The dinner ended.

“Chiara, you’re coming too,” Vincenzo’s voice called from the top of the stairs.

I looked up. He was helping Katerina into her coat, his movements gentle in a way they never were with me. It was like swallowing acid.

“Of course,” he looked at me, his eyes like ice. “You’re my best intel specialist. Time to get familiar with your new boss.”

The armored car was waiting outside.

I instinctively moved toward the front passenger seat. A single look from Vincenzo stopped me.

“In the back,” he said.

Katerina took his arm and slid into the spacious middle row.

I was stuffed into the corner of the back row. An afterthought.

The car pulled away into the Chicago night.

The first bullet shattered the windshield without warning.

“Get down!” Marco yelled, wrenching the steering wheel.

Gunfire erupted from all sides, bullets hammering the car like hail.

“Shit!” Vincenzo pulled his gun. “It’s the Torrino family!”

I drew my Glock and fired back through the rear window. Katerina screamed and curled up in Vincenzo’s arms. He returned fire while shielding her with his body.

“It’s okay, baby, I’m here.”

The back tires blew out. The car spun out of control, heading for a wall.

Then I saw him. A hitter in a side tunnel, raising an RPG to his shoulder.

“Rocket!” I screamed.

Time slowed down.

The rocket streaked toward us, trailing fire.

In that split second, Vincenzo made his choice.

He grabbed Katerina, pulling her under him, using his back as a shield.

Then, he lifted his foot.

And with all his strength, he kicked. Not at the enemy. At me.

His boot connected with the door beside me, and the force launched me from the car. I hit the asphalt and tumbled, the world a blur of pain and concrete.

“No—”

BOOM.

A fireball swallowed everything behind me.

The heatwave threw me against the tunnel wall.

Shards of glass and metal rained down, cutting my skin.

I felt the sharp pain of broken ribs. Warm blood ran from my forehead, blurring my vision.

My last conscious thought before the darkness took me: I saw him crawl from the wreckage, Katerina clutched safely in his arms.

His suit was torn, but his eyes were sharp.

He gently stroked her hair, murmuring to her, then ran with her toward safety.

He didn’t even glance back. He never looked back.

I lay on the cold ground, listening to the crackle of fire eating metal.

Then the darkness took me.

When I opened my eyes, I was in the family’s secret medical wing.

“You’re awake,” old Dr. Castellano said, checking my pupils. “You’re lucky. Marco dragged you back from the blast right before it went up.”

“Vincenzo?” My voice was a rasp.

“The Boss is with Miss Katerina,” the doctor said, pausing. “She was badly shaken.”

I let out a silent, bitter laugh. Shaken.

“Doctor, turn on the monitor.”

The screen on the wall flickered on, showing feeds from all over the estate. I switched to Katerina’s room.

She was in a white silk nightgown, propped weakly against the pillows.

Vincenzo was sitting on the edge of the bed, feeding her soup, spoon by spoon. His movements were so gentle, like he was handling a priceless treasure.

“I almost lost you,” his voice trembled with fear. “I can’t live without you, Katerina.”

“I know. You saved me,” she whispered, touching his face. “You’re my hero.”

Then, Vincenzo pulled a velvet box from his pocket.

My heart stopped beating.

He got down on one knee. He opened the box. Inside was a massive diamond ring.

I recognized it. The ring passed down to the matriarch of the Russo family.

“Marry me,” he said, looking up at her, his eyes full of devotion. “Not for the family. Not for the alliance. Just because… I love you.”

Katerina burst into happy tears. “Yes! Of course, I will!”

He slid the ring onto her finger and kissed her hand.

I stared at the screen until it dissolved into static.

So, he knew how to say the words.

He just never said them to me.

Three days later, my door opened.

Vincenzo walked in, Katerina on his arm.

She wore a white Chanel suit. The family ring on her left hand glittered, stabbing at my eyes.

“Chiara,” Vincenzo’s voice was flat. “How are you feeling?”

“Still breathing,” I said, my voice like gravel. “Disappointed?”

Katerina walked to my bedside, her face a mask of fake concern. “I’ve been wanting to see you. I heard you were badly hurt protecting us. You’re so brave.”

Protecting you.

What a fucking joke.

“Just doing my job.”

“Your loyalty is very touching,” Katerina said. Her gaze dropped to the open collar of my hospital gown, zeroing in on the small phoenix tattoo just below my collarbone.

We got it after our first firefight together. Our first secret.

A flash of jealousy crossed her eyes. She turned to Vincenzo, her voice sickly sweet. “Darling, Chiara’s tattoo is so unique. But… I don’t really like it. It reminds me you have a past I don’t know about. It makes me feel… insecure.”

Vincenzo went still.

He was silent for a few seconds. Then he took out his phone and dialed Marco.

“Get Tony over to the hospital with his kit. Now.”

My blood ran cold. Tony was the family’s tattoo artist.

No. He wouldn’t…

Twenty minutes later, Tony Marcelli walked in, carrying a black case.

He saw me in the bed, then looked at Vincenzo, confused.

“Boss, you sure… you want to do this here?”

I thought he was here to erase mine. To strip me of our last secret. But I was wrong. It was so much worse. Vincenzo took off his own shirt.

The scars on his chest were suddenly blinding.

The ones I traced with my fingers after we made love. The marks of our life together.

