PROLOGUE
Enzo Moretti had ordered hundreds of deaths.
He had watched hard men weep, bled traitors onto Persian rugs, and stood over cooling corpses without a single flicker in his pulse. Violence was his native tongue. Mercy was just a tactical error.
He never imagined a quiet girl could undo thirty-three years of cold blood without ever raising her voice.
Rain bled through the heavy black wool of his coat, soaking into his shoulders, but Enzo didn't feel the cold. He stood at the edge of the open plot long after the gravediggers had abandoned the mud.
His eyes burned, locked on the fresh, dark earth.
No flowers. No photograph. No carved marble to mark the spot. Just raw dirt, a wooden stake, and a cheap paper tag soaked through by the storm:
ALLISON WILLSON
Twenty years old when he stole her from the street.
Twenty-four when she finally escaped him the only way she had left.
Enzo closed his eyes, but the dark offered no shelter. For the first time in his ruthless life, the silence terrified him. It pressed against his eardrums, heavier than any gun pointed at his chest, echoing with everything she had never said aloud.
Beneath the body armor, the territory, and the mountain of blood money, a razor-sharp truth finally cut its way to the surface.
He had loved her.
God help his soul, he had loved her.
And he had torn her apart, piece by gentle piece.
