Chapter 2
Chapter two
ANTONIO
The fortress feels wrong without her.
Her perfume still lingers in my study—that subtle vanilla and jasmine that used to drive me insane when she was my prisoner. Now it's the absence that's killing me. Her ballet shoes are still by the door where she kicked them off three days ago. I haven't let anyone move them.
Elena keeps asking when Bella-ballina is coming home. My daughter's already more attached to her than to anyone except me. Maybe more than me, if I'm being honest. The thought should terrify me. It does. But not for the reasons it would have a month ago.
Four months. We've been legally married for four months. Even if during three of those months I’ve been more Monster than Beast.
Even if to me, she’s been mine for so much longer.
Eight more months until her grandmother's networks unlock. Eight months until Isabella becomes the key to half the power in Europe. And the Greeks must know it.
The phone's shrill ring slices through the silence and my gut twists into knots.
Bella.
I've been staring at this fucking dot on my tracker for seven minutes.
Seven minutes of the plane sitting on the tarmac in Greece while my mind cycles through every worst-case scenario.
I've already calculated three extraction routes.
Called in favors with two cargo pilots. Have a boat waiting at three different ports.
None of it matters if I'm not there.
My hands are clammy as I grab the phone, nearly crushing the damn thing. "I'm okay," Bella whispers, and for half a second I can breathe again.
Then I hear it. That tremor underneath her voice. That hint of fear she's trying to bury under steel.
My jaw locks so tight I can hear my teeth grinding. Every muscle coils, the Beast clawing to get out, to unleash hell on whoever put that sound in her voice.
Fuck.
"What happened?" I force the words out low and controlled. Every instinct screams at me to roar, to demand answers, to burn down whatever's threatening her. But Bella doesn't need my rage right now. She needs me steady.
"Franco's sending you the information," she says, her voice almost level again. Almost.
She's doing that thing she does—putting up a shield for my benefit, making sure I don't lose my head. Protecting me while she's the one in danger.
God, I fucking love her for it. And hate that she has to.
My phone chirps. I slam it on speaker and mirror Franco's message to my computer.
Explosion. Car. Safe.
Franco's never been one for words. When Henrik's men butchered his wife and children—killed them slow, made sure he'd find what was left—he didn't speak for six months. Just acted. Every one of Henrik's soldiers in Milan, dead within a week. Silent. Efficient. Brutal.
Another message: Loud.
My chest tightens. Loud enough to damage her hearing? Loud enough to send her back to those hospital rooms where machines beeped and her heart stopped and started while I watched from the shadows like the coward I was?
Someone's playing games with my wife's life.
My fist connects with the desk before I can stop myself, pain shooting up my arm. Good. I need it. Need something to anchor me before I do something stupid like charter a plane and blow my way through Greek customs.
Another message, this one from Luca: Greek financials show systematic drainage. Not external hackers—inside access. Someone's been bleeding them for months. Pattern suggests intimate knowledge of their systems.
Inside access. A saboteur embedded in the Greek operation.
The question is whether they're working against us—or for us.
"Where are you now?" I growl as I reach Bella via Franco’s phone, already mapping extraction plans.
"In the car. We're going to the Island." Her words come too fast. She's trying to hide it, but I know what that explosion must have done to her. How close the blast was. Whether she felt death breathing down her neck again.
I know exactly where they’re going.
I always do. And I always will.
But right now, strategy can wait. Her heart can't take this kind of stress, and I'll be damned if she has an episode when I'm not there to hold her through it.
"Hey," I say, forcing my voice softer. "Remember when I used to pick you up from those ballet things?"
A pause. I can almost hear the gears turning, her brilliant mind trying to figure out what I'm doing.
"When I was seventeen?" she finally says.
"Yeah." The word comes out like gravel scraping my throat.
And just like that, I'm back there. That stuffy studio reeking of sweat and rosin.
Bella in that scrap of fabric they called a leotard, all long legs and flushed skin and that fucking grace that made my chest ache.
The way she moved—like water catching fire.
Like something I wanted to possess even when I told myself I didn't.
Five years of wanting what I couldn't have. Her father's brand on my back was nothing compared to the mark she'd already left somewhere deeper.
"I remember everything, Tonio." There's a hint of warmth in her voice now. "I told you that."
