Chapter 44

Avery’s POV

The morning sun, a ruthless, liquid gold, stretched incandescent fingers across the terracotta rooftops of Florence. It turned the city into a cruel, impossible masterpiece.

It felt like the world mocked the storm brewing inside me. Down below, in the gilded lobby of La Plaza, the scene was a collage of carefree chaos.

Students buzzed with offensive joy. Their collective excitement echoed off the marble floors.

Luggage, a haphazard monument to their five-day whirlwind, was stacked near the revolving doors. Their voices—a chorus of laughter, jokes, and promises—collided like champagne glasses.

Then there was Ms. Collway. She was a symphony of irritation, barking instructions.

Her clipboard was clutched to her chest like a shield or, perhaps, a blunt-force weapon. She represented the orderly world I was about to walk away from, a world of academic deadlines and scheduled itineraries.

But me? I stood apart, a deliberate island in that sea of youthful farewells.

The events of last night had not faded. They burned white-hot, searing every thought I had.

Betrayal. A clean, sharp cut into the heart of everything my family had built.

Names were etched into my mind in a brand of ice and fire: Luca DeLuca and Matteo Bianchi. Beneath the memory of their treachery was the deeper, colder echo of my father’s voice, the strategist carved out of stone and iron, ruthlessly commanding.

It was past midnight when I returned to my hotel room. The confidential file from Marissa was still warm in my jacket pocket, its pages whispering secrets of fraud and avarice.

The moment I closed the door, the air grew thin, demanding action. I did not hesitate.

I dialed the number I knew better than my own reflection, the direct line to the man who held the keys to my kingdom and the chains to my soul. The line clicked, a sound like a guillotine, and he was there.

“Avery,” he said, his voice rough with exhaustion or contained fury, but steady. “You sound like hell.”

I paced the opulent room, the carpet silent beneath my feet, a tiger in a cage. “Nice to hear your concern, Father,” I replied, my voice dry as desert sand, without an ounce of my usual charm. “But I do not have time for sentiment. We have a problem.”

A monumental silence stretched between Florence and New York, where I presumed he sat in his office overlooking the cold, steel heart of the city. I could feel the temperature of his silence drop.

It was a terrifying, absolute quiet. “Go on,” he finally commanded.

I told him everything. The forged invoices, the phantom deals, the intricate web of deception that Luca and Matteo had woven, the irrefutable names Marissa had uncovered.

With every word I spoke, I felt the air tighten. The colossal weight of his attention threatened to crush me.

I was laying a crisis at the feet of a man who saw crises as opportunities for subtraction. Then he said it.

Two words. Simple. Cold. Final. “Then eliminate them.”

I stopped pacing so abruptly my shoulder jarred against the window frame. My hand tightened around the phone, my knuckles white.

The city lights of Florence were a blur outside. “Eliminate them? You mean—”

I knew what he meant, but I needed to hear the savagery spoken aloud. “I do not mean paperwork, Avery,” he cut in, his voice like a blade being honed.

There was no emotion, only function. “I mean wipe them out. Remove them from existence. That is how we have survived this long. By cutting out the cancer before it spreads. Before it shows weakness to our rivals.”

For a moment, I could not breathe. The air was a vacuum.

The Von Carter way. The way of blood and fire, of discreet disappearances and irreversible financial ruin delivered in the shadows.

I carried that stain, that part of the legacy no one dared speak aloud—the handful of times I had to ensure “problems” ceased to exist. It had always been survival.

But something inside me shifted, a tectonic plate of my own personality moving. Maybe it was the memory of Tiffany’s laugh, the echo of her heart against my chest, reminding me that fire could warm, not just destroy.

“No,” I said, and the word was firm, unyielding.

“Avery—”

“Listen to me!” My voice cracked like a whip, surprising even me with its desperate force.

“I will deal with them. But lawfully. Publicly. I will strip them of every asset they have stolen, every scrap of reputation, and leave them exposed, ruined, to the world. Their collapse will be a spectacle. That is how I will win. That is how we win.”

