Katarina De Luca POV

For three days, I didn't leave my wing of the manor.

I told the staff I was sick. They brought me soup and pitying looks, moving on tiptoe as if I were fragile glass.

They whispered about the "poor broken wife" in the corridors.

Let them whisper.

While they whispered, I worked.

My loyal servant, Giuseppe, had been busy. Taking advantage of the empty house during the auction, he had discreetly installed micro-cameras in the study, the living room, and the hallways.

I sat in the dark, the cold blue light of my laptop illuminating my face.

I watched.

I watched Aria berate the maids the moment Alessandro turned his back. I watched her rifle through Alessandro's private files with practiced ease.

I refused to be the blind wife anymore.

The door to my room flew open.

Alessandro strode in. He didn't knock. He looked furious, his presence instantly sucking the air out of the room.

"You've been hiding in here for days," he snapped, tearing his tie loose. "Stop being so dramatic."

He walked over and slammed my laptop shut. He didn't see what was on the screen, and I didn't flinch.

"Get dressed," he said. "We have a dinner with the Rossi family tonight."

"No," I said.

He froze. "What did you say?"

"I said no." I stood up. I was wearing nothing but a silk robe, but I felt like I was clad in armor. "I am not going anywhere with you."

He stepped closer, looming over me. He used his height to intimidate. It used to work, back when I cared.

"You are my wife," he growled. "You do what I say."

"And she?" I pointed to the door. "What is she?"

"Aria is family," he said automatically.

"She is not your sister, Alessandro," I said, my voice low and dangerous. "I checked. Her parents are alive in New Jersey. She owes three million to the Cartel. She isn't a lost lamb. She's a grifter."

Alessandro's face went rigid. The color drained from his cheeks, leaving him ashen.

He was silent for a long time, the air between us vibrating with tension.

"I know," he said finally.

The admission hit me like a physical blow.

"You know?" I whispered.

"I know she's not who she says she is," he said, his voice suddenly defiant. "But she needs me. She... she gives me something you can't."

"What?" I laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. "Lies? Chaos?"

"Warmth," he said. "She needs me to save her. You... you don't need anyone, Katarina. You are perfect. You are a statue. She makes me feel human."

I looked at him with absolute disgust.

He was choosing a damsel in distress over a partner because his ego needed to be fed. He wanted to be a hero so badly that he was willing to be a fool.

"You are pathetic," I said.

His phone buzzed.

He looked at the screen, and his face softened instantly.

"I have to go," he said. "Aria needs me."

He turned to leave. On the table by the door, there was a velvet box. He had brought it in with him.

"Wear this tonight," he said over his shoulder. "Stop pouting."

He left.

I opened the box. It was a diamond bracelet. Expensive. Generic. A "shut up" gift.

I walked to the trash can and dropped it inside.

I wasn't going to dinner. But I was going to the Charity Gala next week.

I walked back to my laptop and reopened the lid. I opened the video file I had just recorded from the study camera an hour ago.

It was a conversation between Aria and her "brother" Rico.

I plugged in an encrypted USB drive.

I dragged the file over.

The progress bar moved slowly. 10%... 50%... 100%.

I pulled the drive out and closed my fist around it. The cold metal bit into my palm.

Alessandro wanted warmth? I was going to burn his world to the ground.

The game was set. And this time, I was the one holding the king.

Katarina De Luca POV

The annual De Luca Charity Gala was less a ballroom and more a shark tank disguised in silk and diamonds.

Deep blue velvet clung to my frame like a second skin, a shade so profound it swallowed the dim light of the chandeliers rather than reflecting it.

Around my neck rested the Midnight Sapphire.

It wasn’t a trinket bought at a desperate auction. It was a heavy, cold burden—a relic from Donato’s late wife, a piece of history that had never graced the throat of anyone other than the Don’s chosen woman.

When I walked in, the room didn’t just quiet down. It arrested.

Antoine Dubois, a French aristocrat whose fingerprints were on half the illicit weapon shipments in Europe, bowed low over my hand.

"The Queen returns," he murmured, his voice carrying just enough for the nearby Capos to catch. "Finally, that necklace has found a neck worthy of its lineage."

Across the room, I locked eyes with Alessandro.

He was gripping a champagne flute, his knuckles bleached white against the fragile crystal.

Beside him stood Aria.

She was draped in the diamond necklace he had bought her at the auction. It was expensive. It was flashy.

But against the centuries of blood and history hanging around my throat, it looked like costume jewelry bought at a mall kiosk.

Aria saw the way the room shifted its axis toward me. She saw the reverence Antoine offered.

And she hated it.

She whispered something against Alessandro’s jaw, her eyes never leaving mine, then peeled herself away from his arm. She glided toward me, a pretender wrapped in white silk.

"You think a rock makes you special?" she hissed when she breached my personal space. "You are still the woman he doesn't touch."

I looked at her over the rim of my glass, my expression bored. "And you are the woman he pays for."

Aria’s eyes narrowed into razor-thin slits. She stepped closer, invading the air I breathed. The smell of her perfume was cloying—sugar masking the scent of rot.

"Careful, Katarina," she whispered, a sound like dry leaves skittering on pavement. "I have things on my phone that would make even these hardened criminals blush."

She pulled her phone from her clutch. She angled the screen so only I could see.

The floor seemed to tilt beneath my heels.

It was a video. Grainy, shot in low light. It was me and Alessandro—from two years ago. A private, feverish moment. A moment of vulnerability I had thought was sacred, hidden from the world.

"I have hours of this," Aria smiled, and it was a jagged, ugly thing. "He filmed it. He sent it to me. We laugh about how pathetic you look when you beg."

Bile, hot and acidic, rose in my throat.

"If you don't leave him," she said, her voice a soft caress of pure malice, "if you don't disappear tonight, I will send this to every news outlet in New York. The Ice Queen, melting and desperate for a man who hates her."

She tapped a manicured nail against the screen.

"Tick tock, Katarina."