Chapter 3

Adriana's POV

Bianca had just put word out on the grapevine.

She'd taken my message, the one where I'd baited her about her next move, and passed it up the line like a favor. Then she'd let her own business drop right after, fresh and clean.

Alongside it, she'd whispered to every ear that mattered: [I meant to hold this back, keep it close for the ones who trust me. But someone warned me that this business might've been lifted from another family. So I had no choice but to bring it into the open early, to clear my name. If I'd waited and another moved first, they'd say I was the thief, and I'd never live it down.]

My hands were shaking as I pulled up what she'd put out.

Then I looked back at my own plans, laid out on the table in front of me.

They matched. Move for move, name for name, down to the last detail I'd never spoken aloud to a living soul.

What in God's name was happening?

I held my head in my hands, completely lost. I had breathed this scheme to no one. It lived only in my mind. How had she pulled it out of me whole?

Did being given a second life still mean I couldn't outrun the shadow of the first? Was I doomed to repeat it, to be branded a rat and buried all over again, just like before?

Of course, her play landed. The word was already spreading, family to family, her name climbing.

Two clean strikes back to back, and her standing rose from a handful of soldiers to near a million voices of respect across the territories. A different weight entirely now.

But because of that statement, the talk wasn't only praise. It carried suspicion in its teeth.

[Who dared lift our lady's work? Say the name.]

[Never heard of this business before. If any other family moves the same way now, we'll know who's the thief.]

[Rats and pretenders should rot where they fall.]

Everyone wanted to be first to drag the truth into the light.

Then Bianca answered the loudest of them.

[Sweetheart, the other one carries a name with standing, big as mine and in the same trade. So I won't speak it aloud. But she went quiet lately, trying to rebuild her house after her fall. I suppose she hit a wall, and decided to steal from a smaller name like me.]

She named no one. She didn't have to.

That was enough to point every finger in one direction.

The grapevine never needs much to draw its lines. It didn't take long for them to trace the shape of it and arrive at my door.

Quick as a knife pulled, the talk around my name turned to a war zone. Accusations, insults, doubt without end.

But my own stood by me. With no proof I'd broken faith, the venom got buried under waves of loyalty from those who still believed.

Still, I was exhausted. Mentally drained. Physically done.

Between the sleepless nights and the pressure that never eased, I finally dropped into bed and passed out without meaning to.

I didn't know how long I was under before a hard knock jolted me awake.

"Adriana! I know you're in there. Open the door!"

"You hear me? Don't make this harder than it needs to be!"

I opened the door and found myself staring straight into Lorenzo's eyes.

"What's the meaning of this? Cutting me off without a word? I ran into Bianca one time. You're seeing ghosts!" he barked, dragging a case behind him as he shoved past me.

I came back to myself and pushed him toward the door. "It's over between us. I don't want to see your face again."

"Enough theater," he said. His hand drifted to the base of his throat, and he swallowed. "I came back to give you a way out. Just own that you were wrong, make your apology to Bianca where the families can see it, and this whole thing dies quiet. Don't make it uglier than it has to be."

Hearing that, I lost it.

"I didn't steal from her!" I screamed. "She took what was mine!"

Lorenzo laughed like I'd told a joke. "So the thief managed to move before the one she supposedly robbed? That's a fresh one. Real impressive."

"Every family knows you lifted her business," he added. "You're the only one still lying to your own face."

I pointed to the door, my voice shaking with fury. "If you don't walk out of here right now, I'll have men on you for setting foot where you're not welcome."

That finally made him step back. He took up his case, but not before throwing one last word over his shoulder.

"Pathetic. You'll come crawling back before long. Just wait."

I slammed the door behind him so hard the walls shook.

But it didn't take long to learn what he meant.

Not even an hour later, he put out word of his own, speaking of what we'd been to each other and letting everyone understand he was ashamed to have stood beside a thief.

Of course, Bianca surfaced in the talk to say, [Thank you for speaking true, brother.]

Then she followed with a statement carried through her whole house.

[I still hold to the old ways, to work that a name earns honestly. As long as we stand firm, there's hope. I ask every family to stand with me against those who steal what isn't theirs.]

Because of those two, I was pinned against the wall in an instant, marked a thief, a name without honor.

I wanted to defend myself. I had no idea where to begin.

What was I supposed to say? That the business Bianca "built" had been mine first? That somehow, by some cruel twist, the two plans came out identical, matched to the last breath?

Who would believe that? No one. Not one soul would buy it but me.

Then, to make it worse, some sharp-eyed listeners on the grapevine turned up my other name, the quiet one, and found the message I'd left urging her to move.

[So that message wasn't eagerness. She was fishing for something to steal.]

[She had the nerve to ask for an update. Treated our lady's work like her own stores to raid.]

Reading it hit me like a knife between the ribs. I had no idea what came next.

Even if I laid out something brilliant now, what was the point? Bianca would always reach it first. She'd move before me every single time.

That crushing helplessness wrapped around me tighter than ever.

I looked at the name I'd built, the standing I'd bled for, and I knew what I had to do if I meant to keep from falling into the same grave I'd fallen into once before.

I gave up the name a million voices had once respected, and I sent out one last word across the territories.

[I can't prove I stole nothing. There are things I simply can't explain. I've stepped back from the trade, and I'm walking away from it for good. All I'll say is this: I, Adriana Valente, have never taken what belonged to another family.]

Then I closed off the talk, refused every private word, and forced myself to stop turning it over.

If I couldn't win the fight, then maybe it was better to walk from the table.

I packed my bags and gave myself leave to disappear for a while. I needed to breathe, to rest, to find my footing again. I figured if I went silent, I'd finally see what Bianca could put together on her own.