Lorenzo's POV
The snow in Maine kept falling, a white blanket over everything.
My car was parked on the side of the road, three miles from town. The tank was empty. So was I.

After Isabella threw me out, I just wandered the wilderness like a ghost.
I didn't want to go back to New York. I didn't want to live.
All I could see was her eyes when she pointed that gun at me.
So cold. So full of hate.
The way you look at an enemy.
She said my love was a disease.

She said we were enemies.
"Boss..."
Marco found me somehow, holding a can of gas. He watched me cautiously as he filled the tank.
"Are we... going back to New York?"

"Back?" I let out a hollow laugh, coughing up a mouthful of blood. "There's nothing left for me there."
The old Don stripped me of my power. Isabella sentenced me to death.
Right now, I was worth less than a stray dog on the street.
Just then, Marco's phone rang, shattering the silence in the car.
He answered. His face went white. His hand shook so badly he almost dropped the phone.
"Boss... there's trouble."
He handed me the phone, his hand trembling.
A single seal on the encrypted message: The Commission.
The highest authority in the American Mafia. They held the power of life and death over all the families.
The email was short, but every word was a death sentence:
[Don Lorenzo Romano, you are hereby summoned to a hearing in three days regarding the murder of an ally (Cassandra Vitale), the betrayal of a blood oath, and the dishonoring of your family. Failure to appear will be taken as a confession of guilt, and the penalty is death.]
It was a death warrant.
The Vitale family had made their move.
They didn't just want my life. They wanted to drag the entire Romano family down with me.
And... they would try to drag Isabella into it.
After all, Cassandra's "accident" happened while I was "looking for my ex-wife." They would argue that Isabella was my accomplice.
They would use that to pull Isabella into this mess, to destroy her completely.
I stared at the email. My heart, which had been dead, gave a sudden lurch.
It didn't matter if I died.
But nothing could happen to Isabella.
She had just escaped that hell. She was building a new life.
I couldn't let those jackals destroy her again.
"Back to New York."
I threw the phone at Marco. My eyes, once lost, were now filled with grim resolve.
"Boss? But..." Marco looked at me in terror. "It's a death trap! The Vitale family has already set the board at the Commission. Going back is suicide!"
"I know."
I coughed, tasting blood again. "It doesn't matter. I'm a dead man walking anyway."
I remembered the doctor's words. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Broken Heart Syndrome. A fancy name for a man whose heart was literally giving up. He'd said I wouldn't last the winter.
"Marco," I said, looking out at the endless snow. "This is the last thing I can do for her."
I had to go back.
Not to argue my case. Not to beg for my life.
I was going back to confess.
I would be the scapegoat. I would take every sin, every crime, and chain them to my own name. I would use my death to wash her clean.
"Drive."
The engine roared. The black SUV, like a lone wolf heading to its death, plunged into the vast night.
Isabella, don't be afraid.
This is the last time I can protect you.
Even if I have to pave the way with my own body.