THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME PEEL APPLES WITH TWO BANDAGED FINGERS—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “SHE GOT THEM CAUGHT IN THE BASEMENT DOOR,” BEFORE HE EVEN ASKED.

The silence that settled over the grand entrance hall was thick enough to choke on.

Vincent Rossi stared at Luca, his jaw working silently as he processed the threat. He wasn’t a man accustomed to being cornered. For thirty years, Vincent had bought, bullied, and blackmailed his way through the city’s upper crust. But Luca Moretti wasn’t a politician. Luca was an empire builder who had clawed his way to the top of the industrial underworld, and Vincent knew that if Luca severed their ties, the Rossi shipping empire would collapse like a house of cards.

Vincent slowly turned his head toward his daughter. “Isabella?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her eyes were fixed on the double doors at the end of the hall that led to the estate’s private security office. Her lips parted, trembling slightly, but no words came out. That silence was louder than any confession.

Vincent’s expression darkened. The fatherly protectiveness vanished, replaced instantly by the cold, calculating instinct of a cornered businessman. He realized immediately that his daughter had lied to him.

Before Vincent could speak, the doors at the end of the corridor opened with a dull click.

Marco, Luca’s head of private security—a burly, stone-faced man with a scarred temple and the quiet posture of a former military contractor—walked into the foyer holding a black leather tablet. He didn’t look at Isabella, and he didn’t look at Vincent. He walked directly to Luca and extended the device.

“It’s queued up, boss,” Marco said in a low, gravelly voice. “Time-stamped at four-fifteen this afternoon. Crystal clear audio and video.”

Isabella made a strangled, desperate noise in the back of her throat. “Luca, please! Don’t do this here! Not in front of the servants!”

Luca ignored her entirely. He took the tablet from Marco’s hand and tapped the glass screen. He turned the device toward Vincent, angling the screen so Isabella could see it too.

I couldn’t see the video from where I stood beside Mrs. Gable, but I didn’t need to. I had lived it.

The audio from the small speakers filled the cavernous hall.

*“She asks for you constantly,”* Isabella’s recorded voice echoed, dripping with cold malice.

*“She likes helping me cook,”* came my own quiet, timid reply.

*“She should be asking me.”*

Then came the sound of the confrontation. The rustle of laundry linens. The sharp, venomous hiss from Isabella: *“The point is that you keep forgetting you’re an employee.”*

The sickening sound of the heavy metal fire door slamming shut followed an instant later. A metallic *CRUNCH*. Then my own blood-curdling scream echoed across the polished marble walls of the foyer, raw, agonized, and horrifying.

On the recording, Isabella’s voice followed immediately, cold as winter ice: *“You should be more careful around doors.”*

Mrs. Gable let out a soft, horrified gasp, covering her mouth with both hands.

Vincent Rossi stared at the screen, his face turning an ashen shade of gray. The undeniable proof was glaring in high-definition color: his daughter had deliberately, viciously slammed a heavy steel fire door directly onto the fingers of a defenseless woman, held it shut for two full seconds, and walked away without looking back.

Luca tapped the screen, pausing the video on the image of Isabella walking away while I collapsed on the concrete basement floor clutching my crushed hand.

He lowered the tablet. When he looked at Vincent, his eyes were void of all warmth.

“Get your daughter out of my house,” Luca said. The words were delivered with a calm, chilling precision that sounded like a death sentence.

“Luca, wait!” Isabella broke down, the polished mask shattering completely into ugly, weeping hysterics. She reached out toward him, her manicured nails clawing at his sleeve. “I was angry! She was taking Sofia away from me! Sofia loves her more than she loves me, and we aren’t even married yet! I lost control! You can’t throw away our future over a momentary mistake!”

Luca pulled his arm away as if her touch were toxic. He didn’t raise his voice, which only made his fury more terrifying.

“You didn’t lose control, Isabella. You showed who you truly are,” Luca said coldly. “You hurt an innocent person under my roof. You terrified my daughter. And then you lied to my face and expected me to believe you.”

Luca looked past her, fixing his eyes on Vincent.

“Take her,” Luca ordered. “If she sets foot on this property again, Marco will not call me. He will call the police commissioner with this footage, followed by every press outlet in the tri-state area. Your family will be ruined before the morning market opens.”

Vincent swallowed hard. For a second, a flash of pure hatred flickered in the older man’s eyes, but he knew when he had been completely outmatched. He grabbed Isabella roughly by the elbow, hauling her back toward the entrance.

“Come on,” Vincent hissed at her, his voice devoid of sympathy. “Move.”

“Daddy, no! Luca!” Isabella screamed, her heels dragging against the floor as her father forcibly dragged her toward the heavy front doors. “You’ll regret this, Luca! You hear me? You’ll regret choosing her over me!”

The front doors slammed shut behind them, cutting off her hysterical cries.

The heavy, echoing bang resonated through the cavernous foyer, leaving behind a silence so deep you could hear the rain lashing against the tall glass windows.

Luca stood in the center of the hall, motionless. He slowly drew a long breath, rolling his shoulders back as if shedding a physical weight he had carried for years. Then, without a word to Marco, he turned and walked toward me.

I took an instinctive step backward, my heart hammering against my ribs. The sheer power of what had just transpired left me trembling. The engagement that had dominated the city’s social registers for eight months was obliterated in five minutes—and it had happened because of me.

Luca stopped two feet away from me. He looked down at my pale face, his dark eyes searching mine with an intensity that made the breath catch in my throat.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asked, his voice unexpectedly gentle.

I shook my head quickly. “No. No, Mr. Moretti. Just… my hand.”

He glanced down at the fiberglass splint wrapping around my fingers, a dark shadow of guilt crossing his sharp features. “She will never touch you again. I give you my word.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, tears pricking the corners of my eyes from exhaustion and relief. “You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to destroy your merger for me.”

Luca stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the ambient heat radiating from his broad chest. His hand lifted, hovering for a fraction of a second before his knuckles lightly grazed the curve of my cheek, brushing away a solitary tear I hadn't realized had fallen.