A long, excruciating silence followed. I could hear him breathing, slow and controlled, a predator waiting for its moment.

Finally, he spoke, his tone laced with a mixture of disbelief and icy control. “Law is slow. Mercy is weakness. You know this, Avery.”

“Justice is neither,” I shot back, the words fueled by sudden, exhilarating conviction. “If we bury them in the shadows, the world will never know they tried to poison us. It only tells our enemies we are afraid of the public eye. But if I burn them under the sun, everyone will know what happens to those who betray Von Carters. It becomes a deterrent, not a secret.”

Another silence. This one stretched so long I almost thought he had hung up on me, exiled me from the family for daring to suggest a deviation from the Von Carter code.

Then—he laughed. A low, dry sound that grated on my ears, carrying both the pride of a father who recognized his own stubbornness and the frustration of a strategist whose plan was being complicated.

“You are stubborn,” he finally sighed, the sound heavy and weary. “Like your mother.”

I swallowed hard, my throat tight, but I held my ground. “Is that your way of saying yes?”

He let out a sharp, exasperated breath. “Fine. Do it your way. But you had better not fail. I will speak to your dean. You are not returning with the group. I will make the arrangements from here. You have twenty-four hours to mobilize before their scent goes cold.”

Relief and pressure collided inside me like warring tides. I was being given the reins, but the stakes were absolute.

“Thank you, Father.”

“Do not thank me,” he said, the ice returning. “Win. That is the only thanks I will accept.”

The line went dead with a decisive click, leaving me alone in the ornate room, clutching a silent phone. Morning arrived, cold and dazzling.

Now, standing in the middle of that gilded lobby, I replayed that call. The memory of his words clung to me like smoke.

Avery, eliminate them. The temptation to follow his counsel, to just deliver the clean, swift, brutal stroke, was a familiar, easy comfort.

It was the life I was born to. But I had chosen my path, and there was no turning back.

I drew in a steadying breath, letting the chaotic energy of the departing students wash over me. I had a war to fight, and I was doing it in the light.

But Tiffany…

I glanced across the lobby and found her, as if my internal compass would always point to her. She was standing with Ms. Collway, a beacon in the crowd, her hair catching the morning light.

She was smiling at a student, soft and warm, the picture of an empathetic professor. But when her eyes flicked toward me, something in them shifted—concern, curiosity, a flicker of knowing that made my stomach churn.

She always saw too much. She saw the fissure in the foundation, the crack in the marble that I worked to conceal.

I forced a smile—casual, careless, the kind of easy, cocky grin that was my trademark—and turned away before she could cross the distance and ask a question I was not ready to answer.

“Alright, everyone!” Ms. Collway’s voice cut through the air like a trumpet, shrill and authoritative.

“Bags in the coach! Passports ready! Let’s move, let’s move!”

Students scrambled, their laughter echoing against the marble floors as the group began to funnel toward the grand doors. The rattling of luggage wheels was a steady, inexorable drumbeat.

Tiffany moved with them, though her movement was slower, punctuated by backward glances in my direction. Her brow was furrowed.

I stood near the grand staircase, my hands shoved deep into my pockets, watching them prepare to leave. A strange, suffocating heaviness settled in my chest.

For five days, Italy had been a necessary, dazzling distraction—a whirlwind of lectures, museums, shared laughter, stolen glances, and late-night, low-whispered confessions. Now it was ending.

But for me, it was not over. Not even close.

Ms. Collway finally noticed me, standing apart and motionless. She frowned, her expression a mixture of fatigue and official annoyance.

“Von Carter, what are you doing? Let’s go. We have a flight schedule to keep.”

I offered her a practiced smile, the kind that could charm boardrooms and disarm suspicion, but that felt hollow to me now. “Change of plans, Ms. Collway. I will not be returning with the group.”

Her frown deepened, morphing into professional offense. “Excuse me? That is not possible. I have a manifest—”

“My father already spoke to the dean,” I said, injecting a layer of non-negotiable authority into my voice. “He will confirm it. There are… business matters here I need to attend to. Unforeseen complications.”

