Page 6 of Crimson Reign

Mark's shocked face, eyes wide as the bullet pierced his chest, remains indelibly etched in my memory. The terror of that night lives in my bones now.

Every night, the same dream. For the past three months, I watch my husband die again and again and again, every time I go to sleep.

I sit up in the unfamiliar bed, my heart hammering. The clock on the nightstand reads 2:17 AM. Beside me, Fiona sleeps peacefully. At least the nightmares can’t touch her.

This safe house is sparse but clean—a modest one-bedroom apartment that Matteo Bellanti apparently owns through some shell company.

It’s intentionally small, easier to defend. The neighborhood is quiet, unsuspicious. No one would look for us here.

Three months ago, my life was normal. A husband who loved me, a beautiful daughter, a career I excelled at. Now I’m hiding in a mafia enforcer’s safe house with a price on my head.

I slip out of bed and pad barefoot to the kitchen, careful not to wake Fiona. I need water.

The apartment is dark except for a soft hallway nightlight. I pause in the living room. Matteo is asleep on the couch, his large frame barely fitting.

His feet hang over the armrest, his arm draped across his face. In sleep, the hard edges of his face soften. He looks almost vulnerable—not like the man who killed several people just hours ago.

I move quietly, wincing when the cabinet creaks as I grab a glass and take a bottle of water from the fridge.

Mark and I met six years ago at a financial forensics conference in Chicago.

We were the same nerd—detail-oriented, fascinated by tracing money trails. I never believed in soulmates until Mark.

When he got the job at Ashcroft & Partners, we were ecstatic. The prestigious firm offered him twice his previous salary. It was surreal. We bought our first house, had Fiona. Life was good.

Until he discovered the firm was laundering money for the Caruso crime family. His meticulous nature—the very thing that made him brilliant—led him to uncover their entire operation. The human trafficking. The ritual cult. All of it.

I didn’t know what he’d found until it was too late.

Until they broke into our home and shot him in front of me.

I set the empty glass of water down and notice a stack of blankets in the hall closet. Matteo must be cold.

Before I can think better of it, I grab one and approach the couch.

I’m about to drape it over him when his hand shoots out, gripping my wrist so tightly I gasp. His eyes are instantly alert, cold, assessing.

“What are you doing?” His voice is quiet, but dangerous.

He has rolled up his black shirtsleeves to the elbows, revealing forearms covered in intricate tattoos—dark spirals and symbols crawling from his knuckles all the way up his arms. More ink peeks above his collar, disappearing beneath the sharp line of his jaw. But what draws my eye are the scars—jagged, puckered burn marks spreading across the back of his hand and fingers.

“I—I was getting you a blanket. You looked cold.”

His eyes narrow.

“Not sure what you’re so worried about,” I retort, surprising myself.

He releases my wrist, sitting up in one fluid motion. His precisely cut dark hair doesn’t even look rumpled despite sleep. “Go back to bed.”

I drop the blanket beside him. “Fine. Sorry for trying to be decent.”

“You’re in a building with a killer who just slaughtered several men. Your concept of decency needs recalibration.”

“Those same men worked for the people who murdered my husband,” I say, rubbing my wrist. “I have a perfectly calibrated sense of decency, thank you.”

My gaze drops to the burns on his hands. “What happened there?”

His angular face hardens. “Work,” he replies, tugging his sleeve down in a practiced motion, covering most of the tattoos, but not before I glimpse what looked like a saint’s face inked into his skin.

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