2

## Chapter 2

I didn’t sleep that night.

How could I, when the same man who used to kiss my bruised knuckles after a deal gone wrong now stood in a candlelit church and married another woman in front of half the city’s underworld?

I stood on the rooftop across from the cathedral, my fingers clenched around the cracked screen of my phone. The livestream was glitchy, but the audio was clear. Camila's delicate, sugar-sweet voice saying “I do,” and Antonio’s baritone murmuring it back like it was nothing.

Like our five years had meant nothing.

The wind whipped around me, tugging at my coat and my resolve. I watched them kiss—the priest blessing what should’ve been mine. In my hand, the wedding ring Antonio gave me three years ago burned like a brand. I’d taken it off this morning. Now I was ready to bury it.

But I wasn’t the only ghost on this rooftop.

“You going to cry, or you going to kill him?” The voice was low, amused, and vaguely accented.

I turned. Nico.

Tall, wiry, always in shadows. One of Antonio’s former runners, now mine. He used to be loyal to Antonio—until he saw who the real kingmaker was.

“Neither,” I said. “Not yet.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Then why are we here?”

I turned my eyes back to the church steps. Antonio and Camila were walking down them, flashing perfect smiles. A storm of camera flashes met them—media, politicians, low-tier gangsters desperate for a seat at the new queen’s table.

“She’s pregnant,” I said flatly. “Four months.”

Nico didn’t flinch. “Yours?”

“No.”

A pause.

“He’s marrying her to solidify the South’s support. Her family owns the port,” I continued. “That baby is just a bonus.”

Nico whistled, low and sharp. “Cold.”

“So am I.”

We slipped off the rooftop. My heels echoed in the alley like gunshots. Every step brought me closer to what I’d planned since the day Antonio threw me out with nothing but a suitcase and a bruised rib.

War.

But not the kind that starts with bullets. The kind that begins in boardrooms, in bed sheets, in whispers that turn friends into enemies.

Back in my apartment—no, our apartment, the one I’d bought, the one he now pretended never existed—I pulled the velvet box from the drawer.

Inside: the ring, a keycard, and a single photo. Antonio, me, and a third man—Luca. Antonio’s younger brother. Dead.

Supposedly.

He died in a car explosion three years ago. The day after he told me something that changed everything.

“Cassandra,” he had said. “If anything happens to me, don’t trust Antonio. He’s not who you think.”

That was the night everything cracked.

And now I had proof Luca might still be alive.

The keycard was to a private clinic outside the city. Anonymous tip. No signature. Just a date and time scribbled in the corner.

Tomorrow. 9 p.m.

I closed the box. My heart was beating too fast, too loud.

Antonio thought marrying Camila was the end of me.

He didn’t realize—I was just getting started.