Six months later.

The Sicilian sun hit differently than the light in New York.

It was honest. Unforgiving. It didn't hide behind glass skyscrapers or filter through smog.

I sat in my studio, a converted loft perched high above the Palermo coast.

Bolts of silk, Kevlar, and leather were scattered across the drafting tables like a chaotic, beautiful battlefield.

My phone buzzed against the wood.

It was Ben.

Attachment: 3 images.

I opened them.

The first was a headline from the New York Times Society page, bold and mocking.

THE KING AND HIS QUEEN: JAX VETTI AND CHLOE DAVENPORT SET WEDDING DATE.

The second was a photo of them.

Jax looked powerful, his hand resting possessively on Chloe's waist.

Chloe looked smug, radiating a victor's glow, her baby bump now visible under a custom designer gown.

The caption read: "A union of power and passion. Vetti calls Davenport his 'true north'."

True north.

I laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound that scraped against my throat.

I used to be his compass. Now, I was just ballast he had cut loose to stay afloat.

The third image was a financial report.

Ben: He's bleeding cash, Savvy. The wedding is costing millions. He's buying her loyalty with diamonds because he knows the alliance is shaky. He's liquidating assets from the commercial bakery sector to pay for her whims.

The bakery sector.

My father's legacy.

Jax was selling off the bricks and mortar of my father's hard work just to buy Chloe a tiara.

I walked to the full-length mirror.

The scar on my neck was no longer an angry red slash.

It was a work of art.

Gold ink traced the jagged line, weaving through the scar tissue like a river of molten metal. I had treated it with Kintsugi-the Japanese art of repairing the broken with gold.

It didn't look like an injury anymore.

It looked like lightning.

I turned away from the mirror and picked up my heavy tailoring shears.

I wasn't crying.

I hadn't cried since the fountain.

Tears were a luxury for people who had hope. I didn't have hope. I had a business plan.

"SAVVY."

That was the name of the brand.

High fashion.

But with a secret.

Every dress, every coat, every suit was reinforced.

Hidden pockets tailored specifically for switchblades.

Kevlar weaves seamlessly integrated into silk bodices.

Quick-release clasps for emergency escape.

I was designing armor for women who lived in a world of wolves.

And the Sicilian women loved it.

The wives of the local Dons, the daughters of the old families-they lined up for my fittings.

They saw the gold on my neck, and they understood.

I wasn't a victim. I was a survivor.

"Signorina?"

My assistant, a local girl named Giulia, poked her head in.

"Don Rossi is here. He wishes to see the new collection."

Mateo Rossi.

The head of the Sicilian Commission.

He was older than Jax, quieter. Dangerous in the way the ocean is dangerous-calm on the surface, but holding death in its depths.

He walked in, his suit impeccable.

He didn't look at my legs-which had healed, though they left me with a slight, permanent limp.

He looked at my eyes.

"The buzz is loud, Savvy," Mateo said, running a hand over a velvet jacket lined with slash-proof mesh. "New York is talking about the wedding. But Sicily... Sicily is talking about the dressmaker."

"Let them talk," I said, pinning a hem with practiced precision.

"Jax sent an envoy," Mateo said casually.

My hand froze.

"And?"

"I told him we haven't seen a girl named Savvy," Mateo smiled, a slight curl of his lip. "I told him we only know a woman named Gold."

He placed a hand on the table. Not touching me, but close enough to offer support.

"He threw you away, Savvy. He doesn't get to ask where you landed."

"He's using my father's money," I said, my voice cold. "To pay for her."

"Money comes and goes," Mateo said. "Respect is harder to earn. And right now, Jax Vetti is losing respect. A man who cannot protect his own household cannot rule a city."

He looked at the tablet on my desk, displaying the wedding announcement.

"He looks happy," Mateo observed.

"He looks like a man standing on a trapdoor," I corrected.

I picked up a silver lighter and the photo of Jax I had kept in my drawer. The one of us when we were teenagers.

I flicked the lighter.

