POV: Arianna → Carmen
Arianna
Something is wrong the moment I sit down.
It’s not instinct. It’s not paranoia. It’s order.
My office is always ordered. Controlled. Every folder aligned, every object placed with intention. I don’t leave chaos behind—not physical, not digital. Chaos is something you create for others.
I set my bag down slowly, eyes scanning the room as I move toward my desk. The morning light filters through the tall windows, catching dust motes in the air, illuminating surfaces I know intimately.
Too intimately.
I stop.
The drawer on the right side of my desk is closed.
It is always closed.
But the weight of the room feels… different. Subtle. Almost imperceptible. Like a note in a familiar melody that’s slightly off-key.
I sit.
I don’t open anything yet. I breathe. I listen. The house is quiet. No raised voices. No hurried footsteps. Security outside my office door is steady. Normal.
Still, my fingers hover for a fraction of a second before I slide open the drawer.
And there it is.
A folder I don’t recognize.
My stomach tightens sharply.
The cover is plain. Matte. Professional. The kind of thing that belongs here. That’s what makes it dangerous. Sloppy planting is easy to dismiss. This is… careful.
I open it.
My breath catches.
Payment records. Wire transfers routed through shell companies I do use—but never this openly. Dates that align too neatly with recent operations. Signatures that look exactly like mine.
Because they are mine.
Or close enough to make anyone who knows me hesitate.
I flip through the pages faster now, pulse quickening despite my effort to stay calm. A checkbook. One I haven’t used in years. A flash drive labeled in my handwriting—copied with infuriating precision.
“No,” I whisper.
I push back from the desk abruptly, standing, my chair scraping softly against the floor. My gaze snaps to the door, then to the shelves, then to the corners of the room.
Someone has been here.
Someone good.
I move quickly now, opening other drawers, checking my safe, my terminal, my files. Everything else is untouched. No obvious breach. No alarms triggered. No signs of forced entry.
Which means—
They wanted me to find this.
My hands tremble despite myself.
I grab my phone and dial immediately. “Double security,” I snap the moment my head of detail answers. “I want a full sweep. Every room. Every corridor. No one enters or leaves without clearance.”
“Yes, Ms. Ricci.”
I hang up and pace the length of the office, my mind racing.
This isn’t De Luca work. They’re not this elegant. Not this patient. This is someone who understands me. Someone who knows how I think. How I organize. How I hide.
My jaw tightens.
Carmen Venetti.
The thought slams into place with chilling clarity.
She’s finally stopped trying to prove the truth.
She’s playing my game now.
I press my palms against the desk, forcing my breathing to slow. Panic is a luxury I can’t afford. Whoever did this wants me rattled. Wants me reactive.
I won’t give them that.
Instead, I sit back down and begin cataloging every planted item, every forged detail. I note what’s strong. What’s weak. What Marco might believe—and what I can still twist if I have to.
But even as I work, one truth pulses beneath everything else.
This isn’t about evidence.
It’s about discovery.
If Marco finds this himself—here, in my space—then it won’t matter how many explanations I offer. He won’t hear them. He’ll hear the voice in his head telling him this is real.
And that voice has been getting louder.
For the first time in a long while, something like real fear coils in my chest.
Not of exposure.
Of timing.
Because if Carmen has moved this boldly, it means she’s already accepted something I haven’t.
She’s willing to burn everything.
***
Carmen
I wait exactly thirty minutes before I send the message.
Long enough for Luca to be gone. Long enough for Arianna to notice something is wrong. Long enough for doubt to begin whispering before anyone else does.
I sit in Vincent’s monitoring room, phone resting in my palm, my thumb hovering over the screen. The images are already prepared. Clean. Crisp. Taken directly from Luca’s feed the night before.
Arianna’s office.
Her desk.
Her drawers.
Her signature.
It looks damning because it looks natural.
Vincent watches me from across the room, arms crossed. “Once you send that,” he says calmly, “there’s no undo.”
“I know,” I reply.
“You sure you’re ready for what comes next?”
I inhale slowly, pressing my free hand to my stomach, grounding myself. “She didn’t give me another choice.”
Vincent nods once. “Then do it.”
I unlock my phone and type the message carefully. No emotion. No accusation. No name.
Just enough.
“ You don’t know me, but you might need this. “
I attach the photos.
Not all of them. Just enough to hook attention. Enough to spark curiosity, suspicion, dread. Enough to make Marco look again. And again.
I stare at the screen for a second longer than necessary.
This isn’t revenge.
This is intervention.
I hit send.
The message disappears.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then my phone vibrates.
Delivered.
I set the phone down slowly, my pulse loud in my ears. The room feels too quiet now, like the moment after a gunshot when your body hasn’t caught up to the sound.
Vincent exhales. “Now we wait.”
I nod, though my chest feels tight.
Somewhere across the city, Arianna is scrambling to regain control of a narrative she thought she owned. Somewhere else, Marco is about to see something that will sit in his gut and refuse to leave.
And somewhere inside me, a line has been crossed that I can’t uncross.
I close my eyes briefly.
I didn’t want to destroy her.
I wanted to stop her.
But Arianna Ricci has always mistaken restraint for weakness.
Tonight, she’ll learn the difference.
And whatever Marco chooses to believe next—
It won’t be because I begged him to see the truth.
It’ll be because the truth finally learned how to look like a lie she can’t escape.