**Rose's POV**
I dive behind the couch as bullets tear through the air.
Gentle fires three shots. Each one hits exactly where my head was a second ago.
"Gentle, stop!" I scream. "What are you doing?"
"My job." She walks closer. Calm. Like we're having coffee instead of her trying to kill me. "I've been doing it for three years."
Dante yanks me behind him. Returns fire. His bullets force Gentle's men to scatter.
"You're a spy?" I can't believe it. Won't believe it. "You're my best friend!"
"I'm a Giordano." Gentle's voice is cold. Empty. "Always have been. My real name is Gentiana Giordano. Niece to the man you met downstairs."
My world tilts sideways.
"No." I shake my head. "We met at the shelter. You were running from—"
"From nothing." Gentle smiles. It looks wrong on her face. "I volunteered there specifically to meet you. To get close. To report everything about Dante's wife back to my family."
"Why?" The word hurts coming out.
"Because the Corvinos killed my father when I was ten." Hate burns in her eyes. "I've spent eighteen years planning revenge. And you, sweet Rose, were the perfect tool."
More bullets fly. Luca appears from nowhere. Tackles two of Gentle's soldiers.
"We need to move!" he shouts. "We're surrounded!"
Dante grabs my hand. Pulls me toward the back exit.
Gentle's laugh follows us. "Run all you want, Rose! There's nowhere to hide! I know every place you'd go. Every person you trust. I made sure of it!"
We burst through a side door. Into the garden. Guards fight everywhere. Giordano soldiers mixed with Corvino men. I can't tell who's winning.
"The garage!" Dante yells. "We need a car!"
We run. My lungs burn. My legs shake. Behind us, Gentle's voice rings out.
"Kill Dante! But bring Rose to me alive!"
Bullets hit the ground near my feet. Dante shields me with his body. Takes a hit to the shoulder.
"Dante!" I catch him as he stumbles.
"I'm fine." Blood soaks through his shirt. "Keep moving!"
We reach the garage. Luca hot-wires a car while Dante holds off attackers.
I grab a gun from a fallen guard. My hands shake but I force them steady.
"Rose, get in the car!" Dante orders.
"Not without you!" I fire at a soldier rushing toward us. Miss by a mile.
Dante shoots him instead. "We don't have time to argue!"
"Then stop arguing and get in!" I fire again. This time I hit the soldier's leg. He goes down screaming.
Dante stares at me. "When did you learn to shoot?"
"You taught me." I fire twice more. "Remember? Self-defense lessons. You just never thought I was paying attention."
Pride flashes across his face. "That's my girl."
Luca starts the engine. "Let's go!"
We pile into the car. Dante drives like he's being chased by death itself. Which he is.
Bullets shatter the back window. I duck down. Glass rains over us.
"Where are we going?" I ask.
"Safe house." Dante swerves around a corner. "One Marco doesn't know about."
"How do you know he doesn't know?" Luca reloads his gun.
"Because it's the one place I never told anyone." Dante's jaw clenches. "The place I bought for Rose and me. Before everything went wrong."
My heart stutters. "What place?"
"You'll see."
We drive for twenty minutes. Leave the city behind. Enter suburbs I don't recognize.
Dante finally stops in front of a small house. Nothing fancy. Just a regular home on a quiet street.
"This is it?" I ask.
"This is it." Dante kills the engine. "I bought it six months before our wedding. Planned to surprise you. But then—"
"Then Marco poisoned you against me." The pieces click together. "And you never told me about it."
"I couldn't." Pain fills his voice. "Not when I was trying to push you away."
We get out. Dante checks the street. Empty. Quiet.
Too quiet.
"Something's wrong," Luca mutters.
"Agreed." Dante pulls his gun. "Stay behind me, Rose."
We approach the house carefully. The door stands slightly open.
Someone's been here.
Dante kicks it wide. Sweeps inside with his gun raised.
The house is empty. But not untouched.
Furniture is overturned. Papers scatter everywhere. Someone searched this place.
"They found it." Dante's voice is hollow. "Marco found it."
I walk through the rooms. Each one breaks my heart a little more.
A kitchen with two coffee cups. A bedroom with a bed big enough for two. A study with bookshelves already filled with my favorite novels.
Dante built us a home. A real home. Away from his family and their violence.
And I never knew it existed.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Tears blur my vision. "Even at the end. Why not tell me about this place?"
"Because by then, I'd already destroyed us." Dante sinks onto the couch. Blood still drips from his shoulder. "What was the point of showing you a dream I'd already killed?"
Luca clears his throat. "I'll check the perimeter. Give you two a minute."
He leaves.
Silence fills the house.
I sit beside Dante. Pull his shirt aside to check his wound.
