Isabella's perspective
Dr. Rossi stared at the boy lying on the stainless steel operating table, barely alive, then looked at me with those snobbish eyes. "I won't treat anyone without ten thousand dollars in cash, sweetheart. This isn't charity."
I didn't even blink. Although I didn't have a single penny on me, I held a bargaining chip a hundred times more deadly than any banknote.
"I have no cash," I began, my voice flat and lifeless. "But I have intelligence that can save you from spending the rest of your life in federal prison. Tomorrow night, the FBI will raid the underground casino on Eighth Street. The undercover agent's name is Miller, codename 'Viper.' He will meet his contact at the docks at midnight."
Rossi's face turned deathly pale, all color draining from his complexion. Under Rossi's gaze, a mixture of shock and awe, I pushed aside the mountain-like burly assistant. My hands, once used to play Chopin for Mafia elites, now transformed into the calmest wings of redemption. Using the first-aid techniques honed in that dark world, I deftly and precisely drained the compressed fluid from Angelo's chest. With a weak, low gasp, his violently heaving chest miraculously calmed, settling into long, rhythmic breaths.
Rossi watched me, his expression a mixture of fear and fascination with the monster I had transformed into. "You can stay," he murmured, taking a step back.
Hours later, as I held my sleeping son in that blood-soaked inner room, I knew perfectly well what was happening in Chicago, three hundred miles away. Memories of my past life replayed in my mind with nauseating clarity.
At that very moment, in the glass penthouse of the Lucrete Building, my fate was sealed. My grandfather, Marco Moretti, known as "The General," was bowing to Lorenzo Falcone. To protect me from the elaborate schemes orchestrated by the matriarch of the Falcone family, my grandfather was being forced to relinquish our family's control over the Port of Chicago.
I could almost hear Lorenzo's smooth, aristocratic voice. He casually tossed an antique coin between his fingers as he glanced at Damian Valenti, who stood to the side, utterly dejected.
"To solidify your marriage with Miss Richie, the Moretti family has handed over the port," Lorenzo probed the new godfather. "In exchange, I declare your marriage to Isabella Moretti null and void. Damian, what do you think of this deal?"
Damian, without the slightest hesitation, coldly replied, "My only wife is Serafina Richie."
"You won't regret it?"
"no way."
With just one word, Damian stripped me of all the protection I had received from the Valenti family and threw me into the clutches of wolves. He abandoned us like trash. But he had no idea that the woman he had discarded had crawled back from hell.
A week later, the acrid dust from the Gary limestone quarry filled my throat.
I swung the heavy hammer, the violent impact reverberating through my arms. My hands were raw and bleeding, blood seeping into my rough canvas gloves. I needed clean cash to buy antibiotics for Angelo, and I also needed this cruel, almost self-destructive physical labor to forge my body into a weapon.
Amidst the white dust and mist, a convoy of black Cadillac Escalades came to a stop at the edge of this desolate mine.
I didn't stop working.
Maria, our family's most loyal servant, stumbled out of the lead car, flanked by heavily armed Moretti family soldiers. She had spent days navigating the filthy streets, bribing bartenders and informants, all in an attempt to find her former Mafia queen shoveling stones amidst the ruins.
"Miss!" Maria's voice broke into a heart-wrenching sob. She ran through the mud and knelt before me, not caring that the mud had soiled her spotless clothes. "Oh God, Miss Isabella...look at your suffering. We've come to take you home."
I slowly put down the hammer, took off my gloves, and carelessly wrapped my bleeding hand with a dirty cloth. My eyes were like still water, showing neither the shock nor relief she had expected.
In my previous life, they arrived two days after I lost Angelo. When they arrived, they only had time to buy him a small wooden coffin. That version of me was already shattered beyond words, my heart utterly dead.
But this time, everything is completely different.
"I know, Maria," I said calmly, my gaze passing over her weeping figure to the armored vehicles waiting to take us back to Chicago. "Help me pack the children's luggage."