The one on his left pec, from three years ago at the docks. I’d shoved him out of the way and took Tony the Butcher’s knife for him. He held me, covered in blood, and lost control for the first time, his eyes shot with red as he screamed my name. He’d said, "Chiara, you're mine. No one touches you."

The bullet graze on the right, from five years ago in Milan. We were cornered. I used a fake ID to talk us past the cops and get us out. He kissed my wounds and called me his goddess of victory.

And now he was going to erase it all.

“Right here,” Vincenzo said, revealing the much more intricate phoenix on his chest.

The one I designed for him when I was nineteen. One of a kind.

He pointed to the phoenix and gave Tony his order.

“Cover it. With the Russian double-headed eagle.”

“Boss!” Tony’s voice was tight. “Are you sure? A cover-up that big... it’s gonna hurt like hell. And it’s going to scar like a motherfucker.”

“Do as I say,” Vincenzo’s tone left no room for argument.

I struggled to sit up. “Vincenzo, you don’t have to—”

“Shut up.” He didn’t even look at me. His eyes were ice. “This has nothing to do with you.”

The buzz of the needle was sharp in the quiet room.

Blood seeped out, mixing with ink, a smear of red before my eyes.

I watched the phoenix I designed, the symbol of our past, get tortured, consumed, and swallowed whole by the eagle that stood for his alliance, his new woman.

Vincenzo gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead, but he didn’t make a sound.

His eyes never left Katerina.

“Does it hurt?” Katerina asked, dabbing his sweat with a handkerchief.

“No,” he gritted out, his voice rough. He never took his eyes off her. “For you, nothing hurts.”

Two hours later, it was done.

Vincenzo’s chest was a mess of blood and raw flesh, but the snarling Russian eagle had completely replaced the phoenix.

My phoenix was gone.

“Perfect,” Katerina purred, kissing his bloody chest. “Now, inside and out, you belong only to me.”

Vincenzo looked at the strange, bloody symbol in the mirror. He gave Katerina a weak but satisfied smile.

“Yes,” he said, but his eyes found mine in the reflection.

“Now, I’m only yours.”

The next morning, my burner phone rang. It was Vincenzo.

“Viktor’s workshop,” he commanded, his voice empty of emotion. “One hour. Katerina needs a new piece. You’re designing it.”

“I refuse.”

“This isn’t a request, Chiara. Don’t make me have my men ‘ask’ you again.”

He hung up.

An hour later, I was in the basement of the abandoned factory.

Vincenzo and Katerina were already there.

“Viktor,” Vincenzo said to the workshop’s owner, a legendary Russian weaponsmith. “This is Chiara. The best art forger in Chicago, and the best weapons expert. I need her to create a one-of-a-kind sidearm for Katerina.”

Viktor’s eyes lit up. “Art and arms! I like it!”

He led us to a workbench covered in black velvet, laid out with rare metals and gems.

Vincenzo came to my side. His voice was a low whisper, just for me. “I want you to build her the perfect gun. Use the same specs as my Glock. The one you built for my hand.”

My breath caught.

“I know you remember every detail,” he went on, his voice cold. “The 7-degree cant on the grip, the 2mm trigger pull, the platinum front sight that catches the faintest light in the dark. Replicate all of it. For her.”

I understood.

He wanted me to cut open our past, take the trust and blood we’d built, and gift-wrap it for another woman.

It was a hundred times crueler than another tattoo.

“Chiara?” Katerina came over, her voice sweet and innocent. “Can you help me? I’ve always wanted a gun engraved with my and Vincenzo’s initials. Wouldn’t that be the most romantic token of our love?”

I looked at her innocent smile, at Vincenzo’s unyielding stare. I forced a smile of my own.

“Of course.”

I picked up the stylus, but my hand was shaking.

I drew the streamlined frame, the perfect balance, every detail that had once been ours.

My hand was drawing, but my heart was bleeding.

“Brilliant!” Viktor admired the blueprint. “This is a work of art!”

“How long?” Vincenzo asked.

“Three weeks,” Viktor replied. “If Miss Chiara is willing to oversee the production.”

Oversee it. Watch another woman hold a “love token” made from my past with him.

“No.”

I stood up abruptly, my voice hoarse.

Everyone stared at me.

I took the design I’d just finished, and in front of everyone, I tore it to shreds.

“I don’t build fucking love tokens for your new whore!” I threw the pieces on the floor, releasing a rage that had been building for what felt like an eternity.

Vincenzo’s eyes turned dangerous. “Chiara—”

I turned to leave.

“If you walk out that door,” his voice was a threat, “don’t force me to use the family’s rules on you. You know what happens to traitors.”

I looked back at him, my eyes cold. “Then try me.”

I walked out without another glance, Katerina’s terrified scream and Vincenzo’s roar of anger chasing after me.

Back at my safe house, a gold-embossed invitation was waiting at the door.

“You are cordially invited to the engagement party of Mr. Vincenzo Russo and Miss Katerina Petrov.”

I stared at the beautiful card, imagining them picking it out together.

Then my phone buzzed. A photo from Marco.

Vincenzo was at my favorite private shooting range, coaching Katerina.

In her hands was the custom SIG Sauer P226 that used to be my favorite.

I flicked open my lighter and held the flame to the corner of the invitation.

I watched it burn. Watched their names turn to black ash, and with them, the last shred of hope I had.

I dialed my father’s encrypted number.

“Papa.”

“Is it time?”

I watched the invitation turn to ash. My voice was ice.

“It’s time. We do it tonight.”