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The war lasted four years.

Fourteen hundred and sixty nights. Manhattan's underworld soaked in layer after layer of blood.

I fought like a madman. Charged the front lines myself. Climbed over mountains of corpses to expand our territory.

Second spring—I strangled old Vincenzo with my bare hands in a Brooklyn underground club. Third winter—DeLuca's one hundred twenty-seven strongholds across the country were razed. Lorenzo, that pathetic dog, fled to Europe with three bodyguards. The family was finished. Reduced to gutter rats.

The Moretti family reached unprecedented heights of power. No one on the East Coast dared look the serpent ring in the eye anymore.

But all that power, all that submission—it couldn't fill the gaping hole in the center of my chest.

For four years, I had the same dream every night.

That leaking shithole apartment in Hoboken. That girl with long chestnut hair and amber eyes, clutching my hand, begging me to let Chad go. Her swollen face. Her desperate tears.

Every time I woke from the nightmare, sheets soaked in cold sweat, nothing beside me but a cold Beretta and empty bourbon bottles.

I mobilized the entire family intelligence network. Combed through every fashion school and design workshop in Paris, Florence, Rome, even Zurich. Never found a single trace of her. She'd evaporated like a drop of water into the vast sea. Clean. Leaving me no chance at redemption.

To keep from going insane in that endless abyss of regret, I compressed my schedule to the point of suffocation.

Days filled with IS·MA Group board meetings, financial reports, acquisitions. Nights spent on bloody Mafia purges and cleanups. Four straight years without a single day off. Average four hours of sleep a night.

In the IS·MA Group president's office, the ashtray was always overflowing with cigar butts.

The door opened.

Isabella walked in wearing a sharp black tailored suit, heels clicking.

Over these four years, she'd grown even sharper, more refined. Took over the group's top fashion magazine. Became one of the hottest young editors in the industry. That brutal misunderstanding had eventually healed with time, but the rift between father and daughter remained—a scar that wouldn't fade.

"You look like a corpse that just crawled out of the morgue, Daddy."

Isabella slammed a gold-embossed invitation onto my desk. Crossed her arms. Her brow knotted tight. "Four whole years. All you do is kill people and read financial reports. Are you planning to work yourself to death at this mahogany desk before you hit fifty?"

I didn't even look up. Signed an acquisition agreement. "I need to make sure DeLuca's remnants don't come back. Get out. I've got three international video conferences."

"Marcelo Moretti!"

Isabella slammed her hand down on my documents. Her gray-green eyes blazed with fury and barely concealed heartbreak. "Look at your temples! You're only forty-five, and your hair's gone white on both sides! Rocco said you coughed all night in the basement! How long are you going to keep punishing yourself?"

My pen paused. Voice hoarse and dry. "It's just work."

"Screw your work!"

Isabella shoved the gold invitation right under my nose. "This is the New Designers Award final judging invitation for this year. IS·MA's the lead sponsor. The committee's begged me three times to get you to attend the opening gala and serve as special guest judge."

She took a deep breath. Softened her tone. "Go clear your head. Look at what young people are designing. Get out of your own head. Stop locking yourself in this blood-soaked coffin."

New designers.

The words hit like a rusty needle stabbing the most fragile part of my brain.

That girl used to be like that. Clutching a stack of revision notebooks. Eyes burning with pure passion for fabric and tailoring.

But now, even if the world's best designs were laid out in front of me, they'd just be soulless scraps of cloth.