Isabella POV

I stood perfectly still in the freezing shadows, watching the Underboss of the New York outfit murmur desperate, rehearsed sweet nothings into the ear of a dead woman.

Julian Bellini held Francesca’s stiffening corpse against his bleeding arm, the deep cut he had intentionally allowed his own men to inflict ruining the sleeve of his royal blue Versace suit. It was a flawless performance of a tragic hero, entirely wasted on a corpse.

A second pair of headlights suddenly cut through the darkness, tires crunching over the gravel as another car pulled up behind the abandoned Lincoln. The passenger door swung open, and Rosalie stepped out into the biting wind. Her face was carefully arranged into a mask of frantic, sisterly concern, ready to witness the grand finale of her orchestrated rescue.

It was time for my cue.

Taking a deep breath of the icy air, I stepped out from behind the thick oak tree. I leaned heavily on my injured ankle, letting a genuine wince of pain twist my features as I limped into the harsh glare of the headlights.

"Rosalie? Julian?" I called out, my voice trembling with the perfect pitch of a terrified victim.

Julian’s head snapped up. He stared at me standing by the tree line, his brow furrowing in profound confusion. Slowly, mechanically, he looked down at the woman in his arms. The moonlight caught the graying hair slipping from my ruby hairpin, illuminating the pale, lifeless, and distinctly aged face of my maid.

With a visceral, choked sound of absolute revulsion, Julian shoved Francesca away. Her body hit the gravel with a dull, heavy thud, rolling limply against the tire of the Lincoln. He scrambled backward, wiping his bloodstained hands on his trousers as if he had just embraced the plague.

"Isa?" Rosalie stammered, her carefully constructed facade slipping as her eyes darted frantically between me and the dead body on the ground. "What... what happened here?"

"It was terrifying," I whimpered, wrapping my arms around myself as I hobbled closer. "Francesca was so worried about the route you suggested, Rosalie. She said it was too dangerous. She insisted on wearing my coat and hairpin to scout ahead, just in case."

Diana, Rosalie’s personal maid, rushed forward and knelt beside Francesca’s crumpled form. Her hands shook as she examined the body. "She's dead, Miss Rosalie," Diana gasped, looking up with wide, horrified eyes. "She’s been stabbed in the chest."

I buried my face in my hands, letting my shoulders shake as if I were sobbing. Beneath the cover of my palms, a cold, triumphant smile stretched across my lips.

*Stabbed in the chest.* Julian’s hired thugs had done exactly what they were paid to do—make it look like a lethal ambush. In the dark and the chaos, they hadn't noticed that the woman they were stabbing was already dead. They hadn't seen the deep, jagged slice across her throat that I had carved with a shard of glass hours ago. Julian Bellini had just provided the perfect, airtight alibi for my first *Vendetta*.

Lowering my hands, I turned my gaze to Julian. He was still on his knees, his face pale and slick with cold sweat, clutching his bleeding arm.

I limped toward him, my eyes wide with manufactured awe. "Julian... your arm," I breathed softly, ensuring my voice carried over the roar of the river. "You fought those ruthless men off. You risked your own life."

"I thought it was you in the car," he gritted out, his voice tight with a mixture of physical pain and dawning humiliation.

"But I am perfectly safe," I replied, tilting my head with a look of pure, innocent admiration. "Yet you still bled for Francesca. I never knew the Underboss of the Bellini family was so... merciful. To take a blade for a lowly servant."

Julian’s jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might shatter.

"When word of this reaches Chicago," I continued, twisting the invisible knife deeper into his fragile ego, "the entire underworld will weep at your noble sacrifice. A true hero to the working class."

The humiliation radiating from him was palpable. The grand, romantic savior had been reduced to a bleeding fool who cuddled a dead maid. His eyes, dark and venomous, locked onto mine. The murderous rage simmering in his gaze was no longer an act.

Beside him, the silence stretched, thick and suffocating. I shifted my gaze to Rosalie. Her hands were balled into tight fists at her sides, her chest heaving as she stared at the ruined wreckage of her perfect plan. The shock in her eyes was rapidly melting away, replaced by a volatile, desperate fury that was just begging to be unleashed.

Isabella POV

The silence was a living, breathing thing, heavy with the metallic scent of Julian’s blood and the roar of the freezing river. Julian finally pushed himself up from the gravel, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated hatred. But it wasn't just directed at me—it was the humiliation of a predator caught in a pathetic trap.

Rosalie broke first.

The shock in her eyes vanished, replaced by a frantic need to salvage the wreckage of her master plan. She lunged forward, her hands gripping my arms with bruising force.

"Isa! How could you be so foolish?" she cried out, her voice trembling in a masterful symphony of fake grief. "You ran off! You didn't listen to me! Look what your childish rebellion has caused!"

She gestured wildly toward the dead body and the bleeding Underboss. "Francesca is dead! And Julian—Julian is injured because of your absolute selfishness! He could have been killed trying to save you from your own reckless mistakes!"

In my past life, this was the exact moment I would have crumbled. I would have wept, begged for forgiveness, and let the crushing weight of manufactured guilt bind me tighter to her strings.

But the girl who would have cried for Rosalie died in a pool of her own blood years from now.

I didn't flinch. I didn't cower. I simply looked down at her hands gripping my coat, and then up into her tear-filled eyes. A low, dark laugh slipped past my lips, the sound so cold and foreign that Rosalie actually took a step back.

