Isabella's perspective

Maria carefully took Angelo's meager few pieces of clothing, her hands still trembling, and wiped the mine dust from my son's pale little face.

Before we could even approach the waiting convoy, a sharp, sarcastic voice pierced the oppressive silence.

"What a tragedy, Miss Isabella."

I turned around and saw my aunt's personal maid, Carla, standing beside the armored vehicle. She was wearing a brand-new, crisp wool coat, and her gaze swept over my mud-covered clothes, causing her to wrinkle her nose in disgust. She was Old Lady Moretti's mouthpiece, sent here to make me clearly aware of just how badly I had fallen.

"The general surrendered the Port of Chicago for you," Kara continued with feigned pity. "What a heavy price to pay for a wife who was abandoned. We've prepared seats for you and the young master in the cars in the middle of the convoy. That... is more in line with your current status."

She curled her lips into a cruel and triumphant smile, waiting to see me lower my head in shame.

I didn't blink, nor did I argue. I simply gripped Angelo's small hand and walked straight past her, my boots crunching on the gravel. I bypassed the ordinary sedan and headed directly for the lead bulletproof Cadillac-the vehicle reserved exclusively for those of the highest bloodlines.

Maria, who was always loyal, immediately ran forward and opened the heavy car door for me.

I settled into the luxurious leather seat, pulled Angelo into my arms, and rolled down the tinted window halfway. Kara stood frozen in the dust, her smug expression now replaced by utter resentment.

"Let's go," I said to her, my voice devoid of any warmth. "Don't fall behind."

Kara's face flushed red. "His Excellency Lorenzo Falcone has officially dissolved your marriage! You have no power now!" she retorted sharply, eager to regain control.

I let out a soft, sinister laugh. The empty words written by those self-proclaimed gods were meaningless to a woman who had already witnessed the end of the world. I rolled up the car window, completely shutting out her pathetic existence.

The journey back to Chicago was a blurry silhouette of a gray highway. When the magnificent iron gates of Moretti Estate finally came into view, a heavy gloom settled over me.

The convoy came to a sudden stop.

Through the windshield, I saw a sleek black sedan blocking the entrance. I recognized the man leaning against the hood immediately. Leo. Damian Valenti's most trusted soldier.

The blood in my veins instantly turned cold. In my previous life, Damian's men didn't come to take Angelo today, because by this time, my son would already be a cold corpse.

I pushed open the door and got out of the car, immediately shielding Angelo behind my legs for protection.

Leo straightened up and gave me a polite but stiff nod. "Miss Moretti. I've come on Godfather Valenti's orders. I've come to take young Master Angelo home."

"Go home?" The word was forced out of my throat, filled with venomous hatred. "Damian is a beast who would trade even his own flesh and blood like casino chips. He abandoned us to the wolves, and now he wants his heir back?"

Leo frowned and stepped forward. "This is for Angelo's future, miss. Lord Valenti and Miss Richie-"

"Don't mention her name in front of me." I interrupted coldly, my voice extremely calm yet carrying a chilling pressure. I stared directly into Leo's eyes, at his blind loyalty that would ultimately destroy him. "Go tell Damian that if he dares to lay a finger on my son, I will expose the Valenti family's most shameful and sordid secrets to the entire Chicago Mafia."

Leo froze, his hand instinctively reaching for the holster inside his suit jacket. "Miss Isabella, be rational. Serafina just wants-"

"I know exactly what Serafina wants," I interrupted him again, taking a step closer until I could see his pupils dilate slightly. I lowered my voice and dropped a truth he couldn't comprehend at the moment. "Soon, she will need a loyal man to handle some extremely dark and bloody troubles for her. When that day comes, Leo, you will find that the price of serving her far exceeds your capacity to bear it."

Leo froze. The chillingly certain look in my eyes struck a nerve deep within him, a nerve he himself was unaware of. Without a direct order from the Godfather to wage war on Moretti family territory, he dared not make a move.

