Chapter Eighty-One

The children’s wing in New Zenith smelled like fresh paint, lemon cleaner, and crayons.That was the first thing I noticed.Not the cameras waiting near the entrance. Not the line of donors standing in tasteful clusters beneath the new glass atrium. Not the giant ribbon stretched across the doorway in a cheerful shade of yellow that someone from Luca’s team had described as optimistic.Crayons.Wax and paper and childhood.It made the whole place feel less like a billionaire’s project and more like somewhere children might actually laugh.Which was probably why I felt nervous.I could handle ballrooms now. Sort of. I could handle reporters, investors, old-money women with sharpened smiles, and charity boards full of people who said lovely when they meant suspicious.But children were different.Children did not care if my dress was designer.They did not care if Luca Moretti had called me the love of his life on live television.They did not care about the fire footage or the gossip b

Chapter Eighty-Two

New Zenith stopped feeling like Luca’s city the day I started knowing where the bathrooms were.That sounded ridiculous.Probably because it was.But there was something intimate about no longer needing someone to point me in the right direction. The hospital wing was on the east side with the sunniest windows. The children’s reading room had the mural with the hot air balloons. The temporary donor office always smelled like strong coffee and printer paper. The courtyard path near the medical campus had one uneven stone that caught my heel every single time, no matter how much I tried to remember it was there.I knew these things now.Small things.Ordinary things.The kind of things that turned a place from architecture into memory.For weeks, New Zenith had felt like a concept too large to understand. Luca’s impossible dream. A city built out of ambition, money, permits, steel, and the sheer force of his refusal to be told no.But after the children’s wing opening, something changed

Chapter Eighty-Three

The letter arrived in an envelope so plain it almost looked innocent.No return address.No logo.No expensive paper.Just my name written across the front in neat black ink and delivered to the temporary New Zenith arts center office with a stack of donor acknowledgments, catering invoices, and a packet of ribbon samples for the next community event.That was what made it feel worse.Threats were supposed to announce themselves.Flowers with cruel cards.Anonymous texts.Leaked footage.Things that made the room go cold before you even touched them.This envelope sat between a bakery receipt and a hospital board memo like it had every right to be there.I should have called Luca immediately.That was the rule now.Not Luca’s rule.Ours.If something strange happened, I told him. If a message came in from an unknown number, I showed Brian. If anyone approached me without clearance, I did not try to be brave and manage it alone.We had agreed.We had built that trust carefully, piece b

Chapter Eighty-Four

I told myself I was not investigating Luca.That mattered.I was investigating Don D’Caputo.There was a difference.Probably.A thin, trembling, deeply dishonest difference, but a difference nonetheless.I sat in the temporary arts center office with the blinds half-closed, my laptop open, the anonymous letter folded beneath my phone like it might crawl away if I stopped watching it.LEAVE LUCA MORETTI BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.I had read it so many times the words no longer felt like words.They felt like a bruise.Ask Luca what Don wanted from him before the casino deal collapsed.Ask him why Don knew your name before you ever stepped onto his stage.That was the line that kept pulling me back.Not the warning.Not the threat.My name.Don had known my name before Euphoria.Before Luca.Before the night in the VIP lounge. Before the gunman. Before the contract. Before everything.Or at least the letter wanted me to believe he had.I should have taken it to Luca.I knew that.The guilt s

Chapter Eighty-Five

I followed the money because I could not follow my own heart anymore.My heart was a disaster.It looked at Luca standing in the doorway of the arts center office, dark-eyed and worried and far too careful with me now, and wanted to hand him everything.The letter.The records.The fear.The ugly little seed of doubt that had taken root in my chest and started growing thorns.But my mind saw the dates on the screen.The changed ownership records.Don D’Caputo’s name buried beneath holding companies and land transfers and legal language that made everything sound clean when nothing about it felt clean at all.So when Luca asked what I was looking at, I did the worst possible thing.I lied again.“Donor lists,” I said.His eyes did not move from my face.I was beginning to understand that Luca’s silence had different temperatures. This one was cool. Not angry yet. Not suspicious enough to become dangerous.But close.“Donor lists,” he repeated.“Yes.”“For the children’s program?”My st

Chapter Eighty-Six

Brian found me before Luca did.Which was impressive, considering Luca had been standing in the office doorway when I asked the question that had turned the whole room into glass.Who owns Halcyon Ridge Capital?Luca had not answered.Not really.He had looked at the screen, then at me, then at the redacted ownership file as if the blacked-out lines had personally offended him.Then his phone rang.Brian.There had been an emergency with the police liaison, or the contractor records, or one of the thousand fires that somehow did not involve actual flames but still required Luca Moretti to leave the room looking like he hated every second of it.Before he walked out, he had turned back to me.“We are not finished with this.”No.We absolutely were not.Twenty minutes later, I sat alone in the same office, staring at the closed laptop like it might confess if I glared hard enough.Then Brian knocked once and entered without waiting for permission.He was carrying a slim folder.That was