Katarina POV:

The Rolls-Royce glided over the Brooklyn Bridge, the tires humming a low, monotonous tune against the wet asphalt.

The silence inside the cabin was heavy. It pressed against my chest, thick and suffocating.

Alessandro sat beside me. He yanked at his custom silk tie, his breathing ragged and uneven. He was annoyed. He was always annoyed lately.

I knew what he was waiting for. He was waiting for me to break. He expected me to cry, to scream, to demand an explanation for the humiliation I had just endured at the auction. He was a billionaire heir, raised to believe that the people around him existed only to react to his whims.

I didn't give him the satisfaction.

I leaned my head against the cold, tinted window. I closed my eyes. My breathing remained perfectly steady, rising and falling in a calm, rhythmic cadence.

The neon lights of the city flashed past, casting alternating shadows of red and blue across my face. I didn't flinch.

Alessandro shifted in his leather seat. The rustle of his expensive suit filled the quiet space. He coughed, a deliberate, harsh sound meant to force my attention.

I didn't even let my eyelashes flutter. I sat there as if he were nothing but empty air.

In the front seat, the driver glanced at us through the rearview mirror. I saw his eyes widen slightly before he quickly snapped his gaze back to the road.

A second later, the mechanical whir of the soundproof partition filled the car. The thick glass slid up, sealing us in our own private, suffocating box.

The sound of that partition locking into place was deafening.

Alessandro finally lost his patience. "If you want to throw a tantrum, do it in your room," he snapped, his voice dripping with cold disdain.

I slowly opened my eyes. I turned my head and looked at him.

I looked at his sharp jawline, his expensive clothes, his arrogant posture. And I felt nothing. It was the exact same absolute emptiness I had felt years ago, standing in the rain, watching my father walk away with his mistress.

When people proved they were unreliable, my mind simply severed the connection. I didn't do heartbreak anymore.

"Sorry," I said, my voice completely flat. "I'm tired."

I turned my head back to the window and closed my eyes again.

Alessandro choked on his next words. I heard the leather of his seat creak as his fists clenched tightly at his sides. He didn't speak again.

The car turned onto the long, sweeping driveway of the Long Island estate. It rolled to a smooth stop in front of the grand marble steps.

A bodyguard immediately pulled my door open. The crisp night wind rushed into the heated cabin, biting at my bare shoulders.

I stepped out into the cold. I didn't look back. I didn't wait for Alessandro to join me.

I gathered the heavy, cumbersome fabric of my evening gown in one hand and walked up the stone steps. My silver walking cane clicked rhythmically against the marble.

Behind me, I could feel his eyes burning into my spine. He was standing by the car, watching me walk away. He was realizing that something fundamental was slipping right through his fingers.

I pushed open the heavy oak door of my bedroom.

I stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind me. I turned the deadbolt. A sharp *click* echoed in the massive room.

I kicked off my heels. The carpet was soft against my bare feet. I walked straight past the massive king-sized bed, heading deep into my walk-in closet.

I stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror at the very back. I pressed my palm against the bottom right corner.

A hidden latch clicked. The mirror swung open, revealing a small, dark alcove. It was a habit I had kept from my days surviving in the slums—always have a safehouse, always have a blind spot.

Inside the alcove sat an old, unnetworked encrypted phone.

I picked it up. The plastic felt heavy and familiar in my hand.

My thumbs moved purely on muscle memory, punching in the sixteen-digit dynamic password.

The screen flickered to life. A ghostly green light illuminated my face. Lines of code scrolled down the screen, showing the signal bouncing through multiple proxy servers across the globe.

I dialed an eleven-digit overseas number. There was no contact name.

It rang exactly once.

"Oui?" a deep, gravelly voice answered in French.

I didn't hesitate. My French was flawless, honed in the darkest corners of the European underworld. "Wake up all the dormant accounts," I ordered.

"The hibernation is over. Let the hunt begin."

Katarina POV:

The morning sun poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my bedroom, bright and entirely unwelcome.

