Isabella POV

The Moretti estate’s rose garden was a masterpiece of Italian landscaping. Hundreds of deep red Black Baccara roses bloomed under the afternoon sun, their heavy, sweet fragrance thick in the air. It was a beautiful place for a slaughter.

I stood near the edge of the white pebble path, my eyes briefly flicking toward the second-floor balcony. A faint shadow shifted behind the stone balustrade. Damien was there. I had planted the seed of fear in his mind this morning, a soft, trembling whisper about Mona’s erratic behavior and my fear of what she might do. I knew his possessive nature wouldn't allow him to leave me unguarded. And where the Don went, his Consigliere, Marco, followed.

The crunch of pebbles announced her arrival. Mona marched down the path, her face pale, her eyes wide and frantic. Her right hand was buried deep in the pocket of her silk skirt.

"Well?" she demanded, her voice shrill. "Did you write the letter to Father?"

I offered her a slow, pitying smile. "There is no letter, Mona. And there never will be."

Her chest heaved. "You bitch. You're ruining my life! Julian needs me to have the Valeriano name!"

"Julian Hayes needs a respectable wife," I corrected smoothly, taking a deliberate step closer. "Not a bastard born in the shadows. You will only ever be his dirty little secret, Mona. His whore."

The word snapped the last fragile thread of her sanity. With a guttural cry, she pulled her hand from her pocket. The sunlight caught the glint of a small, silver letter opener. It wasn't a proper weapon, but it was sharp enough to do damage.

This was my cue.

I took a step back, raising my voice so it would carry clearly to the balcony above. "Julian sent you to do this? To kill me because I know your filthy secret?"

Mona blinked, the weapon trembling in her grip. "What? No! I just—"

She didn't get to finish. I lunged forward, closing the distance between us in a heartbeat. I grabbed her wrist with my right hand. Mona gasped, trying to pull back, but I held firm. With a calculated, ruthless twist, I forced her hand toward me and dragged the silver blade deeply across my own left forearm.

The sharp sting of tearing flesh was instantaneous, followed by a rush of heat. Blood welled up immediately, a brilliant, shocking crimson that rapidly soaked into the pristine white sleeve of my dress.

I released her wrist. The silver knife clattered onto the white pebbles, staining them red.

I clutched my bleeding arm and let out a breathless, perfectly pitched sob. "Why, Mona? We are sisters... Why would you do this?"

Mona stood frozen, her eyes bulging as she stared at my blood. She was entirely paralyzed by the horror of a crime she hadn't committed. Above us, I could almost feel the weight of Marco’s realization. He was a smart man; he knew exactly what I had just done.

But Damien was not a man of reason when it came to what belonged to him.

A maid, clipping hedges nearby, turned and let out a piercing scream.

Before the sound even faded, Damien materialized. He didn't run; he descended upon the garden like a god of death. He bypassed me entirely, his large hand shooting out to wrap around Mona’s throat. He lifted her off the ground, cutting off her terrified shriek.

With a terrifying, effortless display of violence, he hurled her backward. Mona flew through the air like a broken doll, crashing sickeningly against the edge of the stone fountain. She crumpled to the ground, groaning in agony.

Damien didn't spare her a second glance. He was instantly in front of me. His dark eyes were wild, fixated on the blood dripping from my fingertips. Without a word, he gripped the hem of his expensive silk shirt and tore a long strip from it, wrapping it tightly around my bleeding arm to stem the flow. His hands, usually so steady, were rigid with barely contained fury.

Heavy footsteps crunched on the path as several Soldiers rushed into the garden.

Damien didn't look up from my wound. His voice was a low, glacial rasp that sent shivers down my spine. "Take her to the basement. Find out who sent her. Then, make her disappear."

The Soldiers dragged a weeping, half-conscious Mona away. Her fate was sealed.

