For three days, I played the invalid.

I let the staff whisper that the Ice Queen had finally cracked, that the pressure had shattered me. I let Alessandro believe I was broken, hiding in my room like a wounded animal, licking my wounds.

In reality, I was hunting.

My room was a tomb of shadows, lit only by the spectral glow of my laptop screen.

Giuseppe had earned his bonus. The bugs were everywhere. The study. The guest wing. Even the rafters of the stables.

I watched the live feed from the guest room—Aria’s room.

On screen, she was berating a maid.

"This silk is wrinkled!" Aria shrieked, throwing a blouse directly into the young girl’s face. "Do you know who I am? I'm the future Don's wife!"

I typed a note into my encrypted file: *Abuse of staff. Delusions of grandeur.*

Then, she sat on the bed, posture shifting, and pulled out a burner phone.

She dialed a number.

"Rico," she said. Her voice changed instantly. Gone was the breathless, helpless victim she played for Alessandro. In her place was the Jersey hustler. "Yeah, I got the necklace. It's heavy as shit. When can we fence it?"

I froze.

*Fence it.*

She was planning to sell the heirloom.

"I need three days," she continued. "Alessandro is an idiot. He thinks I'm pregnant. He'll give me the codes to the safe soon."

I didn't just listen; I hit record.

My door burst open.

I didn't jump. I calmly lowered the laptop screen just enough to obscure the feed, but didn't close it.

Alessandro stood framed in the doorway. He looked disheveled.

"Stop the drama," he snapped. "You've been in here for three days. It looks bad."

"Does it?" I asked, my voice smooth as glass. "Worse than buying your mistress a four-million-dollar necklace while your wife sits ten feet away?"

He flinched as if struck.

"Get dressed," he ordered, deflecting. "We have dinner with the Rossis. You need to be there. To show unity."

"Unity?" I laughed—a dry, brittle sound. "You shattered unity when you let her wear my grandmother's diamonds."

I stood up, tightening my silk robe like armor.

"She isn't your sister, Alessandro," I said softly.

He froze.

"I know the story you tell people. A distant cousin. A charity case," I said, stepping closer. "But we both know the truth. Her parents are alive in Jersey. She owes the Cartel three million. She's a grifter."

Alessandro’s face went ashy pale. The silence stretched, taut and suffocating.

"I know," he finally admitted, the words barely a whisper.

The admission hung in the air.

"You know?" I whispered.

"She needs me," he said, his voice taking on that pathetic, desperate edge. "She was in trouble. I saved her. She gives me warmth, Katarina. You give me frost. You judge me. She worships me."

"Your Savior Complex is pathetic," I sneered. "You're burning your kingdom to keep a rat warm."

His phone buzzed.

He glanced at the screen. *Aria.*

"I have to go," he muttered.

He reached into his pocket and tossed a velvet box onto the bed.

"Wear this tonight," he said. "Try to look like you're trying."

He left, the door clicking shut behind him.

I opened the box.

A diamond bracelet. Expensive, certainly, but utterly generic. The kind of thing you buy to shut someone up.

I walked to the trash can and dropped it in. It landed with a satisfying thud.

I went back to my desk and opened the laptop.

I played the video of Aria talking to Rico again.

*Alessandro is an idiot.*

I dragged the file onto an encrypted black USB drive.

The metal felt delightfully cold against my palm.

This wasn't just evidence of infidelity. This was evidence of stupidity. Proof that the Underboss was being played by a common thief.

It was treason.

I closed my fist around the drive.

"I control the board now," I whispered to the empty room.

Tonight, at the Rossi dinner, I wouldn't just be a guest.

I would be the executioner.

I chose the midnight blue velvet.

It was the color of a bruise before it turned black. The fabric was heavy, sweeping slightly on the floor as I walked, but the weight felt like armor.

I clasped the sapphires around my neck. They had belonged to Donato’s late wife, a woman who had died before she could see her son grow into a disappointment.

I didn't look like a victim. I looked like the ocean right before a storm.

I walked into the ballroom.

The air shifted.

Conversations didn't just stop; they were severed.

I felt hundreds of eyes on me. They were looking for the cracks. They were looking for the broken wife who had been outbid for her own heritage.

I gave them nothing.

Antoine Dubois, a French associate of the Family, bowed his head as I passed.

"The Queen returns," he murmured.

I didn't smile. Queens don't smile at peasants.

I scanned the room and locked eyes with Alessandro.

He was holding a champagne glass, his knuckles white against the stem. He looked at me with a mixture of hunger and fear. He hadn't expected me to show up.

He definitely hadn't expected me to look like this.

Aria was standing next to him. She was wearing the auction necklace.

It looked ridiculous on her. The diamonds were too heavy for her delicate, bird-like frame. They didn't sit on her skin; they choked it.

She saw Alessandro looking at me.

Her jaw tightened. She whispered something in his ear, her hand clawing at his bicep, claiming territory.

Alessandro didn't look away from me.

