Her mafia boss husband vanished with his consultant at the family anniversary gala, so she told the ballroom to play the footage

The Corvino family compound in Cohasset did not sleep.

By three in the morning, the long gravel drive through the pine woods was lined with black SUVs. Inside the library—a room paneled in dark English walnut and lined with first-edition histories of the Roman Republic—Silvio Corvino sat behind his desk. The air was thick with the bitter smoke of uncut Tuscan cigars.

Luca sat across from him in an armchair, having changed into a clean black cashmere sweater and dark slacks. His jaw was bruised, a dark violet stain against his stubble, but his posture was rigid, dangerous.

Beside him, Serena Voss sat on the edge of a leather sofa, clutching a cup of black tea that shook in her hands. She had washed off her gala makeup, but her eyes were rimmed in red.

"It was an ambush," Serena said, her voice climbing in pitch. "That girl has been planning this for months, Silvio. She hacked Luca’s internal security. That is an act of war against this family! You should be sending men to find her, not sitting here questioning us!"

Sophia Corvino, standing by the cold fireplace, turned slowly toward Serena. Her gaze was so sharp that Serena’s voice died in her throat.

"You will speak when you are spoken to, Serena," Sophia said, her voice icy. "You are here as a courtesy to your dead father, who was a man of discipline. You, however, appear to be an expensive idiot."

"Sophia!" Serena gasped.

"Shut up," Sophia snapped. "Did you honestly think Luca was going to leave his wife for you? Did you think you were going to glide into this family on the back of an old high school romance and a few European contacts?"

Sophia stepped forward, pointing a manicured finger at Luca’s face.

"And you," Sophia hissed. "My son. The prince of the waterfront. You let a girl who grew up in a clapboard house in Worcester run circles around you. You took your little distraction into a service hallway like a common degenerate, knowing the room was full of men who are looking for any excuse to put a bullet in your back!"

"Enough, Sophia," Silvio said quietly.

The library instantly fell dead silent.

Silvio tapped his cigar into a heavy crystal ashtray. He looked at Luca. "Matteo called again fifteen minutes ago. The union heads from Local 402 are meeting at dawn. They heard about the gala. Moretti from Providence has already offered to buy out their pension risk if the port project collapses."

Luca leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "Moretti doesn't have the cash."

"He doesn't need cash if the banks pull your loans, Luca!" Silvio’s voice rose, vibrating with suppressed fury. "You have sixty percent of our legitimate capital tied up in the Harborview piers. If the city revokes the permits on Monday because Lena pulled the environmental certifications, the interest penalties alone will drown us. The federal monitors will step in. Everything we built over twenty years to get away from the street level... gone."

"I will handle Lena," Luca said, his voice flat, absolute.

"How?" Sophia demanded. "Kill her? The federal prosecutors would have you in a holding cell before her body was cold. She filed those papers in public court, Luca! She made herself the most visible woman in Massachusetts tonight. If so much as a tire on her car goes flat, the Department of Justice will claim it was witness tampering."

"I am not going to kill my wife," Luca growled, standing up abruptly. His towering frame filled the space between the desk and the fireplace. "Lena didn't do this to destroy the company. If she wanted to destroy us, she would have sent those server drives to the FBI. She sent them to the ballroom screens."

Silvio leaned back, his aged eyes narrowing with interest. "Explain."

"It was theater," Luca said, his mind racing, piecing together the woman he had slept beside for nearly a decade. "She wanted the family to see it. She wanted the city to see it. Lena is an architect. She doesn't blow up buildings; she demolishes them from the inside out to clear the site for something else."

He turned to look at Serena. His eyes were cold, devoid of the heat that had been there hours before.

"Pack your bags, Serena," Luca said.

Serena froze, her cup rattling against the saucer. "Luca... what?"

"You're done at Corvino Hospitality," Luca stated. "The private car will take you to Logan at six. There’s a flight to Zurich. Do not come back to Boston."

"Luca, you can't be serious!" Serena stood up, tears spilling over her lashes. "I came back for you! I helped you with the offshore syndicates! You're going to throw me away because your little secretary of a wife threw a tantrum?"

"Lena isn't a secretary," Luca said, his voice dropping into a register that made even Sophia take half a step back. "Lena built the company while I was keeping the wolves from tearing out our throats. You were a mistake. An arrogance I allowed myself because I thought I had already won."

He stepped toward Serena until he was inches from her face.

"Get out of my father’s house," he whispered. "Before I decide to let Sophia handle you."

Serena looked at Silvio, who looked away, and then at Sophia, who watched her with a cruel, satisfied smile. Clenching her fists, Serena turned and fled the library, her heels echoing against the marble floors until the heavy front door slammed shut.

Luca turned back to his parents.

"Where is she staying?" Silvio asked.

"She didn't use her credit cards. She didn't take her car. She left her phone on the kitchen island," Luca said. "She’s with Tess Warren."

"The little lawyer from Cambridge?" Sophia scoffed. "Send Marco. Pick the lawyer up. Put her in a room until she tells you where Lena is."

"No," Luca said firmly. "We play this by the rules Lena just wrote. If we touch Warren, we lose the court. I need my suit pressed. I need my corporate team at the downtown office by seven. And I want an open channel to the probate clerk."

"What are you going to do, Luca?" Silvio asked, watching his son closely.

Luca walked toward the library doors, his face set like carved granite.