He slowly backed away, his eyes fixed on me, before getting into the car.

I watched the Valenti family's car reverse and speed away before turning around. I held Angelo's hand tightly and stepped through the massive iron gates of my grandfather's estate. I had won the standoff at the gates, but the real battle had just begun; I had to arm myself first.

Isabella's perspective

In this secluded suite in the east wing of the Moretti estate, the air is thick with the scents of aged wood, lemon varnish, and an almost suffocating stillness. It's a gilded cage draped in a heavy dust cover, but for tonight, it's my fortress.

I gently placed Angelo on the huge four-poster bed. He fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow, his little hands still clenched into fists, the lingering fear from the day.

With each heartbeat, the raw, bleeding flesh on my palms throbbed with pain. In the dim light, I unwrapped the dirty strips of cloth that had been wrapped around my hands in the mine. The wounds were deep, bleeding in places, the edges jagged from the hammer's thud. I went to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and let the cold water wash over my swollen skin. The stinging pain was sharp and dizzying, but I didn't flinch. I found an old first-aid kit under the sink-disinfectant, gauze, medical tape. With my teeth and trembling fingertips, I did my best to bandage my hands, making sure it was tight enough to stop the bleeding, but leaving a little room for my fingers to move.

When I returned to the table, faint traces of blood were already visible through the white gauze.

I pulled out a thick sheet of paper with a gold embossed design. My stiff, swollen fingers could barely hold the pen. The first few letters were crooked and trembled on the paper from the excruciating pain. I stopped, took a deep breath, and forced my hand to steady itself. This time, the strokes became extremely sharp-not elegant, but cruelly precise, each stroke a struggle against the burning pain in my palm.

"Maria," I called softly.

She emerged from the shadows, her eyes still reflecting the shock of our confrontation at the door. I handed her the letter. The pulling motion shifted the gauze, and a new, bright red stain immediately appeared around her thumb.

"I need you to get these things through the family's underground channels. Don't leave any written record, and don't ask why."

Maria took the list, her eyes sweeping over the unspecified industrial reagents and high-concentration extracts. Her hands trembled uncontrollably. "This isn't medicine at all... My God, Miss, what dangerous trump card are you planning to concoct?"

She looked at me as if I were a stranger. And indeed I was. The innocent girl she once served was dead, buried in the abyss of a bloody future that only I remember.

"These are all necessary," I said, my flat, cold tone leaving no room for argument.

I turned away and walked towards my son. As I passed the doorway, a faint, rust-colored bloodstain remained on the gauze. An invisible boundary had been drawn. Maria swallowed hard, clutched the note tightly to her chest, lowered her head, and fell into silent submission, filled with fear.

By noon the following day, we were already seated in the back of an armored SUV, flanked by two Moretti family escort cars. This convoy was supposed to take us directly to a heavily guarded safe house on the shores of Lake Wisconsin.

I moved my fingers around in the gauze. After a night, my fingers were a little stiff, but the bleeding had stopped. I could make a fist-it hurt, but I could still use it.

I stared at the gray-white afterimage of the highway outside the tinted car window. We were almost at the exit for Blackwater Creek Town.

In my previous life, this desolate, forgotten rusty town was where Damian and Serafina found their greatest trump card. That decaying land harbored "Gary the Ghost"-a former strategist of a rival family whom everyone thought was dead. He held a black ledger, a book of sins with enough leverage to blackmail a current U.S. senator. It was that ledger that gave Damian the political capital to crush the Falcone family and reign supreme in Chicago.

This time, I will not let them succeed.

I leaned forward-because my fingertips were numb, I could only press the button on the driver's side panel with the heel of my hand. "Next exit to get off the highway."

The Moretti family head, who was driving, glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "Miss Isabella, the Godfather's orders are to head straight for the safe house."

"Get off the highway," I repeated, my voice lowering.

