It was Viktor–my second–in–command. Guy’s usually cool, quiet. But his face was pale, and he was holding a tablet like it was a bomb.
“Sir…” His voice cracked slightly. “You need to see this. It’s trending.”
He handed me the screen without waiting for permission. At first, I didn’t register what I was looking at.
Red dress. Elegant woman. Stunning. Younger. Fierce.
And then I saw her face. Different makeup. Different hair. Softer jaw. But I knew those eyes.
My hand dropped the glass.
It hit the floor, exploded into crystal and bourbon.
I didn’t blink.
I knew that face. I knew the way her lips curled slightly when she didn’t smile all the way. I knew that posture–poised but with that tension she carried in her shoulders like she was always bracing for something.
Then I saw the name under the caption.
Savannah Moretti.
Not Lambert.
Moretti.
The name punched me in the chest.
“No…” I whispered, but it came out hoarse. I sat back down, grabbed the tablet, zoomed in. Again. and again. Closer. Closer.
There it was. That fucking mole.
She was right there. On every screen in the goddamn world, wearing red like a fucking phoenix. and smiling like she knew exactly what she was doing.
She looked alive.
She was supposed to be dead. I ran a hand down my face. My skin felt cold. My mouth was dry.
“She died,” I muttered. “I held her ashes. I signed her death papers. I burned her body. What the fuck is this? What the actual fuck is this?”
stood up so fast the chair fell backward.
The rage hit me like a freight train. I grabbed the lamp, threw it across the suite. The bulb. exploded. I yanked off my jacket, ripped it in half without even thinking. Knocked over the minibar. Punched the wall until my knuckles bled.
‘FUCK!”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or laugh or kill someone.
Was it real? Was this some sick game? Some fucking body double planted to rattle me? Or did she fake it? All of it?
Chapter 13
1:52 pm
Did she hate me that much?
I stormed back to the bed and shouted at Viktor. “Call the tech team. All of them. I want every goddamn frame from that gala. Every camera. Every feed. Who was she talking to? Who did she walk in with? What name did she register under?”
Viktor nodded and ran.
I picked up my phone again. Zoomed in on her face. Her eyes. She looked stronger. Harder.
Changed.
But she was mine. Once. Maybe still.
And if this was real…
God help anyone who helped her disappear. Because if she wanted war-
She was fucking getting it.
I DIDN’T SLEEP.
Not even for an hour.
It’d been two days since that charity gala photo hit the press, and I hadn’t stepped outside my damn hotel. The curtains were drawn, the lights low, and the floor was littered with half–drunk glasses of whiskey and cigarette ash I hadn’t touched in years. But nothing could slow my pulse. Not when she was out there. Breathing. Walking. Fucking existing.
Savannah.
Dr… Savannah Moretti now. What the fuck did that even mean?
Every screen in my office was lit up. I had videos, screenshots, surveillance footage, social. media scraps, news articles, gala invites, guest registries–hell, even drone footage from the gala night. All of it synced, scanned, broken down, and pulled apart by my team.
The entire time, I sat there like a madman with a glass of something dark in one hand, clicking through every clip frame–by–frame. Her walk. Her posture. The way she tilted her head when someone whispered something she didn’t like. The way her lips pressed together when she was holding back emotion.
Same fucking Savannah.
The voice analysts ran comparisons between her old recordings–phone calls, private security sams I shouldn’t even have kept–and this new version of her.
Voice match: 87.6%.
Facial structure match: 92.1%.
Mole match: 100%.
leaned back in my chair, staring at the data like it was God himself speaking.
“That’s her,” I whispered. “It’s always been her.”
She changed the way she spoke–softer, more refined. Lost the American edge in her accent. Learned to control her emotions like a goddamn queen. But I knew her. I knew her. That was my girl. Or used to be.
1:52 pm GDD
I didn’t want to admit it, but the part of me that never stopped bleeding the night she died… i started throbbing again. Not just with pain.
With hope.
But that shit didn’t mean peace. It meant obsession. I wanted to know everything. Why she faked her death. How. Who helped her. Who protected her. Who fucking touched her since sh left my arms.
That was the rage no whiskey could drown.
I called in every favor. Every contact. Everyone I owned in every embassy from Italy to Switzerland. I paid dark web bounty hunters more than I’d paid some of my captains. I pulled up death certificates, forged ID trails, underground medical transfers. Bribed surgeons. Tracer aliases. Set up ghost tracking routes through corporate acquisitions under “Moretti shell holdings.”
Then it hit me like a freight train.
Moretti.
That name didn’t just mean old blood.
It meant the blood.
The Moretti family wasn’t some fucking small–time Euro crew. They were royalty in the southerr syndicates. The kind of bloodline that built empires while others played checkers. Deep roots in old–world crime. Politics. Assassins. Banking.
And Savannah belonged to them?
It made my chest tighten. I remembered her crying in the rain… And now she stood beside the goddamn devil’s throne.
One of my men knocked once, then entered. He held out a flash drive.
“Sir, this just came in. Cross–referenced shell companies and private holdings under Moretti control. We found one that’s been buying out some of your smaller properties. Laundromats.
edges.”
Clubs. Warehouses. Low–profile stuff. But they’re poking properties. Laundromats.
“Name?” I snapped.
“Luna Verde Holdings. Registered in Switzerland. Tied to a woman named Clara Mancini. But… voice match says ninety percent odds it’s her.”
I took the drive and shoved it into my laptop.
Chapter 14
