I didn't exactly choose to be stolen at four years old.
But the French underworld isn't big on consent.
One minute I was Donatella Acardi, Mafia royalty. The next? Just another stolen kid bleeding in someone else's basement.
That's where I met Ami...
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Donatella POV:
The door had barely shut before I spun around, pacing the room like a cornered animal. My hands were shaking. My stomach twisted so tight I thought I might throw up.
I shouldn’t have let him go alone.
*Only Amir.*
Leonardo’s words echoed like a curse, like the final line before the noose tightens. Calm fury—that was his specialty. Not the wild rage of Enzo, not Nicolo’s cocky violence, not even Dante’s disappointed silence. No—Leonardo’s anger was cold. Clinical. The kind of fury that waited for you to tie your own rope and tighten it.
And I had just handed Amir over to it.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, my breath catching in my throat.
My palms dragged down my face as I stood in the middle of the room, spinning in place like the walls were closing in. The bed was still messy—our shirts half-off, the pillow dented from where his hand had braced against it when he kissed me like it was the end of the world.
*Because it might’ve been.*
I reached for the edge of the dresser and gripped it hard enough for my knuckles to go white. My legs were shaking. My knees wanted to buckle. Every cell in my body was screaming to *do something*—anything—but I was frozen.
They told him.
They *had* to have told him.
Enzo. Gino. Nicolo. Luca. They had Amir tied up just yesterday. They had the burner computer. They had *every reason* to tell Leonardo everything. And I didn’t stop them. I didn’t threaten them. I didn’t *kill* them.
God. *Why* didn’t I kill them?
I leaned over the dresser, staring down into the woodgrain like it held answers, my breath uneven. Amir was probably being interrogated right now. Or worse.
Maybe they split them up—Leonardo with Amir, Armando with my files, and Dante quietly listening from the shadows like he always did, like he already knew.
They were going to piece it together. If they hadn’t already, they would soon. The fake name, the missing years, the burner, the files on Dimitri, the fake passports in Amir’s bag. And God, the mask—*Angela della Morte.*
How long until they realized?
Or maybe—*maybe*—Leonardo already knew. Maybe that was the point of coming here in person. Maybe that calm look was him holding back the fire because he didn’t want to light it in front of me.
No. No no no.
My hand slammed against the dresser.
I had to think. I had to *do* something.
But my head was swimming. I couldn’t focus. I didn’t even notice I was crying until I tasted the salt on my lips. The sting of tears blurred my vision and made the room feel a hundred degrees hotter.