Maria grabbed my arm, her face deathly pale. Her fingers touched my bandaged hand, and I forced myself not to gasp. "Isabella, please! Blackwater Creek is a graveyard. It's full of scumbags and drug addicts. It's not a place for you, and it's certainly not a place for Angelo!"

"I know exactly where that is." I shook off her hand. The movement sent a sharp pain through my wrist. I stared intently at the leader in the rearview mirror. The air in the car instantly became heavy, filled with the suffocating pressure emanating from me. "We'll stop here. Now."

The leader's jaw was clenched, but the unwavering certainty in my voice completely shattered his resistance. He turned on his turn signal.

The armored convoy left the wide highway and headed down the ramp towards a dying town. Ahead, blocked-off shops and crumbling brick factories stood like rotten teeth under the gloomy sky. Maria sobbed, clutching Angelo tightly to her chest.

I clenched my bandaged hands tightly into fists on my knees-the bandages stretched taut, a dull ache spreading down to my elbows. This pain was a wake-up call. I was no longer the weak woman who had left the manor. I had become a harder blade.

My gaze was fixed on the rusty water tower in the distance. The game was set; I was ready to capture the enemy's queen.

Isabella's perspective

The bulletproof SUV stopped in front of the skeleton of an abandoned brewery from the Prohibition era. Rusty copper stills stood in the shadows, like silent, decaying giants, defying the gray sky.

"Wait here," I ordered Maddox and Jax.

The two soldiers exchanged an uneasy glance, their hands instinctively hovering over their holsters, but they nodded nonetheless.

The gauze on my palm was clean-I had just changed it this morning, although a faint rusty color still seeped through. The flesh underneath was scabbing over, but every time I flexed my fingers, a dull pain shot through my elbow.

I slipped inside alone. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and the ghostly, suffocating aroma of aged whiskey. As I walked deeper into the decaying floorboards, the faint sound of running water behind me caught my attention.

Beside a broken water pipe leading to a rusty sink stood a shirtless man. He was scrubbing fresh bloodstains from his white shirt. My breath caught in my throat. His physique was like that of a cold, ruthless god in Roman sculpture, his back muscles flowing with the tension of a predator. Hearing my footsteps, he turned around. His deep, wild eyes, seemingly unconcerned about the blood on his hands, locked onto mine.

"Does this scenery suit your taste, little kitty?" he drawled, his tone carrying the arrogance of a street thug.

His demeanor carried the reckless arrogance of a low-ranking soldier, but the overwhelming sense of aggression emanating from him was something no ordinary thug could possess. My instincts screamed wildly: this was a predator toying with his prey.

I maintained a mask-like coldness. "To reveal your location in a graveyard like this is tantamount to suicide."

A sinister smirk spread across his lips. "I'm not that easy to kill. What's a woman dressed in haute couture silk doing here at Blackwater Creek?"

"Looking for a specific medicinal fungus." I blurted out, my eyes darting rapidly through the shadows behind him.

Just then, I saw it. Beneath a piece of decaying wood beside his heavy leather boots, half-hidden, lay a worn cigar box, bearing a faded yet exquisite emblem. It was the mark of Gary the Ghost. He was indeed here.

With this dangerous stranger present, I couldn't act rashly. "Looks like I've come to the wrong place," I muttered, deliberately taking a step back.

"Leaving so soon?" His gaze followed my every move, a sharp interest igniting in his eyes that sent shivers down my spine.

"I've got what I needed," I said, turning and leaving decisively. The instant I stepped back into the light, I seemed to hear him snap his fingers, followed by a low command directed at the air: "Find out who she is."

Back in the SUV, my heart was pounding. I didn't look at Jax or Maddox. I pulled a folded piece of paper from my coat-a blank sheet of paper on which I had written a line in cipher before leaving the estate: "Old ledger. I know your hiding place. See you tonight. Same place." I had intended to slip it under the floorboards where the cigar box was kept. But the stranger's appearance disrupted my plans.

I must find another way.

