Chapter 3

"From now on, this will be my private office."

Regina lifted her chin as she spoke.

The smugness on her face bore no resemblance to the quiet, soft-spoken newcomer I remembered.

"Because you earned it?"

I stepped closer.

"You mean the way you copied shipment routes I had already secured, rewrote the manifests I'd already cleared, and submitted my contingency plans under your own name?"

Her smile stiffened.

"Or are you talking about your talent for spreading ledgers across your desk and pretending to be buried in important business whenever Don Jefferson happened to walk by?"

Each word struck exactly where I intended.

I hadn't noticed what she was doing at first.

My mother's illness had taken most of my attention, and Regina had used that month well.

She had never been given control of the operation. She didn't know the full network, the payment channels, or even half the contacts behind our routes.

But because I had delegated the final paperwork to her, she'd gained access to shipment records, coded manifests, and parts of the contingency plans I had already prepared.

Then she'd carefully built the illusion that she wasn't merely assisting with the operation.

She had practically run it.

Regina's expression changed.

The smug confidence cracked, and color rushed into her face.

"You're lying."

Her voice came out sharper than before.

But she couldn't meet my eyes.

"You know I'm not."

I looked at her coldly.

"Those routes you claimed you secured yourself? Every contact came from my network. Every payment channel follows the structure I built. Even the emergency plans you handed Grant were copied from the contingency files I wrote months ago."

I paused.

"You changed a few names, reorganized the pages, and suddenly they became your work."

Regina's face went pale.

I tilted my head.

"Would you like me to put your records beside my originals and bring them before the capos?"

Her breathing faltered.

"We can let the men who actually understand the harbor decide how much of this operation you really built."

That silenced her.

Regina's greatest weakness had always been simple.

She didn't understand the business nearly as well as she pretended to.

Grant could be impressed by neat ledgers, late nights, and stacks of paperwork because he had never personally handled the details of the port operation.

The capos who had spent years running shipments through those docks were different.

They would see through her in minutes.

Regina's face shifted from red to white.

Then her gaze landed on the photograph sitting on my desk.

It was a picture of my mother and me from a trip we'd taken the year before.

Something flickered in Regina's eyes.

Before I could move, she swept one hand across the edge of the desk.

The frame fell.

Glass shattered across the floor.

Then Regina stepped forward.

Her heel came down directly on the photograph.

Hard.

"Oh."

She looked down, then back at me with exaggerated innocence.

"Sorry, Adriana. I didn't see it."

Heat exploded through my chest.

I slapped her.

The crack echoed through the office.

Regina's head snapped sideways, and a red mark immediately appeared across her cheek.

"Get out."

The door flew open.

"Adriana, what the hell are you doing?"

Grant Jefferson stood in the doorway, fury darkening his face.

He must have been passing through the corridor and heard the commotion.

Regina reacted instantly.

The arrogance vanished.

Her shoulders trembled, her eyes filled with tears, and when she spoke, her voice was small and shaken.

"Don Jefferson, I only came here because I felt guilty about the ten million. I wanted to apologize to Adriana."

She touched her cheek.

"I don't know why she suddenly became so angry. She just hit me."

"Adriana!"

Grant's expression hardened.

"I never thought you'd sink this low. The Family made its decision about the money. You don't have to like it, but that doesn't give you the right to attack someone under this roof."

He moved toward Regina.

"Especially when she came here trying to make peace with you."

"Make peace?"

I looked at him coldly.

Then I pointed toward the shattered frame on the floor.

"She smashed a photograph of my mother and deliberately ground it under her heel."

My eyes met his.

"That's what you call making peace?"