His Unwanted Fiancée Was His True Savior

Dante was gone, but his ghost haunted my screen.

I tracked his vacation on Instagram. Isobel posted everything, chronicling their escape like a victory lap.

There was a video of them walking on the beach at sunrise. Dante was holding her strappy sandals. He was barefoot, his dress pants rolled up to his calves.

He loathed the sand. He used to complain if we even drove past a shoreline, muttering about the mess.

But there he was, digging his toes into the wet grit, laughing as a wave chased them up the bank. He didn't look like the Don. He looked like a man unburdened. He looked... happy.

I placed the phone face down on the table. I was finished breaking my own heart.

I drove straight to my parents' estate in Lake Forest.

My father was the Consigliere. The advisor. The shadow who whispered in the Don's ear. He was sitting in his study, entrenched in a fortress of leather-bound books and the heavy, sweet scent of cigar smoke.

My mother was arranging white roses by the bay window.

"I'm going away," I stated, my voice steady.

My father looked up over the rim of his reading glasses. "For the honeymoon?"

"No. For a fellowship. In Lalan."

My mother dropped a rose. It hit the floor with a soft thud. "Lalan? That's halfway across the world, Nina. What about Dante? What about the wedding?"

"The wedding is off," I said.

The room went so quiet I could hear the grandfather clock slicing through the silence.

My father took off his glasses, folding them slowly. "Did he hurt you?"

"No," I said. "We just... want different things."

"He's the Don, Nina," my father said, his voice dropping to that stern, advisor tone. "You don't just walk away from the Don. It's an insult."

"He won't mind," I said hollowly. "He's occupied."

I didn't tell them about the baby. I didn't tell them about Isobel. The shame would kill my mother. And my father... my father would be forced to choose between his blood and his oath. I knew which one he would choose. The Code came first. Always.

"I'm leaving in ten days," I said. "I just wanted you to know."

My father looked at me for a long, agonizing moment. He saw something in my eyes. Maybe he saw the bone-deep exhaustion. Maybe he saw a resolve that mirrored his own.

"Don't look back, Nina," he said softly, breaking character. "If you go, you never look back."

I nodded. I turned on my heel and walked out.

I drove straight to Linda's apartment.

Linda was the only wife in the circle who despised the life as much as I did. Her husband was a soldier, a low-level enforcer. She knew the darkness that lurked behind the glamour.

She opened the door and gasped the moment she saw my face.

I told her everything. The dossier. The pregnancy. The "Life Debt."

She sat on her coffee table, her mouth slightly open, processing the horror.

"He thinks she saved him?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"But..." Linda stood up, her hands balling into tight fists at her sides. "You saved him! I was there, Nina! I drove the getaway car! I scrubbed his blood out of your clothes!"

"I know," I said quietly.

"You have to tell him, Nina! You have to tell him that Isobel de Luca was probably getting a manicure while you were digging a bullet out of his femoral artery!"

"It doesn't matter," I said.

"It matters! It changes everything!" She was pacing now, frantic. "He's ruining his life-and yours-based on a lie!"

"He made his choice, Linda. He chose her. Even if he knew... he still slept with her. He still humiliated me publicly."

Linda stopped pacing. Her eyes blazed. "I'm going to kill him. I'm going to march into his office and scream the truth in his face."

"No," I said, my voice sharp as a scalpel. "You swore an oath, Linda. Omertà."

I took a breath. "If you tell him, you implicate me. My father will know I was practicing field medicine without authorization. He'll disown me. Or worse."

Linda stopped. She looked at me, tears welling in her eyes, defeated by the logic of our world.

"So you're just going to let him believe she's the hero?"

I stood up and slung my purse over my shoulder.

"Let him have his hero," I said. "I don't want a man who needs a receipt to prove he loves me."

I walked to the door, my hand hovering over the knob.

"Ten days, Linda. Then I'm gone."

And Dante de Rossi will be the only man in Chicago who doesn't realize his queen has already left the board.