The boardroom of De Luca International rested on the sixtieth-fourth floor and was enclosed within a glass wall cage that hovered over a city that appeared like a gigantic electronic circuit board. Within the room, the temperature was kept at the exact, chilly level of sixty-five degrees.

De Luca was not sitting at the head of the table. Instead, he stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, with his back to the twelve board members controlling the city's rhythm and beats. The silence he projected carried more weight than the humidity of the impending storm.

"The Veritas merger is on your desk, Luca," Marcus Thorne announced nervously. "It's the last missing part. If we accept it, we will take in their shipping routes, and Sterling's history becomes merely a reference."

Luca remained unmoving and gazed out into the cityscape while another flash of lighting illuminated the buildings. He was a man whose presence filled any space with an aura of a predator, with his finely tailored charcoal wool suit and impeccable posture.

"Arthur Sterling's history, as you call it," Luca said quietly after some time. The low, raspy melody of his voice forced others to stop whatever they were doing in order to hear what he had to say. "This means only one thing: the carcass of a fallen animal."

"One can still get something useful out of them," another board member whispered, his pallor increasing.

Luca turned towards him slowly, his eyes as dark and icy as a winter sea. He approached the table where the contracts lay in neat piles. With each step, the rhythmic clicking of his shoes against the black, obsidian floor could be heard.

"The representatives of the Veritas clan believe that they can use Arthur Sterling's passing to their advantage. It's not true."

He extended his hand in order to sign the papers but suddenly pushed all the documents off the table, letting them crash noisily on the floor.

"Luca!" Thorne exclaimed.

"The contract is nullified," Luca said calmly, with the same amount of coldness contained within his tone of voice. "I refuse to merge with weaklings. I tear them apart."

"But their infrastructure"

But we'll get them when they go into receivership, interrupted Luca, bending closer and filling the air with the smell of mint. With hands laid out flat, he pinned the room with a look that was both commanding and threatening. I want them desperate, I want them craving a hero who never shows up.

With the precision of a surgeon, he readjusted his tie, cool in his detachment, cutting through the racket with ease. But he didn't think about the way or profit, but about the girl in the rain with resolve in her backbone and promises in her eyes.

Veritas Family would fall apart, he muttered, more to himself than to the others trembling at his feet. And it would start with her.

The silence was broken only by the ticking of a clock that seemed to count down the minutes to my doom.

I stood in the middle of my father’s office, the De Luca file opened on top of his mahogany desk. The rage was now solidified. It wasn’t a raging inferno; it was a precious stone, hard and translucent enough to cut right through whatever lay ahead.

Aconitine. Not a heart attack but murder. My father wasn’t killed by an errant coronary artery; he was poisoned by the man who wanted the power he held.

I studied the photograph of Luca De Luca that was attached to the last page of the file. The picture depicted a man of exquisite beauty in a way that felt menacing. Perfect jawline, piercing eyes, and the title of being the most ruthless individual in the tri-state area.

I couldn’t stand against him in court. It would be an utter loss. I wouldn’t prevail against him in corporate strategy either; he’d eat me alive. He expected me to run away. He expected me to give up.

"You’re overthinking things, Arya."

I didn’t look up. The image in the window was not my own. I was too old and cold for myself. "I’m not overthinking, Elias. I’m figuring out the price of admission."

Elias was leaning against the door, shadowed in the corner of the room. "Admission to what? His kingdom? That’s just a meat grinder."

"Then I have to be the butcher," I replied softly.

I thought about all the variables involved. Luca wanted the Veritas assets. He wanted the shipping ports. More than that, he wanted absolute power. He was a man who planned long-term, and in the world we lived in, there was only one legal avenue to merge two empires without firing a single bullet.

I grabbed a pen. No letter was written; a term sheet was drafted.

Duration: Two years.

Assets: Transfer of all Sterling shipping routes upon completion.

Clause: Access to all De Luca company servers.

It was a suicide mission, packaged in an investment strategy. I would allow him to have me every night and every day until I found the proof to bring him down from the inside out. I would be his trophy catch, and his last mistake.

“Are you serious?” Elias demanded, stepping forward when he read the title on the page. “He will know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t care,” I answered, calm but my heart cold as stone. “He sees me as a prize. He doesn’t know that I am a Trojan horse.”

I glanced at the clock. Midnight. Below me, in the darkness, Luca De Luca was rejoicing in his defeat of my father, thinking that he had ended the lineage of the Veritas family.

But he did not know what I was planning.

“What are you going to do?” Elias asked, horror coloring his voice.

I grabbed the folder and tucked it under my arm. I could feel the bizarre sense of peace settling over me. No grief here anymore; only the plan. I would infiltrate the enemy’s camp, and fool him into believing he had already won.

Until it was too late.

“I’m marrying Luca De Luca.”

The air in the office of Luca De Luca was a vacuum that aimed at strangling anyone who wasn't in control.

I was standing right at the entrance, my heart pounding furiously in my chest like a jackhammer. I had chosen to wear all-white a stark contrast to the black widow he expected. I wore armor under my silk dress.

Luca didn't even bother to lift his gaze from his paperwork. He continued scribbling, "You have precisely two minutes, Miss Veritas, before security hauls you out of here by your hair."

I remained perfectly still. I walked across the dark floor of the room, my footsteps sounding like gunfire. I did not sit on the chair on the other side of his table; rather, I placed a piece of paper right above the one he was signing.

He paused.

Lucas raised his head slowly. His eyes were icy blue and looked like the frozen sea; they were beautiful but deadly. He scanned me, looking for the sorrow he had planted in my life.

Luca lifted his head slowly, horrifyingly. His eyes were the color of icebergs vast, beautiful, and utterly deadly. They followed the line of my jaw, seeking the sorrow he himself had fabricated. I could give him nothing but the coldest gaze.

"Term sheet," Luca rumbled, in that soft, dark, velvety voice of his. No, he did not even lay a hand on the document. "Arya, your empire bleeds, and yet you come to me with a term sheet?"

"I come to you with a surrender, and terms," I lied. The lie felt like poison on my tongue. "With conditions."

He lounged back in his chair, his hands steepled together, elbows resting on the chair's armrests. He looked like a monarch who was considering an especially amusing subject from his court. "Conditions? I don't make concessions, Arya. I take what I want."

"And you want the Veritas shipping lanes, the coastal ports?" I answered him, in the same dull tone. "A hostile takeover bid? You'll be tied up in courts for ten years. And by the time you win, your prize won't be worth a thing."

The muscle in his defined jaw tightened in response. He knew that I was right.

"Read it," I dared.

Luca took hold of the paper, letting his eyes move down its length. For just a moment, the mask broke. Shock flashed in his gaze before a predatory grin took its place.

"A marriage. You're putting yourself on the market to secure your family's reputation?"

I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands until my skin bled. I'm getting close enough to locate the weapon he killed my father with.

"A contract of twenty-four months. Complete asset integration. I'll be your wife, and you'll receive control of the ports immediately, no litigation involved. As a part of the deal, the Veritas name will continue to exist under law and I maintain my place on the subsidiary board."

"A business transaction."

"A purely professional one."

Luca stood up from behind his desk. It was intimidating how large he was. He stepped away from the desk, walking until there was no space left between us, until the scent of his cologne invaded all of my senses. My feet stayed planted on the floor.

He froze mere inches from my face, invading my personal space.

He stared down at me, looking away from my eyes and then back into them after landing on my lips.

"You hate me," he murmured.

"I don't hate or care about you at all," I responded.

He moved closer, so close that my neck was tickled by the warmth of his breath.

Luca smirks. "Watch yourself, Arya.

"You will regret this."