His desk sat like a throne, untouched by morality or conscience.
I opened the drawer, fingers trembling—and I planted two things inside:
My wedding ring. Scratched. Bent. Still warm from my skin.
The sonogram. Black and white and unforgiving.
Three little shapes. Three reasons he’d never sleep again.
But it wasn’t just a goodbye. It was a warning. A prophecy. Because I knew the truth. But I’d flipped the game. I left that sonogram not to break him.
Not yet. I left it to haunt him.
To remind him that his future—the one he tried to steal—was still inside me. Untouchable.
Because I wasn’t running to escape. I was running to be reborn. And when I returned, I wouldn’t be his wife. I’d be the huntress.
“You built an empire with my blood. I’ll make you drown in it.”
Not as a prisoner anymore.
Now, I was the reckoning.
And the mother of the empire he’d never control.
Reagan had a vault hidden behind a fake panel in his office wall. Retinal scan, passcode, fingerprint—the man had enough secrets to start a war. I cracked it in under five minutes.
Stupid man.
He thought love was a chain, not a choice. Thought because I was his wife, I’d never turn on him. But he forgot I was raised by Titanis. I was forged in secrets. Programmed in shadows.
And I never forget how to play dead.
Inside, behind the rows of blood money and documents, sat a sleek black hard drive.
I knew what it was before I touched it.
Footage. Evidence. The kind of dirty gold that could set the world on fire.
Titanis raids that never made headlines.
Weapons trades sold under fake embargoes.
Hit lists signed with Reagan's personal seal.
All of it… under my father’s company name. But I knew better now. Titanis had become the playground of a serpent.
And I was done pretending not to see the fangs.
I didn’t know where else to go. So I called him.
Salvatore Ricci.
Once the man who swore he’d give me the world.
Now, a big-shot defense lawyer with three offices, a penthouse suite, and more power than most men dreamed of.
But that’s what the world saw.
What it didn’t see?
He was also Mr. X—the underworld’s most whispered nightmare. No one had seen his face. No one dared cross him. And wherever he went, he left behind a cold metal “X” like a signature.
Sal answered on the first ring.
“Danica.” His voice was low, calm, dangerous in its quiet.
“I... I need your help,” I whispered.
“Where are you?”
“Hiding. I need a favor.”