Chapter 3

The woman who opened the door was wearing my silk robe.

She couldn't have been more than twenty-three. Blonde, coltish, with the kind of expensive dental work that announced private schooling and a father who'd never told her no.

She looked me up and down with the casual cruelty of a woman who'd never had to fight for anything.

"You must be the ex."

I didn't answer. I was looking past her, into the foyer I'd designed. The marble floor I'd sourced from a quarry in Carrara. The chandelier I'd spent three months arguing with Vincent about because he thought it was "too much" and I knew it was exactly enough. All of it still here. All of it mine, except nothing was.

Vincent was seated in the living room, a cup of espresso balanced on his knee. He looked up at me with the satisfied expression of a man watching a replay of his own victory.

"Adriana. You came back."

"My things."

"Your things." He gestured toward the hallway with his cup. "Yes. Your things."

Three black garbage bags sat by the front door, lumpy and misshapen. The kind you buy in bulk from a hardware store. The kind you use for yard waste.

I walked over and crouched down. Inside the first bag, I could see the corner of a photo frame. Our wedding picture. The glass was shattered, spiderwebbed cracks radiating across our frozen smiles. Below it, the scarf I'd knitted for him during our first winter—the one he'd claimed to lose, that I'd found years later in the back of his closet, still folded, never worn.

The second bag held my grandmother's jewelry box. The one piece of my mother's family I'd managed to keep. The lock was broken.

The blonde drifted over to Vincent and settled onto the arm of his chair, draping herself across him like a cat claiming a sunbeam. She was wearing my perfume. I could smell it from across the room.

"Vinny," she said, drawing out his name like taffy, "she looks so sad. Like a little lost puppy."

Vincent's hand found her knee. He squeezed, his eyes never leaving mine.

"You're right, sweetheart. She does."

He stood, crossing the space between us. When he stopped, he was close enough that I could see the faint scar above his eyebrow—the one he'd gotten in a bar fight when he was twenty, before the money, before the suits, when he was just a neighborhood kid with a temper and something to prove.

"Here's what's going to happen, Adriana." His voice was soft. Almost gentle. "You're going to get on your knees. Right here, in front of Vanessa. You're going to apologize for embarrassing me. You're going to admit you can't survive without me. And maybe—maybe—I'll let you stay. In the guest room. Until you figure out your next move."

The staff had gathered in the kitchen doorway. Maria, who'd been with us for six years. Carlos, who drove Vincent to his meetings and pretended not to hear the phone calls. A new girl I didn't recognize, probably Vanessa's hire.

They stood with their heads bowed, but I could feel their eyes on me. The weight of their pity and their relief that it wasn't them.

I didn't kneel.

I looked at Vincent, and I let myself feel everything. The decade of dinners planned and parties hosted and questions unasked. The accounts I'd balanced, the alibis I'd provided, the women I'd pretended not to know about. The way he'd touch my face sometimes, almost tender, before reminding me who I'd be without him. Which was nothing. Which was no one.

"Vincent."

My voice was steady.

"You're going to regret this. Every piece of it."

He laughed. This one was genuine, delighted, the laugh of a man who'd just been told an excellent joke.

"I'll mark my calendar."

I bent down and gathered the garbage bags. One in each hand, the third balanced against my hip. The scarf fell out as I lifted it, pooling on the marble floor. Neither of them moved to pick it up.

I left it there.

Behind me, Vanessa's laughter spilled out into the hallway. Maria's voice, low and apologetic: Señor Moretti, should I— Cut off by Vincent's reply: Leave it. Let her pick up her own garbage.

The door clicked shut.

I walked six blocks before I let myself stop. The bags were heavier than they should have been. Not the physical weight—the clothes and frames and broken things—but everything else. The years. The version of myself who'd believed that if I was just good enough, quiet enough, useful enough, he'd eventually see me.

That woman was dead. She'd died in a Queens apartment with a faulty heating system, and I'd been sent back to make sure her death meant something.

My phone buzzed. A message from Dominic.

Come to the office. Now.

...

The lights in Salucci Capital's executive suite were still on when I arrived, the city darkening beyond the windows. Dominic was at his desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled to the elbow. He looked like a man who'd been working for hours and would work for hours more.

He didn't offer me a seat.

Instead, he slid a folder across the desk. Inside: my trading records from the Atlas Logistics play. The red ink bled through three pages.

"Explain."

I didn't touch the folder. "Vincent knew. He's been running surveillance on all my devices. He planted the story to test what I'd do."

Dominic's expression didn't change. "So your information was worthless. Your execution was incompetent. And my five hundred thousand dollars is now worth significantly less."

"I—"

"I don't invest in failure, Adriana." His voice was ice. "I invest in assets that appreciate. You're depreciating."

The exhaustion of the day pressed against my ribs. The garbage bags. Vanessa's laughter. The scarf on the marble floor. For one dangerous moment, I felt the urge to crack open—to let him see how close I was to breaking, to ask for mercy.

Instead, I met his eyes.

"Give me one more chance."

"Why?"

"Because I hate Vincent Moretti more than you ever could."

The words came out flat. Not dramatic. Not pleading. Just a fact, delivered with the certainty of someone describing the weather.

Dominic studied me. The silence stretched, thick and evaluative. I could see him calculating—not sentiment, never sentiment, but odds. Risk versus reward. Whether I was worth the trouble of keeping alive.

"The South Ward parcel. Bidding closes in three days." He leaned back. "This is your last shot. If you fail again, I won't need to punish you. Vincent will do it for me."

He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to. I'd seen what happened to people who crossed the Moretti family and ended up without protection. There were bodies in foundations all over this city.

I walked out of Salucci Capital into the cold, and I didn't let myself shake until I was three blocks away.

Back in my rented room—a narrow space above a bodega in Queens, the kind of place Vincent would never think to look—I sat on the edge of the bed and replayed every moment of the past week.

How had he known? Every move I'd made, he'd been ahead of me. Not reacting. Anticipating.

The laptop. The phone. The apartment search. All of it fed directly to him, a pipeline of my desperation that he could monitor from the comfort of his townhouse while Vanessa rubbed his shoulders and laughed at my expense.

And then I remembered.

Rebecca Chen. Vincent's executive assistant. In the last life, she'd been one of the first to flip when the federal investigation started. Embezzlement charges, plea deal, testimony that helped sink what was left of his operation. She'd admitted, during her deposition, to managing his off-books surveillance program. Reading emails. Monitoring devices. Planting spyware on phones belonging to anyone Vincent considered a threat.

Including his wife.

Including me.

I'd been so focused on Vincent, so consumed by the audacity of his betrayal, that I'd forgotten about her. The quiet woman in the corner office who always remembered my birthday and never quite met my eyes.

She was his eyes. His ears. The invisible infrastructure of his control.

I powered down the laptop. Removed the battery. Found a payphone three blocks away—an actual payphone, a relic that still worked because this neighborhood hadn't been gentrified yet—and dialed Dominic's private line.

"Your plan still works," I said when he answered. "I just needed to understand the game board."

A pause. "And now you do?"

"Now I do. Have your people at the auction. Same strategy. Let Vincent win."

"Adriana." His voice carried a warning. "If you're wrong again—"

"I'm not."

I hung up and walked back to my room through streets that smelled like garbage and frying oil and exhaust. The cold had settled into my bones, but I didn't mind. Cold was clarifying. Cold reminded you that you were alive.

Vincent. You think you're watching me. But now I know who's doing the watching. And Rebecca Chen—Rebecca, who knows where all your bodies are buried—she's going to be your undoing. Just like last time. Only faster.