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Chapter 6

Autor: Anna Smith
Victoria POV

I didn’t disappear into the city.

I left it from above.

The helicopter rose before dawn, rotors tearing Chicago into shrinking grids of light, and I didn’t look back as we crossed the lake and turned east, because what I was carrying no longer belonged to that skyline.

My father’s men said nothing during the flight, not out of obedience but certainty, because they had been waiting five years for this call and had never truly believed I would not make it.

Italy received me without questions.

The private clinic sat outside Genoa, buried behind vineyards and old stone walls that predated modern records.

And when the stretcher rolled through the doors, the staff already knew what not to ask, which was the first sign that my father’s arrangements had not decayed with time.

I woke to white ceilings and the disciplined silence of expensive medicine.

The wound in my leg pulsed where the bullet had torn through, my back burned where fragments had scraped flesh during the explosion
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  • The Heir He Never Knew   Chapter 9

    Elena POVBy the time the email finished circulating through the channels that mattered, the fallout arrived faster than I expected.I heard first, not from any source I trusted, but from a fixer who enjoyed gossip too much to keep his voice neutral.“He called off the wedding,” he said. “Walked out before the vows. Didn’t even bother with an excuse.”I acknowledged it without comment, because whether Dominic married or didn’t had already stopped being my concern, but two days later, reality tested that certainty.I was returning from the market with one of the housekeepers when I saw him at the gate.He was arguing with security, his voice hoarse, his composure frayed in a way I had never allowed myself to see before. His hair was unkempt, his eyes red-rimmed as if he hadn’t slept, and when he turned at the sound of my footsteps, his gaze dropped instinctively—to my abdomen.Not large. Just enough.Enough to confirm what uncertainty had been eating at him.I lifted my hand slightly. “

  • The Heir He Never Knew   Chapter 8

    Dominic POVVictoria vanished the way only someone who knew my systems could vanish—cleanly, without noise, without residue.For the first week, I told myself she was angry, that this was her version of silence, sharp and theatrical, meant to punish me just long enough to make a point. She had always understood pressure, always known how to apply it without fracturing the structure. I assumed she would return once the message had landed, once I had time to cool, once the balance between us reset the way it always had.After all, she was pregnant.That fact anchored my patience more than anything else. Victoria didn’t run when there was something to protect. She never had.Two weeks passed. Then four. By the end of the second month, there was still nothing—no sightings, no financial movement, no hospital records, no border triggers. It was as if she had been edited out of the world.That was when I stopped waiting and started searching.“Still nothing?” I asked, my voice even as I re

  • The Heir He Never Knew   Chapter 7

    They found me because they assumed I was still alone, and because men like that always confuse being cut loose with being unguarded.The first crack in Dominic’s empire came quietly, not with gunfire or threats, but with paperwork and timing, because the shipping lane through the Adriatic had never truly belonged to him;I had designed it, optimized it, insulated it, and when I severed myself from his world, the route should have collapsed with me. It didn’t—because I took it back.The buyers were cautious at first. They always were when a name changed hands too quickly.“This cargo is Santoro-registered,” one of them said over the encrypted line, his tone careful rather than accusatory. “We can’t afford to be caught between families.”“It was Santoro-registered,” I corrected calmly. “It’s Valenti now.”There was a pause, the kind that meant someone was checking records they already knew would confirm what I’d said.“Valenti?” another voice cut in, sharper. “Victoria Valenti was expell

  • The Heir He Never Knew   Chapter 6

    Victoria POVI didn’t disappear into the city.I left it from above.The helicopter rose before dawn, rotors tearing Chicago into shrinking grids of light, and I didn’t look back as we crossed the lake and turned east, because what I was carrying no longer belonged to that skyline. My father’s men said nothing during the flight, not out of obedience but certainty, because they had been waiting five years for this call and had never truly believed I would not make it.Italy received me without questions.The private clinic sat outside Genoa, buried behind vineyards and old stone walls that predated modern records.And when the stretcher rolled through the doors, the staff already knew what not to ask, which was the first sign that my father’s arrangements had not decayed with time.I woke to white ceilings and the disciplined silence of expensive medicine.The wound in my leg pulsed where the bullet had torn through, my back burned where fragments had scraped flesh during the explosion

  • The Heir He Never Knew   Chapter 5

    Dominic POVThe fire alarm went off at 2:17 a.m.Not the estate’s system—this one came through a private channel, the kind reserved for properties that were never meant to be acknowledged on paper. A safe house. Victoria’s last registered location.“Confirmed?” I asked, already standing.“Confirmed,” Matteo replied. “Total loss. Accelerant used. No bodies.”No bodies.I didn’t sit back down. I walked to the window instead, watching the city lights cut clean lines through the dark, because there were only two possibilities and neither of them fit the outcome I had authorized. Either she had been careless—which Victoria Miller had never been in her life—or she had burned it herself.“Check her accounts,” I said. “All of them.”There was a pause on the line, the kind that carried hesitation disguised as efficiency.“They’re empty,” Matteo said finally. “Every last cent. Clean withdrawal. No trail.”I turned slowly. “That’s not possible.”“It is,” he replied. “Five million. One night. No

  • The Heir He Never Knew   Chapter 4

    The next day, Dominic came. Juliana was on his arm. She did not wear white this time. Juliana stepped into the room in a pearl-gray Dior dress, the kind reserved for state banquets and royal audiences, tailored to absolute perfection. The cut was severe, the fabric heavy, the silhouette unmistakably authoritative. On her feet were stilettos too elegant for a hospital ward, and on her finger gleamed the Santoro family ring, large and merciless, catching the light with every movement. She looked like someone who had already been crowned. Dominic walked beside her, unhurried, composed. He stopped a few steps from my bed and studied me briefly, the way one assessed a weapon after it had been damaged. “I heard you woke up,” he said calmly. “I knew you wouldn’t die so easily.” I smiled faintly, the movement pulling at my ribs. “Yes,” I replied hoarsely. “I’m hard to kill. Always have been.” There was no concern in his eyes, no relief. Just confirmation. Juliana released his arm a

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