"She was supposed to be invisible, but after taking a wall of shattered glass meant for Dante Moretti’s son, the most feared man in Chicago looked into her eyes and quietly said, “You’re coming with me.”

Dante didn't answer right away. He walked over to the small bar cart in the corner of the library, poured two fingers of amber bourbon into a crystal glass, and drank it in one smooth draft.

Then he turned to face me.

"If I wanted you dead, Elena, you would have died at Aurelio's," he said softly, walking back toward me until he was standing so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body. "If I wanted you silenced, I wouldn't have let my son sit in your lap every morning. I wouldn't have spent every night sitting outside your bedroom door making sure you didn't have nightmares from the surgery."

I gasped softly. "You... you sat outside my door?"

Dante reached out, his long fingers gently cupping my chin, forcing me to look up into his dark, burning gaze.

"I have spent my entire life surrounded by people who want something from me," Dante murmured, his thumb lightly tracing my bottom lip. "My money, my power, my territory, my death. You are the first person in ten years who gave up everything—her safety, her body, her life—to protect something I loved, without asking for a single dollar."

"I did it because it was right," I whispered, my heart racing wildly against my ribs, not from fear, but from the sudden, overwhelming intensity of his proximity.

"I know," he said softly. "And that makes you dangerous to me, Elena. Because for the first time in my life, I am looking at a woman I want to keep... not because of an alliance, not because of duty, but because I cannot bear the thought of this world without you in it."

His words hung in the air, heavy, intoxicating, and terrifying.

Before I could process the sudden shift in the air, Dante’s phone chimed loudly in his pocket. He broke contact reluctantly, pulling out the secure device and sliding it open.

As he read the message, his expression hardened back into the ruthless Don of Chicago.

"Marco," Dante spoke into the phone, his voice cold as steel. "Assemble the strike team. The Lucianos just moved three supply trucks into the docks at Pier 42. We burn them tonight."

He ended the call and looked back at me.

"You're going to war," I said, a pit of dread opening in my stomach.

"I am finishing what they started," Dante replied. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a sleek, thin silver gun, and placed it gently in my hand.

It was heavy, cold, and lethal. I stared at it in horror. "I don't know how to use this!"

"Marco will teach you tomorrow," Dante said, wrapping his large hands over mine, closing my fingers around the grip. "I am leaving half my security detail here tonight to guard the estate. But if anyone breaches the perimeter... you shoot first, Elena. You do not wait. You do not ask questions. You protect yourself and Matteo."

"Dante... please be careful," I blurted out before I could stop myself.

Dante paused, looking down at my hands wrapped around the gun. A faint, genuine smile—the first real smile I had ever seen on his face—touched his lips.

"Are you worrying about me, cara?"

"Someone has to," I said quietly, looking up into his eyes. "Matteo needs his father."

Dante leaned down, his face stopping mere inches from mine. For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. My breath hitched, my whole body going completely still. But instead, he pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to my forehead, right above my eyebrow.