"It's not bad." I find a first aid kit under the sink. Start cleaning the bullet graze. "You'll live."
"Will I?" Dante's voice is tired. "Feels like I've been dead for three years."
"Stop being dramatic." I wrap his shoulder with gauze. "You're not dead. You're just finally feeling what I felt."
"Then I'm sorry." He catches my hand. "I'm so sorry, Rose. For all of it."
"Sorry doesn't fix three years of loneliness." But I don't pull away. "Sorry doesn't erase the nights I cried myself to sleep. Or the mornings I woke up wondering if you even remembered my name."
"I remembered everything." His thumb traces circles on my palm. "Every smile. Every laugh. Every time you tried to reach me and I pushed you away. It's all burned in my brain."
"Then why—" My voice breaks. "Why did you do it?"
"Because Marco showed me emails." Dante's eyes close. "Fake emails he claimed came from Romano spies. They talked about you. About how you were planted to destroy me. How you'd betray the family the first chance you got."
"And you believed him?" Anger flares hot. "You believed I was a spy?"
"I didn't know what to believe!" Dante's voice rises. Then falls. "I was twenty-eight years old. Never been in love before. And suddenly this beautiful woman appears who makes me feel human. Makes me want things I was taught to never want. Peace. Happiness. A normal life."
"So you pushed me away."
"So I panicked." He opens his eyes. "Marco said if I loved you, I had to let you go. That the only way to keep you safe was to make you hate me. Make everyone think you didn't matter."
"It worked." My throat is so tight. "I hated you. I left you. I signed divorce papers and tried to forget you existed."
"Did you?" He searches my face. "Forget I existed?"
I want to lie. Want to hurt him the way he hurt me.
But I can't.
"No." The word is barely a whisper. "I thought about you every single day."
Dante's hand moves to my face. Cups my cheek. "Rose—"
A phone rings.
Dante's phone. Still somehow working after everything.
He looks at the screen. Goes pale.
"What?" I ask. "Who is it?"
He shows me.
A video call from an unknown number.
"Don't answer it," Luca says from the doorway. "Could be a trap."
"Could be information." Dante accepts the call.
Marco's face fills the screen.
He's on a plane. Don Alessandro sits beside him. Both look smug.
"Hello, Dante." Marco's smile makes my skin crawl. "Miss us yet?"
"Where are you?" Dante's voice is ice.
"Somewhere you'll never find us." Marco laughs. "But that's not why I called. I called to say thank you."
"Thank you?" Dante's grip on the phone tightens.
"For being so easy to manipulate." Marco leans closer to the camera. "You always were too emotional. Too soft. Your father raised a soldier but you wanted to be a lover. Pathetic."
"Says the man running away," I snap.
Marco's eyes shift to me. "Ah, Rose. Still alive. I'm impressed. I really thought Gentle would have killed you by now."
"She tried." I move closer to Dante. "She failed."
"Pity." Marco shrugs. "Well, there's always tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. You'll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your short life."
"Why are you calling?" Dante demands. "To gloat?"
"To give you a gift." Marco's smile widens. "The truth. You want to know why I really poisoned you against Rose?"
"I already know. You wanted me focused on family business."
"Wrong." Marco exchanges a glance with Don Alessandro. "I wanted you broken. Destroyed. So desperate and alone that when your father died, you'd beg me to take over as Don."
Silence.
"You were planning a coup," Luca breathes.
"I was planning an empire." Marco's eyes gleam. "With Alessandro's help. He retires wealthy and comfortable. I become the new Don. And you, Dante, would have been my loyal underboss. Too broken to question. Too alone to care."
"But Rose ruined that," Don Alessandro speaks for the first time. "She made you strong again. Made you question Marco's advice. Made you human when we needed you to be a monster."
"So we decided you both had to die." Marco finishes. "But you keep surviving. It's really quite annoying."
Dante's hand shakes with rage. "I will find you. I will hunt you down. And I will kill you both."
"No, you won't." Marco's smile never wavers. "Because I have one more gift for you."
He holds up a tablet. Shows us a video feed.
My heart stops.
It's Gentle. In a room I don't recognize.
She's not alone.
Viktor is with her. Tied to a chair. Beaten bloody.
"Your brother-in-law has been very helpful," Marco says. "Told us everything about your safe houses. Your contacts. Your escape routes."
"Let him go," I whisper. "Please. He's just a weak gambler. He's no threat to you."
"You're right. He's no threat." Marco nods at someone off-screen.
A gunshot echoes through the phone.
Viktor's head snaps back.
He slumps forward.
Still.
Silent.
Dead.
"No!" The scream tears from my throat. "Viktor! No, no, no!"
Dante catches me as my legs give out.
