Isabella POV

The deafening silence in my bedroom was suffocating. My brother, Julian, stared at me as if I had just held a loaded gun to his head. He lunged forward, slamming the heavy bedroom door shut.

"Have you lost your mind?" Julian’s voice trembled with a chilling terror I had never heard from him before. "You stabbed him with a letter opener, Isabella! He didn't send his Enforcers; he chose to decimate half our shipping routes as a warning. Now you want a divorce? That is a public betrayal to the Don and the entire Moretti family. What do you think he’ll do? Burn this estate to the ground, or put us all in coffins?"

The fire in my chest turned to ice. My brother's words were a brutal bucket of cold water. My defiance couldn't be bought with my family's blood. I forced my stiff hands to uncurl.

"I... I was just overwhelmed," I lied, my voice dropping to a low, calculated whisper. "Being locked in that wing... I lost my temper. I didn't mean it."

Julian exhaled a shaky breath, the immediate panic subsiding. He studied my pale face, his brow furrowed in deep confusion. "Bella, I've never seen you like this. Before, whenever you talked about him, there was hope. Or at least anger. Now... your eyes are just dead. It's just ice."

I stiffened. I couldn't tell him the truth. I couldn't expose him to the darkness of the Moretti estate. "This was a business deal, Julian," I said, my tone entirely detached. "And I'm terminating the contract."

Julian shook his head, frustrated by my coldness, and walked out, leaving a chasm between us.

*

Later that night, the scalding water of the shower did nothing to wash away the phantom weight of Damien's hands. I stepped out, wiping the thick steam from the mirror.

My breath hitched. There, blooming across my collarbone and shoulder, were the dark, possessive bruises from last night’s confrontation. A brand. Proof of his unyielding claim, binding me to the mafia's archaic laws.

Sofia stepped into the bathroom holding a plush towel. She froze, her eyes dropping to the marks. A soft gasp escaped her lips, her eyes flashing with sudden, heartbreaking realization.

"Not a word, Sofia," I commanded softly.

Staring at the bruises, a dangerous realization settled over me. I couldn't walk away. Julian was right; Damien's pride wouldn't allow it. But what if the ruthless, possessive Don was the one to break the bond? I had to make him despise me enough to throw me away.

*

Damien POV

The heavy oak doors of my penthouse office flew open. Julian Sterling marched in, his face flushed with misplaced righteous anger.

I didn't bother looking up from the shipping manifests on my desk.

"Whatever you did to her, it ends now," Julian demanded, slamming his hands on my desk. "Leave Bella alone. Let her go."

I finally raised my eyes, letting the cold, dead silence of the room press down on him until he shifted uncomfortably.

"'Let her go'?" I repeated, the corner of my mouth twitching with dark amusement. "Mr. Sterling, your sister leveraged your entire company just to become a Moretti. Are you entirely sure this sudden departure is her wish, or simply her newest trick?"

Julian’s jaw tightened. "You arrogant son of a—"

"Countess De Luca is hosting a charity gala next week," I interrupted, my voice dropping to a lethal, quiet register that made him freeze. "Tell Isabella that as my wife, I expect to see her there."

Julian glared at me, but he lacked the spine to push further. He turned and stormed out of my office.

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the empty doorway. Isabella thought she could use her naive brother as a pawn to provoke me. She wanted my attention. I would give it to her, and remind everyone exactly who she belonged to.

Isabella POV

The Sterling Estate's solarium was supposed to be my sanctuary. Sunlight poured through the soaring glass dome, warming the humid air that was thick with the scent of damp earth and blooming orchids. For the first time in days, a genuine smile graced my lips as I guided seven-year-old Chloe Hayes's small hands around a brass watering can.

"Like this, Bella?" Chloe asked, her bright eyes looking up at me.

"Perfect," I murmured. Nate Hayes stood beside us, his relaxed posture a stark contrast to the suffocating tension I'd left behind at the Moretti estate. Julian and his friend, Gio Rossi, lounged on the rattan sofas nearby. I needed this. I needed to project to the world—and to any of Damien's watching eyes—that I was unbothered, that his archaic mafia rules couldn't break me.

Then, the temperature in the room plummeted.

Damien Moretti stepped into the glass conservatory like a storm cloud swallowing the sun. Rocco Gallo, his massive Enforcer, flanked him like a lethal shadow. Silence instantly strangled the room.

Gio, ever the oblivious fool trying to impress a Don, let out a low whistle. "Careful, Nate. If you look at another man's wife like that, you might lose a hand. Though for a beauty like Bella, maybe it's worth the risk."

Nate paled instantly, his jaw clenching. I didn't look at Damien. Instead, I fixed Gio with a dead, icy stare. "Don't mistake a functioning circulatory system for genuine emotion, Gio. It's a common mistake for men like you."

Gio choked on his next breath, his face flushing a deep, humiliated red.

Damien didn't say a word. His eyes, cold as a Siberian winter, were locked onto Nate. The unspoken threat radiating from my husband was so thick it was hard to breathe. He despised the intimacy of Nate calling me 'Bella'. Julian, finally reading the lethal shift in the room, abruptly stood.

"Nate, why don't you and Chloe come see the new horses? Gio, you too," Julian ordered, his voice tight. Within seconds, they practically fled the solarium, leaving me alone with the devil.