Damien suddenly swept me off my feet, lifting me into his arms as easily as if I weighed nothing. His jaw was clenched so tight it looked carved from granite, a lethal storm raging in his eyes.

I rested my uninjured hand against his chest, feeling the violent, rapid thud of his heart. Slowly, I reached up and gently smoothed the furious crease between his brows.

"It's okay, Damien," I whispered softly, leaning my head against his shoulder. "I'm safe now."

Isabella POV

Damien didn't just carry me through the sprawling corridors of the Moretti estate; he possessed me. His strides were long and predatory, his jaw locked so tightly I thought his teeth might shatter. The terrified whispers of the maids and the heavy footsteps of his Soldiers faded into the background, drowned out by the violent, rhythmic thud of his heart against my cheek.

He kicked open the heavy oak doors to his master bedroom—my gilded cage. The air inside was thick with the scent of expensive bourbon, cedarwood, and now, the sharp, metallic tang of my own blood.

He laid me down on the massive four-poster bed with a gentleness that completely contradicted the lethal storm raging in his dark eyes. Without a word, he turned to a silver medical kit resting on a mahogany side table.

I watched his broad back as he retrieved antiseptic and gauze. My arm throbbed, but my mind was razor-sharp. I needed to know where I stood. I didn't want a blind protector who thought I was a fragile little bird. I needed a monster who saw my darkness and chose to stand in it with me.

As he leaned over me, the silver cap of the antiseptic bottle in his hand, I reached out with my uninjured right hand and wrapped my fingers around his wrist.

His muscles turned to stone beneath my touch. He froze, his gaze snapping up to meet mine.

I held his stare, my voice calm and chillingly steady. "You know the truth, don't you, Damien? Or at least Marco does. You know she never stood a chance of hurting me. So why did you play along?"

The temperature in the room plummeted. The frantic worry in his eyes vanished, replaced by a terrifying, bottomless abyss of pure possession. He didn't pull his arm away. Instead, he leaned closer, his face inches from mine, his presence suffocatingly dominant.

"What Marco thinks is irrelevant," he murmured, his voice a dark, gravelly rasp that vibrated against my skin. "What I saw was your blood. The only thing that matters is that no one touches what is mine and lives. Not even you."

The sheer, unapologetic madness of his vow hit me like a physical blow. He knew. He knew I was a liar, a manipulator who had just orchestrated her own sister's doom, and he didn't care. His loyalty wasn't to the truth; it was to me. A shiver of absolute, terrifying relief washed over me. I slowly released his wrist, silently surrendering to his care.

Damien uncapped the bottle and began to clean the wound. For a man whose hands were forged for breaking bones and pulling triggers, his touch was agonizingly tender. He focused entirely on the jagged cut, his dark brows drawn together in deep concentration.

As his fingers brushed against my skin to wrap the white gauze, my eyes caught on a thick, jagged white scar slashing across the back of his right hand. It was an old knife wound, brutal and deep.

The tension of our power play had dissolved into something entirely different—something quiet, heavy, and dangerously intimate. Driven by an impulse I couldn't name, I lifted my uninjured hand. With the lightest touch, I traced the raised white flesh of his scar with my fingertips.

"How did you get this?" I asked softly.

Damien’s entire body went rigid. It was as if my gentle touch had burned him worse than any fire. He stopped wrapping the bandage and slowly lifted his head. He looked at me, his dark eyes swirling with a complex, guarded emotion that I couldn't decipher. He was a man who wore his violence like armor, completely unaccustomed to being touched without a motive.

He didn't answer. He just stared at me for a long, breathless moment before lowering his gaze back to my arm, securing the end of the bandage with meticulous care.

The silence between us was no longer cold; it was thick with unspoken words and a fragile, terrifying bond.

Before either of us could pull away from the gravity of the moment, three sharp, demanding knocks echoed against the heavy oak door.

Isabella POV

The three sharp knocks shattered the fragile, heavy silence between us.