I sat on the velvet sofa, a thick English financial newspaper spread across my lap. I hadn't slept much, but my mind was razor-sharp.

Downstairs, I knew exactly what was happening. Alessandro would be sitting at the long oak dining table. He would be cutting into his eggs Benedict. He would be looking at his gold Rolex, realizing that for the first time in three years, I had not come down to brew his black coffee.

Three years of devotion. Three years of waking up at dawn to make sure his stomach didn't hurt. All of it erased in a single night.

A timid knock at my door pulled me from my thoughts.

"Come in," I said, not looking up from the stock indexes.

Alessandro's special assistant walked in. He looked nervous. He held a small, square velvet box in his hands.

"Madam," he said, his voice tight. "Mr. De Luca asked me to bring this to you."

I slowly flipped a page of the newspaper. "Put it on the table."

The assistant hesitated. "He wanted me to tell you that he hopes you slept well. And that... this is to make up for last night."

I finally lifted my eyes. I looked at the velvet box.

I didn't need to open it to know what it was. I could see the logo stamped in gold foil on the lid. It was a standard, off-the-shelf crushed diamond bracelet. Retail value: maybe a hundred thousand dollars.

A hundred thousand dollars. To apologize for letting another woman humiliate me in public. To apologize for buying Aria a twenty-million-dollar pink diamond necklace right in front of my face.

A wave of pure, physical nausea hit my stomach. The metallic taste of disgust coated my tongue.

He actually thought I was a woman who could be bought off with loose change. He thought my dignity had a price tag, and a cheap one at that.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a movement near the fireplace.

A young, Hispanic maid was on her hands and knees, scrubbing the soot from the marble hearth. Her uniform was slightly worn at the elbows.

I closed the newspaper and tossed it onto the cushion beside me. I pointed a perfectly manicured finger at the velvet box.

"You," I said, switching effortlessly to rapid, fluent Spanish. I remembered the cadence of the streets, the language of the women who had shared their stale bread with me when I had nothing. "Take that box. The bracelet inside will match your new Sunday dress perfectly."

The maid froze. She dropped her rag. Her dark eyes widened in absolute terror and disbelief.

The assistant gasped, his face draining of color. "Madam! You can't! That is Mr. De Luca's heart! His intention!"

I stood up. I leaned heavily on my silver cane, but my posture was completely dominant. I stared the assistant down until he physically shrank back.

"His heart?" I asked, my voice dropping to a freezing whisper. "His heart is worth a handful of crushed glass? If that is the case, then I have no use for it."

The assistant opened his mouth, but no words came out. He was paralyzed by the sheer weight of my authority.

I looked back at the maid. "Take it. Now. That is an order."

The girl scrambled to her feet. She bowed her head, murmuring endless prayers of gratitude in Spanish, snatched the box, and bolted from the room.

The assistant swallowed hard, bowed stiffly, and practically ran out after her.

I walked toward the door to close it properly. As I reached for the handle, I heard voices floating down the hallway.

"Look at this!" the maid was whispering excitedly to another girl in the corridor. "A hundred thousand dollars! The Madam just threw it at me!"

"Ha," the other maid scoffed, her voice laced with heavy Spanish sarcasm. "That little tramp Aria in the guest room struts around with her necklace like she's a queen. But to the real Madam, a hundred grand is literal garbage."

They giggled, covering their mouths, their footsteps fading down the stairs.

I was about to shut my door when I saw a shadow move near the corner of the hallway.

Aria.

She was standing frozen by the decorative marble pillar. She was holding a glass of water. Her knuckles were white. Her chest heaved with rapid, shallow breaths.

I watched her reflection in the gilded mirror on the wall. She had heard every word. The maids had just ripped her poverty-stricken insecurities wide open.

Her eyes were locked onto the door of my room. The raw, toxic hatred in her gaze was unmistakable.

Then, her eyes shifted. She looked down the hall, toward the estate's private medical room. The room where my daily prescription painkillers were stored.

Aria turned on her heel and walked purposefully toward the medical wing.

I didn't stop her. I simply closed my door.

"If you're so noble, then go be noble in hell."