Chapter 9

Before the wedding, I gathered all my closest friends for a night out. Sophia was already waiting in a corner booth, her sharp eyes scanning the room with habitual caution. I slid in across from her, the deep velvet upholstery swallowing me.

“You look like hell, Vicki,” she said, not unkindly, pushing a glass of neat bourbon towards me. “The refined, expensive kind of hell, but hell nonetheless.”

“A fitting description,” I murmured, taking a sip. The burn was a welcome anchor.

We spoke in low tones, of nothing and everything. She updated me on the delicate balance of power among the Five Families, on which consigliere was sleeping with which captain’s wife. Normalcy. A last taste of it.

I told her I was going away for a while. A long while. She didn’t press, just squeezed my hand under the table, her diamond rings cold against my skin. “Send a postcard,” she said, her voice thick.

It was when I went to the restroom that I heard it. The sound of Isabella’s laughter, sharp and brittle as broken crystal, coming from behind a heavy damask curtain meant to shield a private booth. I froze, my hand on the restroom door handle.

“…utterly pathetic, really,” Isabella was saying, her voice dripping with contempt. “He follows me around like a devoted puppy, thinking he’s some tragic knight. It’s almost too easy.”

A female voice I recognized as Bianca, one of her sycophants, giggled. “But he’s so powerful, Isa. And dangerous. The way he handled those men at the Veles…”

“Powerful? He’s a tool. A very well-made, lethal tool, I’ll grant you. But a tool nonetheless. Useful for making certain people suffer.” The venom in her tone was palpable. “All these years, watching Victoria make a fool of herself over him… it was the best entertainment I’ve had since Mother’s little ‘accident’ at the lake house.”

The air left my lungs. The world tunneled to the pattern on the curtain.

“You don’t mean…” Bianca whispered, aghast and thrilled.

“A slipped railing, a distracted maid… grief makes people so careless, don’t you think?” Isabella’s sigh was one of pure, malicious satisfaction. “And Nicholas, my sweet, blind watchdog. He bought the fragile act completely—thinks I’m some damsel to be saved from the big, bad Castellano heiress. He even believes I was his savior, that I once saved his life underwater. Ha. What a joke. I can’t even swim.” She made a soft, dismissive sound. “When he’s outlived his usefulness…Papa will know what to do with a loose end.”

I stood there, carved from ice. I remembered saving a man from drowning in Lake Tahoe. He had nearly died, and I had given him air until his color returned. I had almost forgotten his face—but now, piece by piece, it all came back. It was Nicholas.

None of it mattered. My wedding was hours away.

I returned to Sophia, finished my drink with a steady hand, and embraced her tightly. “Remember me,” I whispered.

Back in my apartment, the one purchased with mother’s money and unknown to my father, I moved with robotic efficiency. A single leather duffel. Practical clothes. No jewels except for my mother’s simple platinum wedding band, which I strung on a chain and hid beneath my sweater. My laptop and a stack of forged documents—passports, driver’s licenses, birth certificates—went into a waterproof case.

As I zipped the bag, a secure, encrypted notification flashed on my burner phone. [Transfer Complete. All assets of the ‘Aurora’ Trust now under sole control of V.C. Balance: $147,855,632.18.]

A ghost of a smile touched my lips. Mother’s legacy. Her final act of protection.

I picked up my regular phone, the one tapped and monitored. I dialed the number that was still programmed under ‘N.’

He answered on the second ring, his voice a low, neutral baritone. “Yes, Miss Castellano?”

“Nicholas,” I said, my voice perfectly flat. “Isabella mentioned a craving for those sfogliatelle from Antonio’s on Mulberry Street. Be a darling and pick her up a box. Deliver them to her at the mansion. She’s expecting them.”

A pause. I could almost see the slight frown between his brows, the confusion at the mundane request amidst the recent chaos. But his programming to cater to Isabella’s whims overrode any suspicion. “Of course. Immediately.”

“Good.” I ended the call without another word.

From my window, I watched the familiar black sedan pull away from its usual post. I gave it sixty seconds, then I picked up the duffel and the case. I took the service elevator down to the garage where a nondescript town car waited, engine running. No driver. I slid behind the wheel.

The drive to the private airfield upstate was a blur of dark highways and my own steady breathing. A sleek Gulfstream jet waited, stairs down. A man in a dark uniform gave a curt nod as I approached.

At the foot of the stairs, I stopped. I took out my phone—the last tether. With a crisp, final snap, I broke the SIM card in two. I let the pieces fall from my fingers, watching them vanish into the shadows beneath the fuselage.

I had cut the strings. I had taken what was mine.

And I had left him, without a word, to the viper he cherished.