Aria’s face twisted. She let go of him and marched toward me.

The crowd parted. They smelled blood.

"Katarina," she said. Her voice was too high, too sweet. It grated on my nerves like sand in a wound.

"You look... heavy."

She touched the massive diamond necklace at her throat.

"A rock doesn't make you special, Aria," I said, my voice low enough that only she could hear. "It just makes you expensive."

Her smile faltered.

"You think you're so high above me," she hissed, stepping closer. "But you're still the woman he won't touch. You're still the furniture."

"And you are the woman he bought," I countered. "Furniture lasts. Purchases get returned."

Aria’s eyes narrowed into slits.

She reached into her clutch and pulled out her phone.

"You really don't know when to quit, do you?" she whispered.

She tapped the screen and shoved the phone in my face.

I looked.

It was a video. Grainy, low-light.

It was me. And Alessandro.

Two years ago. Our anniversary. The only night that year he had touched me with anything resembling passion.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

"He filmed these," Aria smirked. "He sent them to me. We watch them sometimes. We laugh at how desperate you look. Begging for scraps of love."

My stomach turned over.

He had shared our bed with her.

"Leave tonight," Aria said, her voice dripping with venom. "Leave the country. Or this goes to the press. I'll ruin you."

She pulled the phone back.

I looked at Alessandro across the room. He was watching us, oblivious to the knife his mistress was twisting in my gut.

I looked back at Aria.

"Do it," I said.

Her eyes widened.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said do it. But remember one thing, Aria."

I leaned in close.

"When you strike a match in a gas station, you don't get to choose who burns."

Katarina De Luca POV

The sound of my palm striking Aria’s cheek cracked through the ballroom like a gunshot.

The impact was hard enough to snap her head to the side.

The orchestra cut off instantly, leaving a ringing silence in its wake.

Aria stumbled back, her hand flying to her stinging face. She stared at me, eyes wide with feigned shock, before collapsing to the floor in a calculated heap of white lace.

She looked up at the crowd, tears already streaming, summoning a performance worthy of an Oscar.

"She’s crazy!" she screamed, her voice shrill.

Alessandro was moving toward us now, pushing through the stunned guests. But he was too slow. He was always too slow.

Donato stepped forward from the shadows, his expression tight. He looked annoyed—not at the violence, but at the mess threatening his evening.

"A tribute!" Donato shouted to the DJ, his voice booming to cover the scene. "Play the tribute video! Now!"

The large LED screen behind the stage flickered to life.

It was supposed to be a montage of the Family’s charity work. Smiling orphans. Soup kitchens. The usual tax write-offs designed to buy us sainthood.

It wasn't.

A harsh static shrieked through the speakers.

Then, an image resolved through the digital noise.

It was the video from Aria’s phone.

My breath died in my throat.

It was distorted, edited to zoom in on my face, highlighting my vulnerability. The audio had been amplified to a deafening volume. My own voice, soft and intimate, boomed through the cavernous ballroom.

Moans. Breathless whispers of love.

It was a public execution of my dignity.

The room went dead silent. Heavier than the silence before. This was the silence of a grave.

I froze. I couldn't move. I felt naked, skinned alive in front of the predators I was supposed to rule.

Alessandro stopped halfway to the stage. He looked at the screen, then at me. His face was a mask of horror. He hadn't done this. He was stupid, but he wasn't suicidal.

Aria was still on the floor, but I saw the smile curling behind her hand.

She had uploaded it. She had pulled the trigger.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the ground to swallow me whole.

A violent crash shattered the humiliation.

A heavy wooden chair sailed through the air, smashing into the center of the LED screen.

Sparks showered down like rain. The image distorted, fractured into jagged pixels, and then died into blessed blackness.

I opened my eyes.

Julian Moreau stood on the stage.

He was a silhouette of pure, unadulterated rage. His suit jacket was discarded, his sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms corded with tension. He looked like the God of War made flesh.

He jumped down from the stage and marched toward me. The crowd parted for him like the Red Sea, terrified of the violence radiating from him.

He didn't look at Alessandro. He didn't look at Aria.

He saw only me.

He took off his tuxedo jacket and wrapped it around my trembling shoulders. It was heavy and warm. It smelled of expensive tobacco, cedar, and the sharp tang of gunpowder.

He pulled the lapels tight, shielding me from the prying eyes of the vultures surrounding us.

Then, he turned to the room.

His voice was calm. Terrifyingly, lethally calm.

"She is mine," he said.

He scanned the faces of the Capos, the politicians, the rivals—daring them to breathe.

"If anyone touches her, if anyone speaks of this, you had best pray for death. Because I will not be as kind as God."

He put his arm around my waist, pulling me firmly into his side. His grip was iron, an anchor in the storm.

"Walk tall, chérie," he whispered against my ear, his voice a low rumble. "Do not look down."

I lifted my chin.

I let him lead me out of the ballroom, leaving the wreckage behind.

For the first time in my marriage, I wasn't walking alone.

Katarina De Luca POV: