"Three Years as His Ghost Wife. Then Another Man Said, 'I Want Your Wife.'" hoặc "He Slept in a Chair for Three Years. The Moment Another Man Looked at Her, He Panicked."

For three years, I had watched men tremble when Enzo simply raised an eyebrow. I had seen rivals grovel, politicians sweat, and traitors disappear into the night without a single trial. Enzo DeLuca did not flinch. He did not lose his temper. He simply destroyed.

But as Dante’s words hung in the air, I saw something flicker across Enzo’s face that I had never witnessed before.

A micro-expression of pure, unadulterated primal rage.

It wasn't the cold, calculated anger of a mob boss protecting a business asset. It was the desperate, territorial fury of a man whose most closely guarded secret was suddenly being threatened in broad daylight.

Enzo’s jaw clenched so hard I thought the bone would snap. His right hand, resting casually at his side, curled into a fist, the knuckles turning paper-white.

"Watch your tongue, boy," Enzo said, each word enunciated with a chilling, surgical precision. "Before I send you back to the Mediterranean in a pine box."

Dante let out a low, mocking chuckle. He didn't step back; if anything, he leaned in closer, ignoring the invisible death sentence hanging in the air. "Threats, Enzo? After all these years, you're getting predictable. A man with a treasure like this shouldn't lock it in a dark tower. Sooner or later, someone’s going to scale the walls."

With a slow, deliberate movement, Dante raised his champagne glass in a mock toast toward me, his amber eyes burning with a dark promise, before turning on his heel and melting back into the crowd as smoothly as he had appeared.

The spell broke. The surrounding guests, terrified of the impending bloodbath, quickly dispersed, leaving Enzo and me standing in a wide, empty circle of polished marble.

"Let's go," Enzo muttered. His hand shot out, grabbing my wrist with a grip so tight it sent a jolt of pain up my arm. But unlike all the times before—when his touches felt mechanical, required by public appearance—this grip was fueled by a raw, vibrating urgency.

He didn't speak another word during the entire ride back to Lake Forest.

Inside the black SUV, the partition was up, sealing us off from the driver. The city lights streaked past the tinted windows in blurs of red and yellow. I sat pressed against the opposite door, rubbing my bruised wrist, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

"You're hurting me," I whispered.

Enzo’s head snapped toward me. In the dark cabin, illuminated only by the passing streetlamps, his eyes looked bottomless. He didn't let go of my wrist; instead, he pulled me across the leather seat until I was forced closer to him.

"Did he touch you?" Enzo’s voice was rough, unpolished, stripped of all its usual icy composure.

"What?" I stared at him, stunned. "No. He just—he spoke to me."

"If Dante Russo ever looks at you like that again—if he ever speaks your name—" Enzo stopped, his chest rising and falling heavily beneath his bespoke suit.

"What?" I challenged, a sudden surge of long-suppressed bitterness overriding my fear. For three years, I had been nothing to him. A decoration. A name on a marriage certificate signed in silence. "What will you do, Enzo? Will you sleep in the chair again? Will you ignore me for another six months? Why do you care who looks at me now? To you, I'm just business!"

The words tasted like vinegar, but they needed to be said.

Enzo flinched. It was the first time I had ever seen him look wounded, even if it lasted only a fraction of a second before the iron mask slammed back down.

"You don't understand," he rasped, his fingers finally releasing my wrist, though his hand remained suspended in the air between us as if he wanted to reach out but didn't dare. "You have no idea what kind of monster Dante is. He doesn't want you because he loves you. He wants you because he knows you belong to me. And he knows breaking you is the only way to break me."

"Then why did you marry me, Enzo?" I cried out, the tears I had swallowed for three long years finally spilling over my lashes. "If I'm just a target, why bring me into this war?"