Kapitel 2

Nina Romano POV

I sat at the kitchen table, my gaze fixed on the wall calendar.

Red circles marred the white paper like fresh wounds—marking social obligations, charity galas, and mandatory family dinners.

But my eyes refused to move past a date from five weeks ago.

*“Business trip to New Jersey,”* it read in Dante’s sharp, aggressive handwriting.

A smuggling operation, he had told me.

A delivery he had to oversee personally.

I laughed softly, a dry, humorless sound that scraped against the silence of the empty house.

There was no delivery.

There was only a clinic, a test tube, and Isobel De Luca spreading her legs for the future that was supposed to belong to me.

I didn’t feel betrayed.

I felt stupid.

I had sutured his flesh, guarded his darkest secrets, and bent my entire life to fit the jagged edges of his schedule.

I had turned down offers from prestigious hospitals just to stay here, wading through this blood-soaked pit, simply to be near him.

My phone lay on the table.

The screen lit up, cutting through the dim light.

An email from Dr. Rossi in Milan.

No relation to the crime family—merely a serendipitous echo of a surname.

He had offered me a position on his research team six months ago.

I had declined.

*“I’m getting married,”* I had written back.

I tapped the email and dialed the number listed in the signature.

It was late in Milan, but he picked up after the second ring.

“Dr. Romano?” His voice was thick with surprise. “Is everything alright?”

“Is the position still open?” I asked.

No greeting.

No small talk.

There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line.

“Nina, we haven’t filled the spot yet, but… your wedding?”

“My plans have changed,” I said.

I looked through the glass door to the balcony, where Dante was smoking a cigar, his back turned to me.

He looked like a god of war, untouchable and steeped in arrogance.

“I need a fresh start, Tim. As far away as possible.”

“We can have you here in two weeks,” Tim said. His voice was gentle, devoid of the razor-sharp hardness I had grown accustomed to. “I’ll handle the paperwork. It’s a classified program, Nina. Once you’re here, you are practically invisible to the rest of the world.”

Invisible.

That was exactly what I wanted to be.

“I accept,” I said.

I hung up.

Standing, I walked over to the calendar and picked up a black marker.

June 20th.

Our wedding day.

I didn’t draw a heart around it.

I didn’t cross it out.

I wrote a small, almost imperceptible “E” in the corner.

Extraction.

Like a bullet lodged deep in the meat, requiring removal before sepsis could rot me from the inside out.

Dante entered, the stench of tobacco and cold night air clinging to his suit.

He saw me standing by the calendar.

“Counting the days?” he asked, a ghost of that charming smile playing on his lips—the smile that used to make my knees weak.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m counting every single one.”

He moved closer, his hands settling heavily on my waist.

He pulled me against him, his body hard and familiar.

“It’s going to be a grand wedding, Nina. The family needs this.”

He spoke of the Family as if it were a deity we were both required to worship.

“I know,” I whispered, leaning my head against his chest so he couldn’t see my eyes.

I listened to his heartbeat.

Calm.

Steady.

It was the heart of a man who believed he held the world in a chokehold.

He had no idea that the woman in his arms had already become a ghost.