"My selfishness?" I asked, my voice dropping to a deadly calm. I stepped into her space, forcing her to drop her hands. "If I recall correctly, dear sister, *you* were the one who insisted on this secluded route. You swore it was safer."

Rosalie’s breath hitched. "I—I was only trying to—"

"To what?" I cut her off, my eyes flashing. "Get us killed? A New York Underboss is bleeding in the dirt for a maid because of *your* safe route." I shifted my gaze to Julian, making sure he heard every single word. "Who should answer for that, Rosalie? Because it certainly isn't me. You owe Julian, and dead Francesca, an explanation."

Julian’s head snapped toward Rosalie. The murderous rage in his eyes shifted, morphing into a dark, calculating suspicion. He wasn't a fool; he was a Mafia Underboss. He was beginning to realize that the woman who promised him an easy hero's victory had instead orchestrated his public humiliation.

Rosalie paled. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. The perfect, gentle sister facade cracked, revealing the venomous, cornered viper beneath.

As her face contorted in raw, unfiltered fury, I truly looked at her. Without the veil of blind sisterly affection that had clouded my vision for a lifetime, a chilling detail suddenly snapped into focus.

She didn't look like a Falcone.

My little sister Sophia and I both shared our mother Eleonora’s sharp, slightly upturned almond eyes and aristocratic nose. It was the undeniable stamp of our bloodline. Rosalie had none of that. Her features were softer, her jawline less defined, her brow entirely different.

My heart turned to ice as a ghost from the estate flashed in my mind. Garrison Bolton. Our uncle's loyal, mild-mannered Advisor. The shape of the eyes, the slope of the brow... the resemblance was uncanny.

*She isn't my sister.*

The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow, yet it made terrifying sense. It explained the deep-seated jealousy, the lack of familial loyalty, and the ease with which she had slaughtered our family in my previous life. She wasn't destroying her own blood; she was stealing what was never hers to begin with.

Rosalie stared at me, entirely unaware of the earth-shattering secret I had just unearthed from the lines of her face. Seeing that her anger was useless against my new armor, her expression began to shift again, her eyes welling up with fresh, desperate tears as she prepared to play her final card.

Isabella POV

Rosalie’s tears spilled over her pale cheeks, a flawless picture of a heartbroken elder sister.

"I have protected you," she sobbed, her voice echoing over the roar of the freezing river. "I have been a mother to you and Sophia! And this is how you repay me? If you continue this reckless path, Isabella, I will wash my hands of you. You can survive the wolves of this family on your own."

I didn't blink. I didn't offer a word of apology. I simply stared at her.

Knowing what I knew now—that the blood in her veins belonged to a mild-mannered Advisor and not a Falcone—made her performance utterly pathetic. The sheer audacity of a bastard daughter threatening to throw me to the wolves churned my stomach, but my face remained a mask of carved ice. My silence stretched, heavy and suffocating, stripping away her power second by second.

Rosalie’s sobs faltered. She realized I wasn't buying a single drop of her grief.

The mask finally slipped. Pure, venomous hatred flashed in her eyes, twisting her soft features into something ugly. She spun on her heel, grabbing her maid Diana by the arm. They marched to the waiting Lincoln, slamming the doors behind them. The fragile illusion of our sisterhood was dead, and the war was no longer hidden in the shadows.

The drive back to the Falcone Estate was a blur of dark asphalt and my own racing thoughts. When I finally stepped into my private suite, the heavy silk curtains were drawn tight, suffocating the room in the scent of expensive lavender and beeswax.

Bianca stood by the door, wringing her hands in anxious silence. I bypassed her, walking straight to my vanity. I pulled open the bottom drawer and retrieved a heavy, mother-of-pearl jewelry box.

I flipped the latch. Inside wasn't jewelry, but a stack of crisp parchment.

I unfolded the top sheet. My own handwriting stared back at me—perfectly forged. Explicit, sickeningly sweet love poems addressed to Colby Yates, the syphilis-ridden son of a Chicago alderman. Beneath them lay a reply, signed by Colby, demanding a secret rendezvous in the confessionals of Holy Trinity Church.

In my past life, these letters had been my execution. Rosalie had swapped Julian for Colby to ensure my absolute ruin. The scandal had branded me a whore, leading directly to my sweet sister Sophia’s broken engagement with the Carbone family, and her eventual death in shame and sickness.

A wave of murderous rage washed over me, but my hands remained perfectly steady. Daisy. My other maid had complained of a sudden migraine and returned to the estate early. The *Rat* had played her part perfectly.

"Bianca," I said, my voice eerily calm. "Bring me the brass brazier."

She hurried to obey, her eyes wide with unspoken questions. I dropped the poisoned words into the metal bowl and struck a match. We watched the flames devour the lies, the orange glow reflecting in Bianca's terrified eyes.

"Bring me fresh paper and my fountain pen," I ordered as the last embers died down.

I sat at the mahogany desk. For the next hour, the only sound in the room was the sharp scratch of my nib against paper. I wrote ten letters. Ten precise, lethal strikes that would turn Rosalie’s trap into her own grave.

I sealed the final envelope with dark red wax, stacking it neatly beside the others. The air in the room was thick with smoke and impending violence. I turned my gaze to Bianca, who was staring nervously at the pile of ashes in the brazier.

"We aren't done for the night," I told her softly, standing up from the desk. "I need you to do exactly as I say, and you cannot be seen by anyone."