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The private jet touched down just after midnight.No lights. No fanfare. No one to welcome her except a man in a tuxedo holding a black envelope with a red wax seal."Miss Hart. You've been expected."Sherry adjusted her dark glasses and stepped off the plane, every nerve lit like a fuse. The night air on the Amalfi Coast tasted like salt and secrets with perfume and wealth and something more dangerous simmering beneath it.Victoria's private estate loomed in the distance like a palace stitched together from shadows. Its windows flickered with golden light, music floating faintly on the breeze-a masquerade of predators.Sherry clutched the hidden recording device stitched into the lining of her dress.Tonight, she wasn't Enzo's lover.She wasn't her father's daughter.She was bait. And blade.And she would play their game until she tore the whole thing apart.Inside the estate, the ballroom was a sensual fever dream. Velvet masks, gold champagne, skin on display like armour. Billionai
The door to her old apartment stuck in its frame.It groaned like it didn’t want to be opened.Sherry stood in the hallway longer than necessary, fingers hovering on the handle. The place had been abandoned for months, untouched since she’d moved into Enzo’s penthouse, that sleek, sterile empire where nothing was ever out of place. But this place… this was hers.It smelled like dust and memory.She stepped inside.Silence.Broken only by the dull creak of the hardwood beneath her heels.The furniture was draped in sheets, her old-fashioned sketches yellowing under a forgotten lamp. Her favorite throw pillow, the one with the torn corner she never fixed, still sat at an angle like she’d left it only yesterday.And then she saw the mirror.The full-length one beside her closet cracked slightly in the corner.It was clean.Too clean.On the glass, scrawled in crimson lipstick, were six chilling words:“You became what you swore you’d destroy.”Her reflection looked back at her, wide-eyed
The silence inside Enzo's penthouse was deceptive.It wasn't peace.It was the moment before a warhead detonated.Sherry stood in the centre of the living room, the USB drive still clutched in her hand. Her fingers had long since gone numb. The second video had played in her head on a loop the entire ride home from the hospital.Enzo's father.Her father.And Victoria, the shadow in every frame.They had all been part of something she hadn't just inherited...She had been born for it.She was never a civilian in this war.She was the collateral.Now she knew it.And Enzo...He sat in his armchair like a king returned from the dead, pale but upright, a bandage still pressed under his open shirt. His glass of bourbon sat untouched."You saw the second file," he said without looking at her."Yes.""And?"Sherry's voice cracked as she crossed the room. "How long did you know?"He didn't blink. "I suspected. I didn't know Victoria was that deep in it. I didn't want to believe your father w
Silence hung heavily over the hospital room eerily. Steady beeping from the heart monitor jolted Sherry into the reality that Enzo remained tenuously connected to life by a faint thread of existence. His hand lay limply inside hers, with fingers icy yet somehow still imbued with a faint vital spark. Sleep had eluded her entirely that night. Not entirely, actually. Her cheek bore a faint imprint from a plastic armrest on some hospital chair, pretty recently, it seemed. Her eyes looked raw, but her grip remained tight, somehow still. Then... A stir. A whisper of breath. And the slow, unsteady blink of lashes opened against the pale blue light. Sherry bolted upright. "Enzo?" His mouth parted. Dry, cracked. His eyes moved sluggishly, groggily, but found her. She leaned close, almost scared to breathe. "I'm here." He tried to speak. It came out as a rasp. She grabbed the water cup and gently tilted it to his lips. He drank, coughed, and then exhaled a long, trembling sigh.
The bullet cracked the night wide open.Screams shattered the gala-like glass.Security dove. Guests hit the floor. Champagne flutes exploded on impact.And Sherry couldn't move.The air left her lungs in one strangled gasp as she turned-She was just in time to see Enzo stumble, blood blooming across his white shirt like a rose with thorns.No.He dropped to his knees.No, no, no-She ran.People screamed and scattered, but she tunneled through them like a woman possessed. The moment slowed. Sound drowned beneath the pounding of her heart.She dropped beside him.His body slumped into her arms, blood slick between her fingers.His eyes fluttered. His lips were pale. "Sherry...""Stay with me," she begged, her voice breaking. "Don't you dare leave me again?"His breath hitched. He gripped her wrist."I'm here," she whispered. "I'm not going anywhere."Blood pooled across the floor. Around them. Through them. Like fate written in crimson.Ethan barreled through the panicked crowd, shov
The world was burning. Or maybe it was just her. Sherry stood in the center of Enzo's penthouse, phone dangling from her fingers, the screen froze on breaking news: "Vehicle explosion on Fifth Avenue. Victim suspected to be Enzo Blackwood." Her breath had stopped. Her knees buckled. She collapsed against the cold marble floor as reality caved in. No. Not like this. Not when she had finally chosen him. Not when he had just let her go and given himself instead. The silver chain around her neck is Enzo's ring. It felt suddenly heavier than bone. She clutched it like a lifeline. Her phone rang again. Ethan. She scrambled to answer. "Please-please tell me he's alive." His voice was tense, controlled. "He's alive. Not in that car. It was a decoy." Sherry dropped her head into her hands, sobbing once, hard and raw, before forcing herself to breathe again. Ethan continued. "My boss has been moved to a secure location. But the hit was meant for him. They want him off