"That's for making me run." Marco's voice is calm. "And Rose? There's more where that came from. Everyone you love. Everyone you care about. They all die until you do."
The call ends.
I can't breathe. Can't think. My baby brother is dead.
Dead because he knew me. Because I tried to save him three years ago. Because I loved him despite his weaknesses.
"Rose." Dante's voice sounds far away. "Rose, breathe."
"He killed Viktor." My whole body shakes. "He killed him like it was nothing."
"I know." Dante pulls me close. "I know. I'm so sorry."
Luca's phone rings. He answers. Listens. His face goes gray.
"We have a bigger problem," he says quietly.
"What could be bigger than this?" I sob.
"Marco just sent a message to every crime family in the city." Luca's voice shakes. "He's offering five million dollars to whoever brings him Rose's head."
The room spins.
"Five million?" Dante breathes.
"Every assassin, every soldier, every desperate criminal in New York is going to be hunting her." Luca meets Dante's eyes. "We can't protect her from everyone."
"Then we run." Dante stands. Pulls me up. "We disappear. Change our names. Leave the country."
"And live the rest of our lives hiding?" I wipe my eyes. "Always running? Always afraid?"
"If it keeps you alive, yes."
"No." I straighten my spine. "I'm done running. Done hiding. Done being weak."
"Rose—"
"Viktor died because of Marco's games." My voice hardens. "Gentle betrayed me because I was too trusting. Your father tried to destroy us because I made you soft."
I grab Dante's face. Force him to look at me.
"I'm not soft anymore." My voice doesn't shake. "And I'm not weak. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to find Marco. Find your father. Find everyone who hurt us."
"And then?" Dante asks.
"And then we make them pay." I let him go. "All of them. Starting with Gentle."
Dante's smile is fierce. Proud. "That's my Rose."
"Not yours yet." I grab a gun from the table. Check the clip. "But I might be. If you can keep up."
A crash echoes from the front of the house.
We all freeze.
"They found us already," Luca whispers.
Footsteps pound toward us. Lots of them.
We're trapped.
Dante and Luca raise their guns. I raise mine too.
The door explodes inward.
But it's not assassins who walk through.
It's Celeste.
And behind her, twenty armed Marino soldiers.
She looks at us. At our guns pointed at her.
Then she smiles.
"Put those down," she says. "I'm not here to kill you."
"Then why are you here?" Dante demands.
"Because Marco made a mistake." Celeste walks closer. "He killed my father too. Made it look like a heart attack but I know the truth."
"Why should we trust you?" I ask.
"Because—" Celeste pulls out her phone. Shows us a message. "He's coming for my family next. And I'd rather burn with you than die alone."
The message is from Marco.
*The Marinos are next. Starting with Celeste.*
Dante lowers his gun. "You're proposing an alliance?"
"I'm proposing war." Celeste's eyes are hard. "Total war. Against Marco. Against Don Alessandro. Against everyone who thinks they can destroy us."
"What about the five million dollar bounty on Rose?" Luca asks.
Celeste's smile turns deadly. "I just matched it. Five million to whoever brings Marco to me alive."
She holds out her hand to Dante.
"So what do you say, Corvino? Want to start a war?"
Dante looks at me. "Rose?"
I think about Viktor. About three years of loneliness. About Gentle's betrayal. About Marco's poison.
About everything they took from us.
"Let's burn it all down," I say.
Dante shakes Celeste's hand.
"We have a deal."
The house phone rings. The landline no one should know about.
We all stare at it.
Luca answers. Listens. His face goes white.
"It's for you, Rose." He holds out the phone. "It's Gentle."
My hand shakes as I take it.
"Hello?" My voice barely works.
Gentle's laugh fills my ear. Cold. Cruel.
"Miss me already?" she asks.
"What do you want?"
"To tell you something important." She pauses. "Something about the night your parents died."
My blood turns to ice. "What about it?"
"They didn't die in a car accident, Rose." Gentle's voice is soft. Almost kind. "They were murdered. And I know who killed them."
"Who?" I can barely breathe.
"The same person who's been controlling your life for three years." She laughs again. "The same person standing right next to you."
My eyes snap to Dante.
He's staring at me. Confused. Worried.
"I don't believe you," I whisper into the phone.
"Ask him," Gentle says. "Ask Dante what job Marco gave him three years and two months ago. Right before he met you."
The phone goes dead.
I lower it slowly.
Turn to face Dante.
"Rose?" He steps toward me. "What did she say?"
"She said you killed my parents."
The words hang in the air.
Dante's face goes pale. "Rose, I—"
"Did you?" My voice shakes. "Did you kill them?"
He opens his mouth.
Closes it.
Opens it again.
"I don't know," he finally whispers.
And somehow, that's worse than a yes.