Chapter 2

Adriana's POV

Clinging to a sliver of hope, I opened a burner line into the underworld grapevine and started working through the channels where Bianca Corsetti's name moved, hoping to find something that might explain how she'd known.

But, as expected, she wasn't the kind to leave her business out where anyone could read it.

I was about to give up when a detail in one of her circulated photos caught my eye. A familiar figure standing at the edge of the frame.

I brought the image closer and studied it. It caught someone's left hand, and on that hand sat a ring I knew all too well.

It was my betrothed's hand. Lorenzo Ferraro. I'd given him that ring on the first anniversary of the alliance our families had sworn. I'd had it made by hand, one of a kind. No other man in any territory could be wearing the same one.

That was when it hit me.

Somewhere behind my back, in rooms I was never invited into, Lorenzo had bound himself to Bianca. No wonder that when my world came apart, he'd cut ties with me so cleanly and so fast, then stood at the Corsetti girl's side as if he'd always belonged there.

I didn't have time to grieve over a man who'd betrayed the bloodline. I needed to think clearly.

Looking back, I used to tell Lorenzo everything. How hard the business ran, how thin the margins stretched, the ideas that came to me in the dead hours of the night. Was it possible he'd carried those secrets straight to the Corsettis?

Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me.

But he'd been "handling matters out of the city" for weeks and hadn't come near me. Even if I could get my hands on his phone, he'd never surrender it willingly. I had no proof he'd whispered a single word to Bianca.

Still, this was a thread, and I wasn't about to let it slip.

I took out my phone, sent him the photo, laid out plainly what I'd seen, and told him we were finished. Then I blocked him without hesitation.

After that, I changed every lock and every code in my apartment. The last thing I needed was him letting himself in while I was gone.

With that door shut, I turned back to what mattered. A new idea for the business, something clean, something mine.

This time, there would be no mistakes.

Just to be safe, I decided to change my approach again. That last move had been my first step outside familiar ground, trading the quiet, cautious way I'd always operated for something bolder, more open, more sure of itself.

Since that direction had been received so well, going further could only strengthen my hand.

I spent hours turning it over, refining, and finally writing the whole thing out. When I looked at the finished plan on my screen, I couldn't help but smile.

No one was getting ahead of me this time.

To keep it from leaking, I worked the whole thing out at home. No meetings on neutral ground. No hands but mine. Just me and what I needed.

When I looked over the finished plan, I couldn't help but think, maybe I really was made for this life.

Still cautious, I even reached back into Bianca's latest post and left a word where she'd see it.

[Can't wait for your next move, queen. Don't keep us waiting.]

Not long after, she answered.

[That last one took everything I had. I won't have anything new for a good while.]

I sent back a crying-cat emoji and finally let a breath go. So she wasn't planning to move again anytime soon.

So I'd been right. Last time, she must have heard my concept from Lorenzo and rushed to strike before I could.

Still, was it truly possible for two people to land on the exact same idea, down to the bone?

It was hard to believe, but for now I had no choice except to call it coincidence. Sometimes people simply think alike. Isn't that so?

With that, I set my new plan in motion and drafted the words to go with it. I was just about to send it out when a notification from my burner line lit up.

I opened it, and the color drained from my face.