"Drive to the edge of town," I instructed, "and then come back. We're not leaving now."

Two hours later, as night deepened, I returned to the brewery alone-this time, I walked along the other side of the collapsed wall, where the floorboards didn't creak. The stranger was gone. I found the cigar box, pried it open with my bandaged fingers, and slipped the cipher note inside. Then I retreated into the shadows and waited quietly.

An hour past midnight, a staggering figure emerged from the darkness. It was Gary's Ghost-a emaciated old man with cloudy eyes, his voice hoarse like a rusty door hinge. He opened his cigar box, read my note, and froze.

"Who sent you?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

I stepped out of the shadows. "There's no one else here. I came alone. And I know that Senator Whitmore's 1987 campaign funds were sponsored by the Chinese Triads. There were ten pages of records in that ledger."

The ghost's face drained of color instantly. This information had never been written down-it existed only in his memory. I have just proven that I know more than any living person.

What followed was an hour of tense negotiations. He agreed to a preliminary alliance: he would never sell the ledger to Damian Valenti. In exchange, once I extracted the pages I needed, I would provide him with a new identity and ensure his safe departure. We shook hands-his bony hand surprisingly strong-and the deal was struck.

By the afternoon of the following day, the stench of decay in Blackwater Creek had been replaced by the luxurious aromas of Chicago's Gold Coast. Three days had passed since Angelo's thoracentesis. His condition was now stable-the fluid hadn't returned-but his lungs remained fragile. Dr. Rossi had warned me against strenuous exercise, prolonged exposure to cold drafts, and a persistent cough for weeks to come. But he was alive. That was enough.

Although I had reached a preliminary agreement with the ghost, looking at Angelo before me, this victory still felt incredibly heavy. My son's face was pale, and the dark circles under his eyes constantly reminded me how close we had come to the edge of the cliff. A dry cough rumbled in his little chest, and he put his tiny fist to his mouth.

My heart ached when his eyes caught sight of a handcrafted gelato shop lighting up. I hesitated. The cold would sting his throat. But the expectation in his eyes-the first spark of normal childhood I'd seen since leaving the motel-broke my defenses. I stopped the convoy. He deserved even a moment of sweet, normal time. I'd let him have less.

We stood on the sun-drenched street, Angelo holding his strawberry cone. He carefully licked it, then coughed-once, twice-and smiled at me. I smiled back, ignoring the soreness in my bandaged hand, and took his other hand. For a second, he looked like an ordinary five-year-old boy, untouched by the Mafia's poison. But then, his little hand suddenly gripped my coat.

"Dad..." he whispered, his voice trembling.

I froze. Following his gaze across the bustling street, my blood ran cold.

Outside the gleaming window of a high-end jewelry boutique stood my ex-husband, Damian Valenti. He wasn't even looking at us. His entire attention was fixed on the woman in front of him-Serafina Richie.

With a tenderness I had never experienced, not even once, in our entire marriage, Damian placed a dazzling diamond necklace around Serafina's neck. She looked up, her eyes filled with love. Damian smiled-a gentle, genuine smile that melted away all his coldness-then lowered his head and placed a lingering kiss on her forehead.

The scene was flawless. It was a public display of their perfect, flawless happiness.

A poisoned blade twisted cruelly in my heart. This was no longer just about political power or family alliances. It was the complete erasure of my existence, replacing my son's home with a gleaming new toy.

I felt Angelo's small body trembling beside me. He didn't cry-he understood too early that tears wouldn't change anything. Instead, he buried his face in my coat and murmured, "I don't want him anymore, Mom. I only want you."

The raw, excruciating wound in my heart didn't break me; it hardened into a solidified crystal. I held Angelo tightly to my side, shielding him from the man who had abandoned us. The bandage around my half-healed hand throbbed with pain-this real pain kept me conscious. I stared at the happy couple across the street, letting that cold, unbreakable vow of revenge be etched deep into my very bones.