"On our fifth anniversary, my mafia boss husband forgot the date and kissed his mistress in his office while my dinner crashed to the floor. I walked out and vanished—until a doctor's ultrasound revealed a terrifying secret he never expected."

Marcus was driving, his knuckles tight on the steering wheel. "Lena, this is crazy. The entire city is locked down. The FBI raided Moretti headquarters an hour ago. Dante’s assets have been frozen by federal injunction."

"Good," I said, staring out the window at the wrought-iron gates of the townhouse. "That means he's finally feeling what it's like to have the rug pulled out from under him."

"What are you doing here?" Marcus asked, glancing at me nervously. "If Dante comes back to this house, he’ll have a dozen enforcers looking for blood. You're walking right into the lion's den."

"I'm not walking in. I'm waiting," I replied calmly. "Dante doesn't know where I am, but he knows I'm the one who pulled the trigger. And a man like Dante Moretti doesn't run when his house burns down—he comes home to look for the match."

Sure enough, ten minutes later, a matte-black Mercedes Maybach tore around the corner, screeching to a halt right in front of the townhouse gates.

The door flew open, and Dante stepped out.

He looked terrifying. His tie was gone, his collar was ripped open, and his expression was a dark, brooding mask of pure, unbridled fury. He dismissed his driver with a savage wave of his hand, strode up the stone steps, and jammed his key into the front door lock, slamming it shut behind him.

"Wait ten minutes, Marcus," I instructed quietly, opening my door.

"Lena, please—"

"Wait ten minutes," I repeated, stepping out into the misty Chicago night.

I walked up the steps of the Lincoln Park townhouse with the steady, unhurried pace of a queen walking through her own halls. The front door hadn't latched properly behind Dante; it swung open an inch, revealing a sliver of warm yellow light from the foyer.

I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The house was dead silent. The grand foyer, usually immaculate, was strewn with discarded paperwork and shattered crystal from where Dante had clearly unleashed his rage upon entering.

"I know you're here, Lena," Dante’s voice echoed from the dim study down the hall, low, gravelly, and dripping with venom. "You can stop playing games and show yourself."

I walked down the hallway, my heels clicking softly against the hardwood floor, and stepped into the open doorway of his private study.

Dante was standing behind his heavy mahogany desk, his back to me, gripping the edges of the wood so tightly his knuckles were stark white.

"You burned it all down," Dante whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of disbelief and incandescent rage. "Five years of work. An empire built from blood and concrete. You gave it all to the Feds over a kiss in an office?"

"You didn't just kiss her, Dante," I said, my voice cutting through the dim room like a blade.

Dante spun around so fast he knocked his leather chair backward.

When his eyes landed on me standing in the doorway, the fury in his face shattered, replaced by a momentary, haunting shock. He took two steps forward, stopping abruptly as if he were afraid I’d vanish if he breathed too hard.

"Lena," he breathed, his voice breaking. "Where have you been? Do you have any idea what I've been through trying to find you? The FBI is tearing my life apart, but I don't care about the money. I don't care about the syndicates. I only care about you."

I let out a cold, bitter laugh, stepping fully into the light of the study.

"Save the performance for your lawyers, Dante," I retorted, crossing my arms over my chest. "You didn't care about me when I sat at home waiting for you for five years. You didn't care about me when you brought Sofia into our bed, and you certainly didn't care about me when you forgot our anniversary."

Dante closed his eyes, pressing the bridge of his nose in agony. "Sofia was a mistake. A momentary lapse in judgment—"

"Stop saying it was a mistake!" I shouted, the pent-up rage of five years finally erupting from my chest, echoing off the mahogany walls. "A mistake is forgetting your keys! A mistake is missing a turn on the highway! Sleeping with another woman behind your wife's back for months, funding her boutique with laundered money, and treating our marriage like a convenient decoration is a choice, Dante. You chose her every single day. And now, you're paying the price for your choices."

Dante stared at me, paralyzed by my fury. He looked exhausted, broken, and desperate—a shell of the terrifying mafia boss who ruled Chicago.

He took a slow step toward me, his hands raised palms-up in a gesture of absolute surrender.

"I'll fix it, Lena," he pleaded softly, his dark eyes shining with unshed tears. "I'll give up everything. I'll plead guilty, I'll walk away from the Commission, I'll leave Chicago forever. Just... come back to me. Let me rebuild our life. We can start over."

I didn't flinch. I held my ground, watching the man who had terrorized a city beg for mercy at my feet.

"It's too late to start over, Dante," I whispered, my voice dropping into a quiet, devastating calm. "Because I'm not the same woman you left behind in that office two weeks ago."

I unbuttoned my coat, letting it slip off my shoulders and pool around my feet, revealing the fitted emerald silk dress that clearly outlined the soft, undeniable curve of my growing stomach.