The flame caught the edge of the photo.

I watched Jax's face curl and blacken.

I watched my own smiling, naive face turn to ash.

"Ben says the wedding is in two months," I said, dropping the burning photo into a metal bin.

"It will be the event of the decade," Mateo said.

"Yes," I agreed, watching the fire die out.

I turned back to my work.

"Because I'm going to make sure he can't afford the bill."

For six months, I had existed as a ghost.

I lived in the shadows of information, where Sicily was my fortress, and Ben was my eyes in New York.

Every week, we spoke on an encrypted line that hummed with the static of the Atlantic.

"He's paranoid," Ben said, his voice crackling over the connection. "He's firing captains who have been loyal for twenty years. He thinks everyone is out to get him."

"Is he wrong?" I asked, my charcoal pencil scratching against the sketchbook. I was designing a thigh holster disguised as a bridal garter-a habit I couldn't break.

"No," Ben scoffed. "But the threat isn't coming from the outside. It's sleeping in his bed."

I paused, the pencil hovering over the paper. "Chloe?"

"And Julian."

Julian Vance. Jax's Consigliere. His childhood friend. The man who handled the money and buried the bodies.

"What about them?"

"I started digging into the books like you asked," Ben said. "Julian has been skimming off the top for years. Small amounts. Hard to notice. But since Chloe arrived... the amounts got bigger."

"How big?"

"Millions. Funneled into offshore accounts in the Caymans."

"That's stealing," I said, frowning. "But it's not treason."

"Wait," Ben said, his tone dropping an octave. "I bugged the safe house. The one Julian uses for his 'private' meetings."

A file appeared on my screen.

Audio_Clip_04.mp3

I put on my headphones, my pulse thrumming in my ears.

The sound was crystal clear: The sharp clink of ice against glass. The heavy rustle of high-thread-count sheets.

Then, Julian's voice, dripping with arrogance.

"He's so easy, Chloe. I tell him he's the king, and he signs whatever I put in front of him."

Then, a woman's laugh. High, cruel, and utterly bored. Chloe.

"He's exhausting, Julian. All he talks about is 'legacy' and 'honor'. God, I miss you. When can we stop pretending?"

"Soon," Julian purred. "Let him put the ring on your finger. Let him merge the families. Then... tragedies happen. The grieving widow inherits the empire. And the grieving best friend comforts her."

My stomach lurched violently.

They weren't just stealing.

They were planning a coup.

"What about the baby?" Chloe asked.

There was a pause, heavy and pregnant with malice.

"It's a Vetti heir," Chloe said. "Technically."

Julian laughed. "Is it? With the timing? It could be mine just as easily as his."

"Does it matter?" Chloe giggled. "As long as it gets us the crown."

I tore the headphones off and threw them onto the desk.

I stared at the whitewashed wall, my breathing shallow, the air in the room suddenly too thin.

Jax had destroyed me for this.

He had thrown away my loyalty, my love, my life... for a woman who was sleeping with his best friend and plotting his murder.

He broke his promise to me for a lie.

Wait until you're twenty-two.

He didn't want a partner. He wanted a trophy. And he bought a fake one.

"He deserves it," I whispered to the empty room.

He deserved to be betrayed. He deserved to lose everything.

But...

I looked at the scar above my eyebrow in the mirror.

If they killed him, he died a martyr. He died thinking he was loved.

That wasn't justice.

Justice was him knowing.

Justice was him realizing exactly what he threw away before the knife went in.

My phone buzzed again.

Ben: I have more. Video. It's nuclear, Savvy. If I release this, the Vetti family implodes. The Commission will skin them alive.

Me: Hold it.

Ben: What? Why?

Me: The wedding is in two weeks. We don't detonate the bomb in the basement, Ben. We detonate it at the altar.

I stood up and walked to the small safe in the corner of my studio.

I spun the dial-left, right, left.

Inside was the wooden box.

I took out the small vial containing the ashes of the photo I burned.

And beside it, the jagged pieces of the brass bullet casing I had destroyed with a hammer the night I arrived.

