Chapter 111

Layla

Ethan continued, his voice steady but urgent. “She’s Michael Rossetti’s older sister. The daughter of Antonio Rossetti. She’s not just connected to them, Layla—she is them. She’s the heir to their empire, the one being groomed to take over when Antonio steps down.”

My breath left my lungs in a sharp, disbelieving exhale. “That’s not possible.”

“I’ve been digging into this case for weeks,” Ethan admitted, ruffling his already-ruffled hair again. “Since I first met her, in fact. It was accidental, habit, I guess. Didn’t think I’d actually find anything … anyway. A fake name is one thing, but Layla, she’s been hiding in plain sight.”

“It does explain how we’ve had so many attacks in our inner circle,” Aldo mused, voice grim. “Ethan, me, the manor … and now Eli.”

My mind raced. Vanessa—my friend, my confidante, the woman I had trusted with my son—wasn’t just part of the enemy. She was their queen in waiting.

She really was more like me than I could ever have imagined.

And she’d taken Eli.

My vision tunneled as rage, betrayal, and fear twisted inside me in a sharp knife of sensation. My fists clenched tight at my sides. “Was any of it real? Or was it all just a game?”

“She fooled us all.” Aldo’s fingers covered my shoulder, warm and soft … but not soothing. Not this time. Not with these kinds of emotions running rampant through my being.

Ethan shook his head, dug both his hands into his hair. “Fuck! If only I’d figured this out a day sooner. An hour! A fucking hour sooner …”

I couldn’t even spare the words to tell him it wasn’t his fault. I turned away, pressed a hand to my forehead. The world seemed to be shifting beneath my feet.

It was my fault.

Mine.

My own blindness had led to this, nothing else. Not Ethan, not Aldo. Me. My trust. My desperation for friendship.

She’d used me so coldly, so viciously. Played with and preyed on my emotions like the cold Mafia bitch she was. Drawn me close and cut me open with the same hand.

And to get Eli back, I’d need to do the same.

I’d need to be the cold bitch I’d been avoiding all these months. I’d thought I could be both—doctor and queen, compassionate and cold, kind and hard.

I’d been wrong.

And the thought ignited something inside me. Lit a flame inside my gut, a fire that would surely burn me alive from the inside out.

Slowly, slowly, fear and panic turned to anger.

I stepped away from Aldo, from Carlo and Luca, from Ethan. Turned to gaze out over the ruined grounds of the manor, my home. Like a lioness surveilling her domain.

The one the Rossetti family had tried to burn to ash.

“Layla.” Aldo stepped towards me, but I didn’t turn to face him. “We’re going to find him. We’re going to bring Eli home.”

“We’re going to find her,” I corrected, my gaze still cast across the night. “And when we do, we’ll turn the Rossetti name to ash. Vanessa will live just long enough to regret the day she put herself in my path.”

Aldo

The scent of blood and gunpowder still clung to the estate. The fires had been extinguished, the bodies removed, but the echoes of war lingered in every shattered window, in every bullet hole that marred the walls.

Even in my office, far from where the fighting had occurred, I could still smell it.

Or maybe the memory of it was etched into my mind in a way fights usually weren’t.

I’d lived through more battles than I could count. Why did this one haunt me so? Was it because they’d taken my son?

Or was it because my wife, my Layla, now stood in the center of my office, her face a mask of cold, composed readiness.

No panic, no rage. No emotion at all. She gave orders with the smooth, unfeeling tones of a true queen.

She was done waiting. Done hesitating.

“Boss.” Carlo stepped into the office. “The men are ready. Just say the word.”

He wasn’t looking at me when he spoke. No, his words were addressed to Layla. And I thought maybe that title, one he’d never used before because it had been reserved for me, I thought maybe it fit.

As if it had always been meant for her—as if she’d been born to play this role.

Layla turned to face him, her expression unreadable. “Not yet. They want us to move, to strike back blindly. In rage. But not this time.”

She shook her head, and when I looked down to her hands, expecting clenched fists, I saw only loose fingers. Calm. Composed.

A true queen.

“She played me for months.” Layla’s voice dropped to a murmur. “But I’m done playing her game. It’s my turn.”

“We don’t have time for a perfect plan,” I found myself saying, and regretted it as she turned to me with that cold mask of a face. “She has—”

“You said it yourself,” Layla replied. “She won’t hurt Eli until she tells us what she wants. I say, we wait for her to tell us. That’s the thing about a list of demands—if you tell me what you want, suddenly I’m the one with the cards in my hand.”

She wasn’t wrong, except that there was nothing Vanessa could want more in this world than I wanted my son back. She held the cards now, and she’d always hold the cards.

But Layla was right. At this moment, we had nothing. If we waited, we might have the barest glimpse into Vanessa’s desires—her motives. Her psyche. I didn’t have to like it, but Layla was right.

My jaw clenched with tension. “What do you need from me?”

“I need you to meet with Ethan,” she said finally. “I need everything he knows about Vanessa. Every single detail. As much as you can find.”

Ethan. He’d left shortly after delivering the news, and I knew why. Because this Layla, the one standing in the middle of my office giving orders, she was so different from the one he’d befriended.

Someone like Ethan couldn’t possibly be friends with a Mafia queen.

And something in my heart wanted to think he was right, to ache for the person she’d been. To ache for what she was becoming. Even as I swelled with pride and hope at the sight of her, I ached to have my soft, beautiful Layla of Alaska.

“Layla.” My word hung like an echo between us. What had I planned to say. You don’t have to do this? You don’t have to be like them? You can still be better …

“You know there’s no other way.” Her blue eyes found mine, and for a moment, something softened. For a moment, she was my wife again. “They came into our home. Took the thing most precious to us. No, Aldo. I’m done playing the good doctor. I’m done trying to straddle the fence. This time, I want to win.”

I nodded. “I can meet with Ethan. Get everything he knows.”

“Good.” She nodded, and the barest hint of a smile curved her mouth. “When Vanessa calls, we will be ready.”