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The silence inside the elevator stretched, heavy with a sudden, suffocating tension that had nothing to do with the proximity of their bodies and everything to do with the ghost that had just entered the space between them. / Chapter 1 / 6

Chapter 1 - THE WILL OF THE DEAD

The silence inside the elevator stretched, heavy with a sudden, suffocating tension that had nothing to do with the proximity of their bodies and everything to do with the ghost that had just entered the space between them.

Dante Moretti did not look like a man who felt cold, but as his eyes remained locked on the worn leather satchel Ruby carried over her shoulder, his jaw tightened until a muscle jumped in his cheek.

"Where did you get that?" Dante’s voice had lost its smooth, boardroom veneer. It was low, raspy, and carried the weight of a gravel road.

Ruby blinked, her fingers tightening around the brass clasp of her bag. "My father's bag? He was a mechanic. He died when I was eleven."

"Your father," Dante repeated, stepping closer. The air in the elevator suddenly felt pressurized, the way it does right before a lightning strike. "What was his name?"

"Thomas. Thomas Castellano."

Dante didn't breathe. For twenty-one years, he had searched for that name. It was the name written in the margins of his father’s final, blood-stained ledger—the ledger his father, Lorenzo Moretti, had died trying to protect from the rival Chicago syndicates. Everyone believed Thomas Castellano was a myth, a fictional alias created by the commission to hide a ledger that could dismantle the entire North Side Outfit.

"Your father wasn't a mechanic, Ruby," Dante said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper as the elevator chimed, announcing the eighth floor. He didn't let her step out. Instead, he reached past her, his broad chest pressing against her shoulder, and slammed his master keycard into the scanner, override-locking the elevator to descend directly to the private, subterranean parking garage.

"What are you doing? Let me out!" Ruby demanded, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"I am keeping you alive," Dante said, turning to face her fully. The cold, calculating billionaire was gone; in his place stood the Don. "Because if I recognized that bag, it means the men who killed my father twenty-one years ago will recognize it too. And they won't ask you questions before they pull the trigger."

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The notification light on my phone blinked a furious, rhythmic amber. Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six missed calls. Ryan’s texts were no longer polite; they were mutating into panicked, all-caps demands. “Mom is crying hysterically. The bank is threatening default. What kind of monster cuts off a widow? PICK UP THE PHONE.”

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The elevator doors slid open to the dim, concrete expanse of the VIP garage. Waiting there was a fleet of armored black SUVs.

Before Ruby could protest, the concrete pillars echoed with the deafening crack of a sniper rifle. The glass panel of the elevator shattered.

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