POV: Carmen → Luca
Vincent’s estate hums with a quiet that feels engineered.
Not the kind of silence that invites rest, but the kind that sharpens thought, strips distraction down to nothing, and leaves you alone with whatever truths you’re trying not to see. I sit at the long desk he cleared for me, three screens open, cables snaking across polished wood, the glow painting my hands an unhealthy blue.
I’ve been searching for hours.
Arianna De Luca does not leave obvious trails. She never has. What she leaves instead are impressions—negative space, absences where things should exist, numbers that align too perfectly to be coincidence. I don’t look for what’s there anymore. I look for what shouldn’t be.
I pull up another ledger, encrypted three layers deep, routed through a shell company that officially ceased operations eight years ago. It shouldn’t be active. And yet the timestamps are recent. Precise. Sparse.
Too careful.
“Of course,” I murmur under my breath.
I start mapping the transfers manually, drawing lines between entities that shouldn’t connect anymore. A Venetti-adjacent logistics firm. A dormant De Luca account. A holding company registered under a different surname entirely. The amounts aren’t large. That’s the point. They’re small enough to avoid scrutiny, steady enough to sustain infrastructure.
Not rebuilding.
Maintaining.
My pulse begins to thud harder in my ears.
She isn’t choosing a side.
She’s hedging.
The realization settles slowly, cold and undeniable. Arianna isn’t helping Marco destroy the De Lucas. She’s reshaping them into something leaner, quieter, harder to detect. And she’s doing it while feeding Marco just enough truth to keep him confident.
She’s playing both ends of the knife.
Vincent appears in the doorway without warning, as he always does. No knock. No announcement. Just presence.
“You found something,” he says.
I don’t look up. I rotate the screen toward him instead. “Tell me this doesn’t look like double alignment.”
He steps closer, eyes scanning quickly, his expression darkening with each connection. Vincent doesn’t miss patterns. That’s why he’s survived as long as he has.
“She’s keeping De Luca arteries open,” he says finally. “Quietly.”
“While bleeding Venetti intelligence into her own network,” I add. “She’s not destroying either side. She’s positioning herself to survive whoever wins.”
Vincent exhales sharply through his nose. “That woman is a cancer.”
“She’s more than that,” I say. “She’s systematic.”
He straightens. “You want me to dig deeper.”
“I need you to,” I reply. “I need everything. Past, present, all of it. If she’s done this before, I want the blueprint.”
Vincent’s jaw tightens. “You’re asking me to pick a side.”
“I’m asking you to expose her,” I say calmly. “You don’t like Marco. And you owe me.”
The words hang between us, heavy but honest. He doesn’t flinch. Vincent Rossi never flinches when confronted with truth.
“I never said I liked being reminded of that,” he says.
“You said you’d repay it,” I remind him.
Silence stretches. Then he nods once. “Fine. But if this burns back on us, I won’t shield you.”
“I wouldn’t trust you if you did,” I reply.
He leaves without another word, already dialing someone, already moving. That’s Vincent. He doesn’t argue once he commits.
I turn back to the screens, adrenaline humming under my skin. Arianna is getting confident. Confident enough to make mistakes. Confident enough to overextend.
My phone vibrates.
Luca.
I answer immediately. “Talk to me.”
His voice is low, controlled, the way it always is when something has gone wrong. “She approached me.”
My spine straightens instantly. “Where?”
“Restaurant near the docks,” he says. “Marco’s late. She knew I’d be waiting.”
Of course she did.
“What did she want?” I ask.
“She offered me a future,” Luca replies. “Protection. Power. She told me to pick the winning side.”
My grip tightens around the phone. “And what did you say?”
“I told her I’d consider it.”
The air leaves my lungs in a slow exhale. “Good.”
“I don’t like lying to Marco,” Luca adds.
“I know,” I say. “But this isn’t about loyalty. It’s about containment.”
“She thinks she already owns him,” Luca continues. “Said his men are falling into line. That he trusts her completely.”
Cold spreads through my chest.
“She asked about you,” he says. “What you mean to me. Whether I’d follow you.”
“And?”
“I told her I follow power,” Luca replies. “That I always have.”
Smart. Dangerous. Necessary.
“Keep playing along,” I say. “Let her think she’s winning.”
“She’s not just dangerous,” Luca says quietly. “She’s patient.”
“I know,” I reply. “That’s why we let her overreach.”
I end the call and sit back slowly, my mind racing.
Arianna is moving faster now. Testing loyalty. Probing weaknesses. Confident enough to recruit directly.
That confidence will cost her.
***
POV: Luca
I don’t like the restaurant Arianna chooses.
Too public to be accidental. Too controlled to be sloppy. She arrives before Marco does, dressed impeccably, calm as if she isn’t meeting a man whose loyalty she intends to steal.
“Luca,” she says smoothly when she spots me. “You look bored.”
“I’m waiting,” I reply.
“For him,” she says, then smiles. “Or for something better?”
She doesn’t waste time. Arianna never does when she thinks the board is already hers.
“You’re a practical man,” she says, folding her hands neatly on the table. “You see how things are shifting.”
“I see movement,” I reply. “Nothing more.”
“Marco trusts me,” she continues. “And men follow trust. Especially when it’s rewarded.”
“And you think I should follow you,” I say.
“I think you should follow the winning side,” she replies lightly. “Venetti power is brittle. Too emotional. Too attached.”
She watches my face carefully. I give her nothing.
“You’re wasted as a shadow,” she says. “You could have command. Autonomy. Security.”
“And my price?” I ask.
She smiles. “Loyalty.”
I almost laugh.
“I’ll think about it,” I say instead.
Her eyes sharpen, just slightly. “Do. I don’t extend offers twice.”
Marco’s delay stretches. Arianna doesn’t seem bothered. She never does when she believes she’s already won.
When I leave, my phone is already in my hand.
“Carmen,” I say the moment she answers. “She’s recruiting.”
“I know,” she replies calmly. “Keep playing along.”
“You trust me that much?” I ask.
“I trust patterns,” she says. “And you fit yours perfectly.”
The line goes dead.
I pocket the phone and glance back toward the restaurant, toward the woman who thinks she’s pulling strings no one else can see.
She’s wrong.
And when this finally collapses, it won’t be because of brute force.
It’ll be because she forgot one thing.
People who believe they’ve already won stop watching their backs.