Vito's POV
I had returned to the estate that afternoon with every intention of checking on Maria's condition. The doctors had been cautiously optimistic about her recovery, but she was still fragile, still prone to episodes that reminded me painfully of how much she'd endured during those twenty years we'd been apart.
But when I'd wheeled myself to her room, I'd found it empty.
"Where is she?" I'd asked Tony, my voice sharper than intended.
"Miss Castellano went out for the afternoon, boss," he'd replied, consulting his ever-present tablet. "Said she had a meeting with someone. Left around two-thirty."
A meeting. Maria, barely strong enough to manage a full day without rest, had gone out to meet someone. The protective instincts that had been honed by decades of living in a world wher
