The fireworks outside sent streaks of red and gold across the ceiling of my cramped Queens apartment, but inside, time felt frozen. Midnight had come, yet the room was dead silent.

Salvatore stood motionless in his wet, tailored tuxedo. His dark eyes were locked on mine with an intensity that made it hard to breathe. On the coffee table, right beside my half-empty glass of cheap Pinot Grigio and my dying succulent, lay the heavy white envelope.

It wasn't sealed with wax or tape. It was stamped with a stark, deep crimson crest: two crossed daggers over a crown of thorns. The symbol of the Corvini Syndicate—the most ruthless, shadow-governing mafia family on the East Coast.

My fingers trembled as I leaned forward and reached for the envelope.

"Elena, wait," Sal’s voice dropped to a gravelly whisper. He reached out, his warm, broad hand briefly hovering over mine before pulling back, as if protecting me from himself. "Once you look at what's inside, you aren't just my executive assistant anymore. You're in my world. And in my world, people who know this secret don't get to walk away."

"I've worked for you for two years, Sal," I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I've handled your encrypted calendars, scheduled meetings with men who carried concealed weapons, and wiped private servers. I already know you aren't just a hedge fund manager."

"You know what I let you see," he said grimly. "You don't know who I really am."

I turned the envelope over. Written across the front in sharp, elegant calligraphy was not Salvatore Rizzo.

It read: Salvatore Corvini-Moretti.

I gasped, dropping the envelope back onto the glass table as if it had burned me.

The Moretti family had been wiped out in a bloody turf war fifteen years ago—an entire dynasty slaughtered overnight in a luxury estate in the Hamptons. The media called it a mob purge. The sole heir, a thirteen-year-old boy, had vanished without a trace, presumed dead at the bottom of the Hudson River.

"You're... you're a Moretti?" I breathed, staring up at the man who had been my steady anchor for twenty-four months. "The missing prince?"

"I am the rightful Don," Sal said, his jaw clenching. "Salvatore Rizzo is a ghost. A corporate identity built to infiltrate the very council that ordered my family's execution. Tonight, at the gala in Manhattan, the men who murdered my father were raising a toast to their new billion-dollar port deal. A deal I quietly hijacked forty-five minutes ago."

I shook my head, trying to process the absolute insanity of the situation. "If you executed a takeover tonight... why aren't you in a bulletproof SUV surrounded by armed bodyguards? Why are you standing in my living room wearing a drenched suit?"

Sal took two slow steps toward me. The imposing, lethal presence he usually hid behind sharp suits and corporate calm radiated off him in waves. Yet, his gaze softened as he looked down at me in my ridiculous penguin pajamas.

"Because they found out," he said quietly. "They know the ghost is alive. And three minutes before I left the ballroom, my head of security intercepted a hit order."

My throat went dry. "An order for who?"

Sal pulled out his phone, tapping the screen once before turning it to face me. On the display was a grainy photograph taken from a distance. It was a picture of me leaving our office building three days ago, wearing my favorite yellow coat.

Underneath the picture were three words in an encrypted chat: ELIMINATE THE ANCHOR.

"They know you're my weakness, Elena," Sal whispered, his voice cracking with a raw emotion I had never heard from him before. "They think if they kill you, I’ll break. I came here tonight to run... but I can't leave you behind."

Before I could answer, a tiny red laser dot danced across the wall behind my head.