The first time I touched Alessandro Moretti, I was trying to stop him from smashing a crystal glass into another man’s face.

The world ceased to spin.

“Where is he?” I gasped, my voice barely a thread of sound. “Where is Marco?”

Alessandro leaned closer, his expression darkening into pure fury as he signaled Vincent to patch the car’s audio surveillance into the call.

“He’s resting,” Dante Varga drawled, the static on the line cutting in and out. “A bit pale, of course. That thallium regimen works miracles when you want someone compliant. But don’t worry, darling—I have the antidote right here in my pocket. One single injection, and dear little Marco makes a full recovery within forty-eight hours.”

“What do you want?” I cried, tears spilling hot down my cheeks.

“I want what Alessandro keeps in the floor safe of his study,” Varga replied smoothly. “The black external drive labeled *Aegis-7*. It contains every customs manifest, every off-shore routing code, and every political payoff the Moretti family has made in the last ten years. Bring it to the abandoned freight yard on 47th Street by midnight. Come alone.”

“I don’t know where that is! I can’t get into his safe!”

“Then I suggest you learn how to pick locks, Isabella. Because if I see Vincent Gallo, if I see Alessandro, or if I see a single flashing siren within two miles of this railyard... I’ll inject the second dose of poison directly into your brother’s carotid artery. You have ninety minutes.”

The line went dead.

Silence enveloped the armored Suburban, suffocating and thick.

I dropped the phone to the floor mats and buried my face in my hands, hyperventilating. “He has him. Marco was never sick... he was dying because of Varga. And now he’s going to die tonight.”

“He won’t,” Alessandro said. His voice was steady, but there was an edge to it that could have cut glass.

I snapped my head up, my grief turning instantly to burning rage. “He wants your ledger, Alessandro! He wants your life's work! Are you going to give it to him? Or is your empire worth more than my brother’s life?”

Alessandro didn't flinch under my accusation. He reached out, his hand surprisingly gentle as he wiped a tear from my cheek. His thumb lingered against my skin for a fleeting second before he pulled back.

“The *Aegis-7* drive contains enough evidence to send me to federal prison for three lifetimes,” he said quietly. “It would dismantle everything my grandfather built.”

“So Marco dies,” I whispered in despair.

“No,” Alessandro said, meeting my gaze with unflinching intensity. “We give him the drive.”

Vincent slammed his foot on the brake, turning fully in the passenger seat. “Boss, are you insane? If Varga gets that drive, he hands it to the Department of Justice tomorrow morning! It’s suicide!”

“The drive is encrypted with a dual-key biometric algorithm,” Alessandro said calmly. “Varga’s technicians won't be able to bypass the second layer without forty-eight hours of brute-force decryption. That gives us forty-eight hours to burn Dante Varga off the face of this city.”

He turned back to me. “We go to the penthouse. We retrieve the drive. But you are not walking into that freight yard alone.”

“He said alone!” I shouted. “If he sees you, he kills Marco!”

“He won't see me,” Alessandro replied, his jaw hardening. “You will wear a wire. Vincent will take the southern perimeter with our tactical detail. I will be inside the warehouse before you even cross the tracks. Trust me, Isabella.”

“Why should I trust you?” My voice broke. “You dragged me into this hell!”

Alessandro leaned in, his dark eyes boring into mine with an honesty that terrified me. “Because I promised your mother twenty years ago that no harm would come to her children. And I have never broken a promise in my life.”

My breath caught in my throat. “You knew my mother?”

Before he could answer, Vincent called out from the front. “Boss! Security cameras at the penthouse just tripped. Motion sensors in the private corridor.”

Alessandro’s eyes snapped to the dash monitor. The live feed of his penthouse study displayed two armed men in black tactical gear systematically tearing apart his mahogany bookshelves.