I close my eyes, picturing her face. Those lips. The way she tilts her head when she's thinking.
"There was this one time," I continue. "Two girls showed up. Shawna and... fuck, what was the other one's name?"
"Dee," she supplies, barely above a whisper.
"Right. They were laying it on thick. Flirting like I gave a shit." I pause, the memory sharper than I expected. "I saw you watching. Standing there in your leotard, hair all messy from dancing. You looked..."
"I looked...?"
"Breathtaking." The word escapes before I can stop it. "And disappointed. Like you thought I might actually want those girls." I run a hand over the back of my neck. "I didn't give them the time of day. Walked right up to you and kissed your hand instead."
A soft laugh comes through the phone, and a fucking knot loosen in my chest. "Like some kind of gentleman."
"I didn't know what the fuck I was doing," I admit. "But I saw that look on your face—that little flicker of disappointment—and I couldn't stand it. I was a dick back then in more ways than one, but that? Seeing you look at me like that? I couldn't let it stand."
"Thank you." Her voice is steadier now. "I know what you're doing. Trying to distract me."
"Is it working?"
"It is."
Another pause. I hear voices in the background—the Greeks talking over each other.
Nikos's voice rises, sharp and urgent. I tap my other phone, pulling up the translator I've got running on their comms. They're bleeding money.
That isn't an issue on itself. But bleeding money when you're pretending you're not means people are waiting for retribution.
It means anyone with an alliance with you has yet another target on their head.
Fuck. It means it's even worse than I thought.
And if they're willing to kill my wife in addition?
She's either a target or tragic collateral damage. But she's in danger. From her mother. From them.
They continue chatting and the words that appear make no fucking sense: The Gods will Fly.
I frown at the screen. A code. Has to be. But for what? The Greeks have always had a flair for the dramatic, wrapping their shit in mythology like it makes them noble instead of just criminal. But this feels different. Bigger.
Alexandros's voice cuts in, calling her name.
"I have to go," she says. "We're taking a boat to the island. We'll talk soon." A pause. "Antonio?"
"Yeah?"
"That day you kissed my hand? I dreamed of you that night."
The words hit me somewhere I thought had turned to stone.
"I dream of you every night," I tell her. "Ti amo, mia ballerina."
The line goes dead.
The echo of her voice fades, but the fear underneath it stays, burrowing into my chest like a blade I can't pull out.
Three months I kept her prisoner. Now she's out there, and I'm the one who's terrified.
The irony would be funny if it didn't feel like my ribs were caving in.
I stare at the files spread across my desk. Everything we have on her mother. On her father. Every thread I've been pulling for months, trying to unravel the web of lies that's strangled both our lives.
My gut tightens. Isabella's mother has been a ghost for thirteen years. Hiding. Waiting. Playing dead while her daughter grieved over an empty grave.
What kind of woman does that?
The kind who's playing a longer game than any of us realized.
I dive into the files, fingers flying over the keyboard. Sending orders. Calling in favors. Every informant I've got in the Mediterranean is about to earn their keep.
The Gods will Fly.
I run it through every database I can access. The regular web gives me nothing but shitty memes. The dark web comes up empty. Whatever this is, it's buried deep.
Greek mythology is full of gods who fell. Titans overthrown. Icarus burning. Maybe that's what this is—someone planning to bring down the old powers.
The question is who's falling. And who's holding the fucking match.
I send encrypted messages to our people in Greece. The Greek mafia has traditions, hierarchies, codes of honor they pretend to follow. But in my world, money and fear talk louder than tradition.
Someone will crack. Someone always does.
Then Luca's follow-up arrives: "Cross-referenced with lunar calendars and Greek shipping patterns. Every time this phrase appears in intercepted comms, there's a full moon within 48 hours. Whatever 'the gods will fly' means—it's tied to lunar timing. The next full moon is in five days."
Five days. That's my window.
For the next hours, I try everything: the vessels I had in place are running into issues with the fucking Greek coast guard.
My intel inside the island is silent. A helicopter grounded at the Athens airport.
I need to dig deeper inside. Reach out to every person I know.
The ones who owe me a favor. The ones who fear me.
This is the worst kind of war: the kind where you have to wait.