I took three bullets saving the mafia boss’s six-year-old son—and when I woke up, his “reward” was five terrifying words: “You’re going to be my wife.”

Victor threw himself across the wheelchair, knocking Caleb sideways as glass exploded behind them. The shot struck the marble column where Caleb’s heart had been half a second before.

Panic consumed the atrium.

Reporters dropped cameras. Guards shouted. Hospital staff screamed. Dante’s men pushed through the crowd with weapons drawn.

I crawled toward Caleb because my legs had stopped listening.

He was on the floor, gasping, eyes wide.

“Are you hit?” I shouted.

“No,” he coughed. “Dignity wounded.”

I laughed and sobbed at once.

Victor rose from over him, his cheek cut by flying glass. He looked up toward the building across the street.

“Roof,” he said.

Dante was already moving.

Above us, Leo screamed again.

Alessia held him back from the balcony railing while Adriana shielded them both.

For one frozen moment, I saw Victor looking at Leo, then at Caleb, then at me.

He had almost lost everyone again.

Something inside him went silent.

Not calm.

Worse.

By nightfall, the shooter was dead.

No one told me how. I did not ask.

They identified him as one of Serafina’s hired men, but Victor did not believe it.

“Too obvious,” he said in the estate war room.

Yes, the estate again.

After the shooting, no one asked whether I wanted to return. They simply moved Caleb into the medical suite, doubled security, and surrounded us with Romanos until arguing felt like wasting oxygen.

This time, Alessia gave me her room.

Not the east wing.

A different room. Warm, blue, empty of ghosts.

“You need somewhere that belongs to no dead woman,” she said.

I did not know how to answer that kindness.

The war room held Victor, Dante, Adriana, Alessia, Caleb in a medical recliner, and me with a blanket over my shoulders. Leo slept upstairs under guard after crying himself sick.

Dante placed photographs on the table.

“The shooter received payment from an account linked to Serafina,” he said. “But the transfer was routed clumsily. Too clumsily.”

“Framed,” Caleb said.

Victor nodded.

Adriana crossed her arms. “Who benefits if Victor kills Serafina?”

“Every old Romano captain who wants war profits,” Alessia said.

Victor’s eyes moved to her.

She looked back steadily.

“I spent two years listening to Bellantis,” she said. “They hate you. But they also fear what happens if you become a martyr with a murdered child, a resurrected wife, and a stolen heir under your protection.”

“So someone inside my own structure wants me reckless,” Victor said.

I thought of the sunroom attack.

The hospital threat.

Patricia.

Luca.

The fake evidence.

“This started before Serafina revealed herself,” I said. “Before Caleb’s identity. Before the ledger leak.”

Everyone looked at me.

“The first attack was on Leo. It wasn’t just about the ledger. Someone wanted Victor broken.”

Caleb nodded. “Or replaced.”

Victor’s face hardened.

Dante hesitated.

“What?” Victor asked.

“There is one captain who has been moving men quietly.”

“Name.”

“Giorgio Voss.”

Adriana went very still.

Alessia whispered, “No.”

I looked between them.

Victor’s expression had become unreadable.

“Who is Giorgio Voss?”

No one answered fast enough.

Finally, Alessia said, “My uncle.”

Another family ghost.

“He served Victor’s father,” Adriana said. “Old guard. Traditional. Believes Victor became weak after Alessia died.”

Victor’s voice was flat. “He wanted me to remarry after the mourning year.”

Adriana laughed bitterly. “To someone useful. Not a maid.”

I ignored the sting because she was right.

“What would he gain?” I asked.

Alessia looked at Victor.

“If Victor appears unstable, if Leo is traumatized, if the ledger destroys trust, the captains can demand a regency.”

“For Leo?” Caleb asked.

Victor nodded slowly.

“And Giorgio, as Alessia’s blood relative, could claim influence.”

The room chilled.

“Then he didn’t want Leo dead,” I said. “He wanted Leo terrified, Victor reckless, Alessia revealed, Caleb weaponized, Serafina blamed, and the family begging for old leadership.”

Dante stared at me.

Adriana said, “Remind me never to play chess with you.”

Victor’s eyes were on me.

Not passing over.

Not assessing.

Seeing.

“What do we do?” Caleb asked.

Victor looked at the ledger.

Then at his living wife, his legal wife, his son’s aunt, his stolen brother-in-law, and me.

“We stop reacting,” he said.

“And start hunting?” Dante asked.

Victor’s gaze returned to me.