Damien stalked toward me, his presence a suffocating weight. I tried to step back, but he boxed me in against the wrought-iron plant stands. His dark gaze dropped to the V-neck of my cashmere sweater, locking onto the fading, purple bruises marring my collarbone.

"Still wearing my mark, I see," he murmured, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated in my chest. "Or have you been careless enough to let some other man touch what's mine?"

The sheer arrogance of his words ignited a blinding fury within me. "You mean the brand you left the night you dragged me out of the West Wing?" I spat back, lifting my chin to meet his lethal glare. "Don't pretend it meant anything more."

A muscle feathered in his jaw. His eyes darkened with a rage so absolute it made my pulse hammer against my ribs. This was my chance. I had to push him over the edge.

"If my presence disgusts you so much, Damien, then end it," I said, my voice ringing with a desperate finality. "The contract died with my father. Break it. I will sign anything."

Instead of the disgust I hoped for, a terrifying, possessive fire flared in his eyes. He didn't believe me. He thought this was just another move on a chessboard. He lunged, his large hand wrapping around my wrist like a steel vice.

"You started this game, Isabella," he whispered, his breath brushing my ear, sending a violent shiver down my spine. "And a Moretti always finishes what they start. The only way you leave this family is in a coffin."

He released me so abruptly I stumbled, turning on his heel and striding out of the solarium without looking back.

I stood trembling among the orchids, my wrist burning from his grip. *In a coffin.* The words echoed in my mind, a definitive death sentence. I pressed a shaking hand to my flat stomach. If I were to carry his heir, that coffin would be sealed forever, binding my blood to his darkness. I had to make sure that never happened, no matter the cost.

Isabella POV

The phantom grip of Damien’s hand still burned my wrist the next afternoon. *In a coffin.* His promise echoed in my skull as Sofia parked the nondescript sedan on a grimy street in Chicago’s Polish Village.

"Wait here," I told Sofia, pulling a silk scarf over my hair to obscure my face. She gave me a grim, understanding nod. She knew the stakes. She had seen the fresh, angry marks Damien had left on my skin last night—the first time he’d claimed his 'marital rights' since dragging me out of the West Wing.

Kowalski's Apothecary was a claustrophobic relic. The air inside was thick with the suffocating scent of dried herbs and harsh antiseptic. An elderly Polish pharmacist eyed me suspiciously from behind the wooden counter, his hands resting on a ledger.

"How soon can a pregnancy be detected?" I asked, keeping my voice low and steady.

"A month, at least," he rasped, his eyes narrowing.

I took a shaky breath, my hands curling into fists inside my coat pockets. "Then I need the strongest emergency contraceptive you have. Now."

His eyes widened, and he immediately shook his head. "No. It is against God's will, *Proszę pani* (Madam). It is poison to the body."

I stepped closer to the counter, my voice trembling but laced with absolute steel. "And is it not a greater cruelty to bring an unwanted child into a world of darkness and violence? To condemn an innocent to a life they cannot escape?"

Silence stretched between us, heavy and fraught. He searched my eyes, perhaps seeing the sheer, unadulterated desperation of a woman backed into a lethal corner. Finally, with a heavy sigh, he disappeared into the back room. He returned a moment later with an unlabeled brown glass bottle.

"One dose. Take it immediately," he warned.

I slid a thick envelope of cash across the counter—enough to buy his permanent silence—and hurried back out to the car, clutching the small bottle like a lifeline. It was my only weapon against the Moretti bloodline.

*

Damien POV

The lights of Chicago glittered like shattered glass beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of my penthouse office. I stared at the city, the amber liquid in my crystal glass untouched. The air in the room was freezing, matching the ice in my veins.

"Report," I commanded without turning around.

Rocco Gallo’s heavy footsteps stopped at the edge of my mahogany desk. "She visited Kowalski's Apothecary in the Polish Village this afternoon, Boss. I stayed in the alley across the street to avoid spooking her, but I sent a low-level associate inside after she left."

I turned, my jaw clenching. "And?"

"The clerk talked. Said a high-class lady was asking questions about pregnancy."

The word hit the air like a gunshot. *Pregnancy.*

The crystal glass in my hand cracked under the sudden, violent pressure of my grip. A dark, suffocating fury clawed its way up my throat. Last night, after I had finally broken the year-long wall between us in a fit of possessive rage, she had looked me dead in the eye and begged for a divorce. She had played the desperate, abused captive flawlessly, demanding I break the contract.

It was all a smokescreen.

She wasn't trying to escape. She was checking if our encounter had successfully secured the ultimate leverage. An heir. She thought she could use my own blood to trap me, to make herself an untouchable queen in my empire while pretending to be disgusted by my touch. The sheer, calculated audacity of her manipulation made my blood run cold.

"Sir?" Rocco prompted, sensing the lethal shift in the room.

I set the fractured glass down on the desk. The contempt I felt for my wife in this moment was absolute. She wanted to play games with the Moretti legacy. She wanted a war.

"Call Marco and the others," I said, my voice dropping to a deadly calm. "Tell them we are attending Countess De Luca's charity gala tonight. And make sure my wife is dressed for the occasion."