Chapter 1 - The Woman He Threw Away
Amelia Davis stood in the pouring rain with one hand pressed against her stomach after the man who had sworn to protect her shut her out of his life.
Gabriel Rossi had called her a liar, an informant, and a traitor.
He did not know she was carrying his child.
He also did not know that the blood inside her veins belonged to the deadliest criminal dynasty in Europe.
He would soon learn both truths.
Only hours earlier, the bathroom inside Gabriel’s penthouse at 432 Park Avenue had been a sanctuary of Carrara marble and silence, suspended eighty floors above the cold winds of a New York November.
Amelia sat on the edge of the oversized soaking tub and stared at the plastic pregnancy test resting on the counter.
Two unmistakable pink lines crossed its window.
She was pregnant.
A tremor moved through her hands as she placed them against her flat abdomen.
The child belonged to Gabriel Rossi, the undisputed head of the Rossi crime family.
For eight months, Amelia had played the role of a quiet, unassuming art appraiser who had caught the attention of the city’s most dangerous man through apparent chance. She allowed Gabriel to believe she was fragile—a civilian untouched by the violence surrounding him.
She let him protect and cherish her.
Against all her training and careful planning, she had also fallen deeply in love with him.
That night, Amelia intended to tell him the truth.
She would tell him about the child.
She would also tell him that Amelia Davis was not real.
Her true name was Serafina D’Agostino.
She was the sole surviving heir to the Sicilian D’Agostino organization, hidden in the United States after a violent coup destroyed most of her family ten years earlier.
The master-bedroom door struck the wall.
Amelia pushed the pregnancy test into the pocket of her silk robe and stepped out.
Gabriel stood in the center of the bedroom.
Rain covered his tailored suit, and his dark hair lay against his forehead.
His appearance was not what frightened her.
It was his eyes.
The warmth he reserved for Amelia had disappeared.
“Gabriel?”
She moved toward him.
He caught both wrists before she touched him.
“Do not touch me.”
He released her and threw a manila envelope onto the bed.
Photographs and financial statements scattered across the duvet.
Millions of dollars had supposedly been routed into shell corporations controlled by Victor Costello, Gabriel’s most dangerous rival.
Amelia’s signature appeared on the authorization forms.
Beside them were surveillance photographs showing a woman who looked remarkably like her meeting Thomas Hale, Costello’s chief enforcer.
“This is fabricated.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I have never met Thomas Hale.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“Costello has known every move I’ve made for three months.”
“And you think I told him?”
“Only three people knew about the Red Hook shipment.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“My brother. Lorenzo. And you.”
Amelia stared at him.
Lorenzo.
Something cold moved through her instincts.
“Then investigate Lorenzo.”
Gabriel’s expression darkened.
“He has been beside me for fifteen years.”
“And I have been beside you every night.”
“That apparently meant very little.”
The words cut deeper than she expected.
“I love you.”
“You love my money.”
Amelia went completely still.
The soft American persona she had maintained for years disappeared for a fraction of a second.
“You are making a fatal mistake.”
Something in her voice made Gabriel hesitate.
He had never heard Amelia speak like that.
Not like a frightened girlfriend.
Like a woman accustomed to being obeyed.
“Check your cameras,” she said. “Check every entrance. Last Tuesday, when those photographs were supposedly taken, I never left this building.”
“The recordings were erased.”
“Then whoever erased them framed me.”
Gabriel gave a humorless smile.
“Convenient.”
Amelia’s fingers touched the pregnancy test inside her robe.
One movement.
That was all it would take.
She could show him.
Instead Gabriel looked toward the closet.
“Pack.”
Her hand stopped.
“What?”
“You have five minutes.”
She stared at him.
“If you are still in this city at sunrise, I will consider you an enemy.”
The man she loved had already judged her.
Something inside Amelia broke quietly.
She could reveal everything.
Her real name.
Her bloodline.
Their child.
But if Gabriel could condemn her without giving her the investigation he would have given any soldier beneath his command, then he did not deserve either truth.
She turned away.
Inside the dressing room, Amelia ignored the diamonds and designer clothes Gabriel had bought her.
She packed jeans, sweaters, practical boots, and an old leather journal.
When she returned, Gabriel stood before the windows.
He did not look at her.
“I hope you find your traitor,” Amelia said.
Silence.
“When you realize it wasn’t me, don’t search for me.”
She left.
Outside, freezing rain struck Park Avenue.
Amelia pressed one hand against her abdomen.
“It’s only you and me now.”
Six weeks later, Gabriel Rossi’s empire was bleeding.
Amelia had begun calling herself Serafina again, at least inside her own mind.
She sat inside a deteriorating diner in Astoria, Queens, reading reports of another Rossi property burning in Brooklyn.
Three capos were dead.
Two warehouses were gone.
Victor Costello was dismantling Gabriel’s organization piece by piece.
And Serafina knew why.
Lorenzo Moretti.
Gabriel’s trusted consigliere.
She had traced the shell companies used to frame her back through four jurisdictions. The final corporation connected to an attorney whose only significant private client was Lorenzo.
Serafina closed the folder.
Her stomach had begun to show beneath oversized sweaters.
She should have walked away.
Instead, she had spent six weeks protecting a man who had threatened to kill her.
“Stupid,” she whispered.
A black SUV stopped outside.
Then another.
Then another.
Serafina’s hand slipped beneath the table.
Men entered.
Not Rossi men.
Costello.
Their leader smiled.
“Amelia Davis.”
Serafina rose slowly.
“You have the wrong woman.”
The man laughed.
“We know exactly who you are.”
Then his smile vanished.
“Mr. Costello wants Gabriel Rossi’s traitor brought in alive.”
Serafina almost smiled.
Even Costello believed the lie Lorenzo had created.
Two men approached her.
She moved first.
The coffee pot struck one man across the wrist. Serafina twisted beneath the second man’s arm, drove an elbow into his ribs, and sent him into the counter.
Everyone froze.
The fragile art appraiser was gone.
“Who the hell are you?” one whispered.
Serafina looked toward the rain outside.
“My father used to ask men that question.”
She reached into her coat and removed an old silver signet ring.
The D’Agostino crest caught the fluorescent light.
The oldest man in the group saw it.
His face drained white.
He stumbled backward.
“No.”
Serafina slipped the ring onto her finger.
The man dropped to his knees.
The others stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
He did not answer.
He was staring at Serafina’s face now—not as Amelia Davis, but as if he had finally recognized the eyes, the cheekbones, the unmistakable features of someone he had once known.
“Serafina?”
The diner became silent.
The man’s hands began shaking.
“Serafina D’Agostino?”
Behind him, another soldier went pale.
Then another.
One by one, armed men lowered their weapons.
Serafina rested a protective hand over her unborn child.
The oldest man bowed his head.
“Forgive us.”
She looked at him coldly.
“Tell Victor Costello something for me.”
The man swallowed.
“What?”
May you like
Serafina’s eyes hardened.
“The D’Agostinos are not dead.”
