PART 2

“Luca… please don’t let them bury me here.”

The call ended.

For one second, nobody breathed.

The kitchen around Luca seemed to tilt out of place—the broken ceramic on the floor, the rain sliding down the dark windows, the old family photographs on the walls where Isabella smiled as a child with a ribbon in her hair and sunlight on her face.

Then Luca moved.

Not like a man in panic.

Like a weapon finally given direction.

“Trace it.”

Declan was already on the phone. “Signal bounced through three towers. East side. Industrial district.”

Luca turned slowly, his face emptied of everything human except fury. “How long?”

“Ten minutes to narrow it. Maybe less.”

“You have five.”

Declan did not argue.

Nobody did.

Luca walked to the kitchen table and picked up the note again.

You left her alone.

He read it until the words blurred.

Whoever had taken Isabella did not simply want money. They wanted punishment. They wanted him to hear her voice break. They wanted him to remember every cold word, every locked door, every night he had chosen pride over his wife.

And he did remember.

He remembered Isabella at breakfast three months ago, sitting across from him with untouched coffee, asking quietly, “Do you ever look at me and still see me?”

He had not answered.

He remembered her birthday dinner, when she waited in a black dress by the window until midnight while he sat in a meeting he could have left.

He remembered the last time she tried to touch his hand in public, and he had pulled away because enemies were watching.

Enemies were always watching.

But tonight, they had not watched him.

They had watched her.

Luca’s phone rang.

Declan looked up. “We have a location.”

“Where?”

“Old East River Cemetery.”

Silence spread like ice.

One of the younger guards swallowed. “That place has been abandoned for years.”

Luca’s eyes darkened.

Bury me here.

He left the kitchen without another word.

Outside, the rain was brutal. It soaked through his coat before he reached the SUV, but he didn’t feel it. Declan climbed into the passenger seat. Three cars followed behind them, engines roaring through the storm.

Luca stared ahead through the windshield.

Every red light turned green before they reached it.

Every road cleared.

The city knew when Luca Rossi was hunting.

But for the first time in his life, he was not hunting for power, territory, or revenge.

He was hunting for the woman who had loved him long after he stopped deserving it.

May you like

His phone buzzed again.

Unknown number.

Declan looked at him. Luca answered.

The man’s voice returned, smooth and unhurried. “You’re driving too fast.”

Luca did not blink. “Then move faster when I find you.”

A soft laugh. “Still making threats. Still pretending control belongs to you.”

Luca’s hand tightened around the phone. “Where is my wife?”

“Close enough to hear the rain. Far enough that your men won’t save her in time.”

Luca’s blood turned cold.

From somewhere behind the voice came a faint sound.

Water dripping.

Then Isabella’s breathing.

Weak. Frightened.

Alive.

“Isabella,” Luca said, and his voice changed.

The men in the SUV had never heard him speak that way before.

Not as a boss.

Not as a king.

As a husband.

A scrape sounded through the phone, then Isabella whispered, “Luca?”

“I’m coming.”

“You shouldn’t have,” she breathed.

His chest clenched. “Don’t say that.”

“They know everything.”

“Who?”

A pause.

Then her voice dropped lower, trembling. “They know about the ledger.”

Declan’s head snapped toward Luca.

For the first time that night, Luca’s expression cracked.

The ledger.

Only four people in the world knew about it.

Luca. Declan. His father before he died.

And Isabella.

Years ago, when their marriage still had laughter in it, Luca had told Isabella where the Rossi family’s most dangerous records were hidden. Not because she asked. Because one night, half-drunk on wine and arrogance, he had said, “If anything ever happens to me, you burn it before anyone finds it.”