put on your leather jacket. She took your wallet. She got into your Chevy, and she drove to the docks."

Lev’s hand slipped completely away from Mia's neck.

He slowly stood up, his face draining of all color until he looked like a corpse. His lips parted, but no sound came out.

"She crashed through the barricade," Dominic continued, looking up at Lev with eyes full of pure hatred and unbearable sorrow. "She took a sniper round to the shoulder, and then... she set the car on fire. To make sure the body was burned beyond recognition. To make sure they thought the Russian street rat was dead."

"No..." Lev whispered, the word barely squeezing past his lips. He stumbled back a step. "No, no. That's a lie. That's a fucking lie."

"She's dead, Lev!" Dominic screamed, his voice echoing off the exposed brick walls of the ruined bar.

"She died five years ago! She burned to ashes, just so you could live!"

"We kept the secret so you wouldn't blow your own brains out from the guilt!"

"But look at you! Look what you've done to the people she died to protect!"

"Why did you ever come back?!"

Lev’s knees buckled as if they had been taken out by a sledgehammer. He stumbled backward, tripped over a broken chair, and crashed heavily to the floor.

He stared down at his own hands—the very hands that had ordered Vincenzo’s beating, severed Rosa’s finger, crippled Dominic, and nearly choked little Mia.

"You're lying," Lev gasped, clutching his chest as if his heart were seizing. "It's a trick. You're just protecting her. She's... she's in Paris. She's in Rome..."

"Why would we lie?!" Dominic roared, pointing at his mangled arm and then gesturing to the trembling child on the floor.

"Look at us! You've destroyed us!"

"She left a letter, you son of a bitch. We hid it under the floorboards in her old bedroom. The house you've been using as your personal torture chamber."

Lev didn't say another word, nor did he issue any orders to his men. He scrambled to his feet like a wounded animal and bolted out of the speakeasy.

He hijacked the nearest car from one of his own men, throwing the driver out onto the street. He tore through the rain-slicked streets of Chicago like a madman, blowing through red lights, his mind completely and utterly fractured.

My ghost, firmly tethered to him, sat in the passenger seat, watching him drive.

He was hyperventilating, muttering my name under his breath in a frantic, feverish prayer.

Clara. Please, no. Clara, no...

He rammed the car straight through the wrought-iron gates of the Moretti estate, smashed open the front door, and charged inside.

Ignoring his own guards, he sprinted up the grand staircase, his boots leaving muddy prints on the marble, and burst into my childhood bedroom.

It was perfectly intact. My parents had preserved it like a museum.

Lev fell to his knees in the center of the room. He clawed at the hardwood planks beneath the bed, tearing at the wood until his fingernails cracked and bled, prying the floorboards up.

Beneath the floor was a small, fireproof lockbox.

He smashed the lock open with the butt of his pistol. Inside lay a single, yellowed envelope. My handwriting on the front bore his name: Leo.

Lev’s hands shook violently as he unfolded the fragile paper.

I knelt beside him, resting my pale chin over his shoulder, reading the words I had written five years ago, the ink smudged by my own dried tears.

'Dom,

If you're reading this, I'm already gone. Leo is safe.

Dom, please, you have to promise me you will never tell him the truth. If he knows I died for him, the guilt will destroy him. He has suffered too much in this life already; he deserves a chance to breathe, to live without always looking over his shoulder.

You must make him hate me. Hate is a shield—it will drive him forward and keep him from ever looking back.

Please tell Mom and Dad that I am so, so sorry. I love you all. But I couldn't let him die in that alley.

If you can, watch out for him from afar. He is a good man. He just needs to know he’s worth saving.

Love, Clara.'

The letter slipped from Lev’s fingers and fell to the floor.

A soul-shattering howl ripped from the deepest pit of his throat.

It wasn't the sound of a man crying; it was the sound of a soul being ripped to shreds. It was the sound of absolute terror.

He collapsed forward, burying his face into the hardwood, sobbing so violently that his entire body convulsed.

"Clara..." he choked, his fingers digging fiercely into the wood. "Oh, God... Clara, what have I done? What have I done?"

He remembered the day I "betrayed" him.

He remembered me standing in the foyer, my face a mask of cold arrogance, telling him he was nothing but a charity case.

He remembered the tears he shed as he walked out into the rain.

And now, he realized that the exact moment he walked out those doors, I was crying too.

He realized that I had worn his jacket, breathing in the scent of his cologne, and driven straight to my death, doing the bravest thing a twenty-year-old girl could possibly do.

And he had taken that sacrifice—that pure, absolute love—and weaponized it against the people I loved most.

He had ruined the father who taught him how to read, mutilated the mother who mended his clothes, and crippled the brother who had watched his back.

He had become the very monster I sacrificed my life to protect him from.

"I'm here, Leo," I whispered, wrapping my ghostly arms around his violently shaking frame.

I pressed my translucent lips to his hair. "Let it go. Let them go."

But my words were swallowed by the silence of the empty room.

Lev was all alone in his hell.