Damien’s jaw instantly locked. The agonizingly tender vulnerability in his dark eyes vanished, replaced by the cold, impenetrable mask of the *Don*. He didn't pull away immediately; his thumb brushed over my uninjured skin one last time, a silent promise, before he straightened his imposing frame.

"Enter," he commanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.

The heavy oak door swung open, and Marco stepped into the bedroom. The *Consigliere*’s sharp eyes immediately took in the bloody gauze, the open medical kit, and the undeniable, suffocating tension lingering in the air. He didn't look at me with pity. He looked at me like I was a loaded gun pointed at his boss's head.

I sat up, pulling my torn sleeve over my freshly bandaged arm. I needed to strike while the iron was hot. I couldn't stay hidden in this gilded cage forever.

"Damien," I said, my voice steady, cutting through the room's heavy atmosphere. "I need to return to my father's estate."

The temperature in the room plummeted to freezing. Marco didn't even let Damien process the words.

"So, the performance is over?" Marco’s voice was devoid of emotion, a surgical strike aimed directly at my throat. He stepped closer, his gaze pinning me down. "A perfect act, Miss Valeriano. Slice your own arm, play the victim, manipulate the *Don*'s protective instincts, and now you ask to leave?"

Marco sneered, the disgust palpable. "You really think you can play the *Don* of Chicago and walk out of here without a scratch, right back to that assistant DA who fetches coffee? You must be blind to trade a pearl for a fish eye."

"Marco."

Damien’s voice wasn't a shout; it was a death sentence. The sheer killing intent rolling off him made the air hard to breathe. He stepped between me and his *Consigliere*, his hand instinctively dropping toward the holster at his waist. "Choose your next words carefully, or you won't have a tongue to speak them."

Marco didn't flinch. He lowered his head slightly in submission to his *Don*, but his eyes remained fiercely defiant. "My loyalty is to you, Damien. I won't stand by and watch her use you just to run back to Julian Hayes."

I stood up. My legs were slightly shaky, but my spine was forged of steel. I stepped around Damien, placing myself directly in Marco's line of sight. I didn't need a shield. I needed an army.

"You're right about one thing, Marco," I said, the icy calm in my voice surprising even me. "I was blind. That's exactly why I chose the fish eye in the past."

Both men froze. I held Marco's gaze, letting him see the absolute, cold ruin inside me.

"I am not running back to Julian, and I am not fleeing," I continued, my words sharp and deliberate. "I am going back to the Valeriano estate because my father, Senator Alistair Valeriano, built his entire pathetic empire on my mother's blood and the Bellini family name."

The words tasted like ash and iron, but I forced them out. "He took her wealth, her status, and repaid her by breeding a bastard daughter with his whore. He hid them away while he drained my mother's accounts. And now, he plans to bring Mona into the house and hand her everything that rightfully belongs to me."

I looked at Damien, then back to Marco. "I am going back to rip my mother's legacy from his greedy hands. I am going to make him pay for his betrayal. This isn't an escape." I lifted my chin, embracing the darkness of their world. "This is a *Vendetta*."

The silence that followed was deafening. Marco’s hostile posture slowly dissolved. The suspicion in his eyes fractured, replaced by a dark, profound understanding. In the mafia, blood and vengeance were the only true currencies, and I had just laid mine on the table.

"Alistair is scum," Marco finally spat, the insult now directed entirely at my father. He looked at me, really looked at me, seeing not a fragile pawn, but a woman forged in the same ruthless fire as them.

Marco let out a heavy breath, his stance shifting from an enemy to a strategist. "But walking back into that house alone... it's a suicide mission. You are walking into a viper's nest. And if you leave this estate..."

Marco glanced at Damien, the unspoken concern hanging heavily between them. Damien's eyes were fixed on me, a terrifying storm of pride and possessive fury brewing in their dark depths. He was a man who locked his treasures away, and I was asking him to open the cage.