Marco POVThe water in the basin was freezing, but it didn't wash her off.I leaned over the porcelain sink in my private bath, scrubbing my hands and face until the skin burned, trying to strip away the lingering scent of Bianca’s perfume, the heavy silk of her dress, the memory of her fingernails digging into my shoulders against the leather lounge in the anteroom.It hadn't been an illusion. It was real, raw, and hollow—a brutal transaction Mother had demanded to seal the Ricci-Moretti alliance before the southern crews started defecting, and I had delivered it with the cold efficiency of a man execution-bound.And Valentina had seen it.I closed my eyes, but the vision was burned into the back of my eyelids. Valentina standing in the frame of the doorway, pale as ivory, her dark eyes wide and shattered as she watched me. I remembered the exact instant our eyes met over Bianca Moretti’s bare shoulder. The way my jaw had locked, the terri
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