POV: Silvia The car was too quiet for two people who had just escaped the emotional equivalent of a fortress.Eliza leaned her head against the window, sunglasses still on even though it was dusk and the sun had dipped behind the skyline hours ago. I sat next to her, fingers laced in my lap, knees pressed together like I was bracing for turbulence.I don’t know what I expected the drive to feel like - maybe freedom, maybe joy.Instead, it just felt... still.Torreto had said goodbye like he said everything - calm, distant, direct. No hug. No lingering glance. Just:“You’re Moretti women. Don’t forget that.”As if it was both a blessing and a threat.But when the car pulled away from the estate, I saw him.Up on the balcony.Standing alone, hands behind his back, coat catching the breeze.Watching.He didn’t wave. He didn’t smile.But his eyes followed us until we dis
POV: Calvin Silence stretched longer than I thought humanly possible.The kind of silence that didn’t just sit in a room - it pressed down on you. Heavy. Measured. Like Torreto was giving the air itself permission to breathe again.I stayed where I was.Still kneeling. My knees ached. My suit was wrinkled. My throat felt raw.But I didn’t move..I kept my gaze steady on his polished desk, his still hands, the unreadable look in his eyes.Finally, he spoke.“Stand.”The word cut through the air like a thread snapping.It wasn’t loud. Wasn’t barked. Just low. Sharp. Final.I stood.Slowly. Carefully.My joints protested, and every inch of my body screamed for rest, but I stood anyway. Shoulders square. Heart pounding.Torreto walked around the desk. Each step sounded like a decision being made.“You have my daughter’s heart,” he said.I swallowed.“That should terrify me,” he continued. “But what terrified me more is knowing she chose someone I didn’t respect.”He stopped in front of m
POV: Calvin – Past TenseKai Deveraux smiled like the world still belonged to him.Which was funny. In a tragic, slow-burn-explosion sort of way.I watched him from across the street. Through my laptop in a rented flat that smelled like takeout and bad decisions. The penthouse across from us shimmered like it was in a cologne commercial - glass walls, polished marble floors, city lights pouring in like applause. Inside, men shook hands with smiles that meant nothing. Waiters moved like trained shadows. Champagne sparkled.Fake peace.Thomas sat beside me, laptop balanced on his knee, headphones in, monitoring every mic and camera feed we planted.“They’re cocky,” he muttered.“They always are,” I said.I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, watching Kai lean in to whisper something to one of his contacts. There was a woman in heels beside him - Anielle’s cousin, I think - laughing too hard at something that defin
POV: SilviaIf this mansion was a chessboard, I was the piece everyone assumed had already been moved off the board.Too quiet. Too contained. Too… still.But I was learning.Learning how to play while sitting still. How to listen through closed doors. How to make moves in silence.Torreto didn’t speak much these days. Eliza stayed busy. The guards patrolled like machines. Mariam alternated between polite detachment and unsolicited comments about my posture.It was all fine.I’d gotten good at pretending.Every hallway, every locked room, every watchful gaze - I knew how to smile past it. How to nod at my father’s men like they didn’t make my skin crawl. How to sit through Mariam’s fourth breakfast comment about “discipline and modesty” without stabbing my croissant.I didn’t say much. But inside?I was strategizing.---It started in the sitting room.A quiet afternoon. Gray outside. The kind of weather that made the city look like it had been washed in bleach.I was flipping throu
POV: SilviaI found him in the study again.Same armchair. Same posture. One leg crossed over the other, glass of something dark and expensive on the side table. A leather-bound book open in one hand, tablet in the other. The kind of multitasking only powerful men seem to master - literature and headlines.Torreto Moretti. My father.He didn’t look up when I stepped into the doorway, but I didn’t expect him to.This was his sanctuary. The only room in the house that actually looked lived in - warm wood, scuffed corners, that one crooked picture frame he never fixed.The screen in his hand flickered slightly, catching my eye.It was an article - one of many.“GRAND VILLA STOCK CRASHES AMID CYBER ATTACK, INSIDER TRADING SCANDAL.”“KAI DEVERAUX FACES LEGAL INVESTIGATION AS DEVA ENTERTAINMENT RISES.”There were charts. Headshots. Red downward arrows.And my father - the Ice King - was
POV: Calvin –I always wondered what Torreto was planning to do to my Father, cyber sabotage?, blacklisting across their contacts?, or maybe worse… but I didn't have the patience to wait, I promised to make Damon pay for all the times he had fiddled with my life and all the times he ever tried to touch Silvia's.And I'd be damned if I had to wait for her father to fight my battles.It started with just a flicker.Just a flicker in Grand Villa’s internal system that made their Friday morning reports two hours late.That was enough.Enough for their board to panic. Enough for a dozen major investors to start texting questions no one had answers to. Enough for someone - some poor intern, probably - to realize their payroll database had been erased from the inside out.By noon, the emails started flying. By two, so did the accusations.Insider trading.Fake stock valuations.Unregistered offshore accounts suddenly blinking red on regulatory radar.And through it all, Damon Riego stood at