"I spent 48 hours with my mistress in a secret penthouse—unaware my mob wife left her ring beside the gun I gave her."

I stood before the large wall safe hidden behind the oil painting in my dressing room.

When I punched in the six-digit master code, the heavy steel door clicked open. Inside sat two million dollars in emergency bearer bonds, three untraceable passports, and the legal deeds to my international properties in Como and Zurich.

Everything was untouched. Isabella hadn't taken a single dollar of my fortune. She hadn't taken a single deed.

She had taken only one thing from the bottom drawer: a small, faded wooden box that had belonged to her father before he died twenty years ago.

Inside that wooden box was a simple silver rosary, a photograph of her parents on their wedding day, and a small leather notebook where she used to press autumn leaves when we were twenty years old.

I sank onto the velvet bench near the closet, burying my face in my broad, calloused hands, letting out a dry, shuddering sob that tore through my chest like a jagged blade.

She hadn't just left my house. She had stripped herself of every piece of my world, keeping only the fragments of her life that existed before my name became a curse.

My phone vibrated against my hip.

I pulled it out frantically, my heart hammering against my ribs, hoping against hope that her number would flash across the screen.

It was Marco.

"Boss," Marco reported, his tone tight, disciplined, but laced with a sudden, sharp gravity. "We found the vehicle."

"Where?" I demanded, jumping to my feet.

"A private parking garage near the commercial docks in Red Hook, Brooklyn," Marco revealed. "A dark blue sedan registered to a shell company in Delaware. It was abandoned thirty-six hours ago."

"Did she take a boat?"

"We scrubbed the harbor manifests, Dante," Marco said softly. "A private, unflagged cargo vessel named The Meridian cleared the Red Hook pier at 11:30 P.M. two nights ago. Its registered destination was Marseille, France."

Marseille.

The primary Mediterranean hub where her maternal uncle—a retired French naval captain who had broken ties with my family six years ago—operated an independent shipping line.