CHAPTER 2 — THE SECRET BEHIND THE SCAR
Emma wanted to leave.
The moment she heard that someone dangerous knew about her, every instinct screamed at her to take Oliver and disappear.
But Sebastian stopped her.
"You saved me."
Emma looked at him coldly.
"I moved your foot. I didn’t save you."
His expression changed slightly.
Nobody spoke to him like that.
"You don't understand what you just did."
"I understand enough."
She picked up her medical bag.
"I came here because I needed money for my son. Not because I wanted to become part of your world."
Sebastian stared at her.
Then he said something nobody expected.
"You're right."
Emma stopped.
The most feared man in Chicago admitted she was right.
"I brought you here because I was desperate."
His voice became quieter.
"For twenty years, everyone saw me as a monster."
He looked down at his wheelchair.
"But nobody saw the man trapped inside it."
For a moment, Emma saw something behind the reputation.
Not a criminal.
Not a kingpin.
A broken man.
Then Sebastian revealed the truth.
The bombing that destroyed his spine was never random.
Someone wanted his family erased.
And the person who ordered it was still alive.
A former ally.
Someone Sebastian trusted.
Someone who had spent twenty years pretending to be loyal.
"The man who did this is coming for you because you gave me something I haven't had in decades."
Emma frowned.
"What?"
"Hope."
That word scared Sebastian more than any enemy.
Because hope created weakness.
And enemies attacked weakness.
Later that night, Emma returned home under Sebastian's protection.
But she found her apartment door slightly open.
Her heart stopped.
"Oliver?"
She rushed inside.
Her son was sitting on the couch.
Safe.
But holding something.
A photograph.
"Mom..."
Emma looked at the picture.
Her blood turned cold.
It showed Sebastian Lombardi twenty years earlier.
Standing beside her father.
Her dead father.
"What is this?"
Oliver pointed to the back.
A handwritten message was written there.
"Ask Sebastian why he buried the truth about your family."
Emma felt the entire world shift.
Her father wasn’t a stranger to Sebastian.
He was connected to him.
May you like
And suddenly, the man she thought she was helping…
might be the man who destroyed her life.