I took the sharp brass shards into my palm, letting them bite into my skin.

I walked out onto the balcony.

The sea was dark and restless below, crashing against the Sicilian cliffs.

I opened my hand.

The brass pieces fell, glinting in the moonlight before vanishing into the waves.

The blood oath was gone.

The girl who saved the bullet was gone.

I picked up the phone.

Me: Ben. Get me an invitation.

Ben: To the wedding? Are you crazy?

Me: No. To the funeral of his empire.

I smiled, and for the first time in months, it reached my eyes.

It was a cold, sharp smile.

"Checkmate, Jax."

The cold metal resting against my collarbone wasn't a scar anymore.

It was a statement.

But the weight on my chest, the necklace Mateo Rossi had just clasped there, felt like an anchor.

It was a heavy, antique piece-rubies burning in settings of blackened gold.

It had belonged to his grandmother.

In Sicily, you didn't drape a business partner in history.

You gave it to family.

You gave it to someone you intended to keep.

I stood in front of the mirror in the ballroom of the Palermo Palazzo, taking in the transformation.

My dress was one of my own designs.

Black silk, high-necked to frame the gold Kintsugi scar, with a back that plunged dangerously low.

Concealed within the flowing folds of the skirt were two ceramic blades.

I looked like a weapon wrapped in luxury.

I looked lethal.

"It suits you," Mateo said, his reflection appearing like a shadow behind mine.

He wasn't touching me.

He didn't need to.

His presence was a physical force, a wall of heat and protection that stood between me and the rest of the world.

"It's heavy," I said, my fingers grazing the icy stones.

"Protection is always heavy," Mateo replied, his voice a low rumble. "Only lies are weightless."

Lies are weightless.

The words settled in my gut.

Jax's promises had been weightless.

Wait until you're twenty-two.

Maybe I'll keep you.

Air.

Just hot air and smoke.

Mateo offered me his arm.

"Shall we? The families are waiting to meet the woman behind the armor."

I took his arm.

We walked into the gala, and for the first time in my life, I didn't walk two steps behind a man.

I walked stride for stride beside him.

Across the ocean, in the city that used to be my home, another party was being planned.

Ben's encrypted update vibrated against my thigh-a silent tether to the war I'd left behind.

I waited until I could slip away to the sanctuary of the ladies' room to check it.

Ben: They signed the pre-nup amendments an hour ago. Julian slipped in a clause about asset transfer in case of incapacitation. Jax signed it without reading. He was too busy staring at Chloe.

I scrolled down, a grim satisfaction curling in my chest.

Ben: I also have audio from the car ride home. Julian threatened Chloe. He has videos of her. She countered with his gambling debts. They are eating each other alive, Savvy. And Jax is just the meal.

I put the phone away.

My hand lingered in the bag, brushing against velvet.

I reached into my clutch.

At the very bottom, wrapped in a piece of black velvet, was a ring.

It wasn't an engagement ring.

It was a family ring Jax had given me when I turned eighteen.

Wear this when we're alone, he had said. So I know you're loyal.

I had worn it on a chain near my heart for four years.

It felt like a shackle now.

I took it out.

The gold looked dull under the harsh bathroom lights.

It looked cheap compared to the blood-red rubies resting on my collarbone.

I didn't cry.

I didn't feel a pang of loss.

I felt the sudden, violent urge to be clean.

I dropped the ring into the trash can.

It made a small clink as it hit the bottom-the sound of a chain breaking.

I washed my hands.

I scrubbed them until the skin was pink, scouring away the ghost of his touch.

Then I walked back out to Mateo.

He handed me a glass of champagne.

"Everything alright?" he asked, his eyes scanning my face for cracks.

"Better than alright," I said, taking the glass steady in my hand. "I just took out the trash."

Mateo didn't ask.

He just clinked his glass against mine.

"To new beginnings, Mía."

Mía.

Mine.

He claimed me with a word, and unlike Jax, he possessed the gravity to hold me there.