Chapter 1 - The Ghost of the Rinaldi Estate
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By seven o’clock in the evening, every crystal chandelier in the sprawling Rinaldi mansion was blazing with brilliant, golden light. Every chandelier, that is, except the one in Matteo Rinaldi’s master bedroom.
Upstairs, the room was swallowed by shadows.
Matteo sat completely motionless near the towering bay windows, his powerful, heavily scarred hands locked in a death grip around the cold steel rims of his wheelchair. He stared out at the manicured grounds of his estate, but he wasn't really seeing the gardens. He was seeing the memory of the ambush.
The bullet had missed his heart by a fraction of an inch. But it had taken everything below his ribs.
The top surgeons in the country had given his condition polite, clinical names. Severe spinal trauma. Permanent lower-body paralysis. Adjusted mobility protocols. But Matteo was a man who only recognized raw, brutal truths.
The only truth that mattered was that he could not stand.
Downstairs, the faint clinking of crystal and the low murmur of voices drifted up through the floorboards. Champagne was being passed on his silver trays. Men who had once waited in terrified silence for Matteo to simply nod his head were now laughing loudly under his ceiling. They were drinking his expensive liquor, walking on his imported rugs, and speaking as if the house already belonged to someone else.
He could hear the heavy bass of the string quartet playing in the grand ballroom. It was a sickening soundtrack to his own premature funeral.
They thought he was a corpse who just hadn't stopped breathing yet.
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Matteo’s jaw tightened, the muscle ticking fiercely in his cheek. He had built this empire with his own blood, tearing the city from the grip of rival families with a ruthlessness that made him a legend. Now, trapped in a body that refused to obey his commands, he was forced to listen as the jackals picked at the bones of his legacy.
He closed his eyes, the absolute darkest thoughts clouding his mind. He was a king locked in a tower of his own making, utterly powerless. Or so he thought.