The woman looked me over, her suspicion battling with the professional resignation that came from dealing with the entitled offspring of powerful men. “I see. Well. As long as it is official.”

“It is,” I assured her, my smile never faltering. I was halfway through the lie, and I felt the guilt like a stone in my gut.

The moment Tiffany realized I was not walking toward the bus with the others, her expression shifted in a way that made my breath catch. I caught the flicker of shock in her eyes as Ms. Collway was distracted by a student fumbling with a carry-on.

The lobby was a symphony of chaos—chatter, laughter, rattling wheels—but Tiffany’s focus was locked on me. It was not the kind of look I could run from.

Her lips pressed into a thin, unforgiving line, stripping the warmth from her face. “And when,” she asked, her voice sharp enough to cut through the surrounding noise, “were you planning on telling me this, Avery?”

Her tone was not loud, but it carried the sting of hurt and frustration. Enough to make my chest tighten with immediate guilt.

I forced a brittle chuckle, though the lie coiled inside me like barbed wire. “I was going to. Eventually. You know I love my dramatic reveals, Professor.”

“This is not a play, Avery.” Her voice cracked on my name, audible over the clattering suitcase wheels on the marble floor.

There was a raw thread of pain woven through her words, the kind she usually masked with her professor’s unassailable composure. “What is going on? Tell me the truth.”

She deserved an answer. The real one.

The one that involved a ruthless family mandate, betrayal within my company, my father’s cold order to “eliminate” people, and my own terrifying decision to change the rules of the war. But not here.

Not in the middle of a public lobby, surrounded by oblivious students and Ms. Collway hovering with her clipboard like a hawk of professional obligation. Not with the overwhelming weight of Von Carter secrets pressing down on my chest, threatening to spill and shatter the world she knew.

I leaned closer, brushing my fingers against Tiffany’s arm in what looked to any observer like nothing more than a casual, affectionate gesture. My voice was a whisper, a promise and a desperate evasion all at once.

“Not here. Do not worry.”

Her brows pulled together, suspicion sparking like flint in her gorgeous eyes. Before she could press me, I slipped my phone from my pocket, pretending to check an urgent message.

My fingers tapped out a cryptic but direct message: See me in your room. This is not the place.

When I looked back at her, she was still watching me, her eyes clouded with doubt. She did not nod, did not speak, but I saw the decision flash across her gaze.

The stubborn need to know the truth had won the internal battle. She would come.

She had to. “Left something in my room,” I heard Tiffany say to Ms. Collway, who glanced up with an exasperated sigh, already distracted by the noise of her departing flock. “I will catch up.”

She waved her off with an understanding nod. Perfect.

I turned, walking toward the grand staircase—the kind of opulent, winding structure that tourists paused to admire and photograph. My steps were steady, though my pulse drummed fast and frantic in my ears.

I did not check behind me. I did not need to.

I knew Tiffany would follow. Her door closed with a soft, decisive click, shutting out the world.

The silence that fell was heavy and sudden, the kind that carries immense weight—the kind that makes you hyperaware of every movement, every breath taken or withheld. Tiffany leaned against the solid wood of the door, her arms crossed over her chest like a shield, her entire posture a defensive coil.

Her eyebrow was arched in a sharp, beautiful demand. “Well? Start talking, Avery.”

God, she was magnificent when she demanded answers. That stubborn streak, that fire in her eyes, the refusal to settle for platitudes—it terrified me and undid me in equal measure.

I took a step closer, my voice low, cautious, trying to pour oil on the boiling water of her emotion. “Tiffany—”

“No,” she cut in, her tone trembling at the edges with a pain I had put there. “No deflections. No charming little remarks to dodge the truth. I just watched you tell our chaperone you are staying behind for ‘business matters.’ What is happening? Why are you not coming back with us?”

Her words hit with surgical precision, each one a dart against the emotional armor I tried to keep intact. I hesitated, because the truth was a jagged thing, a truth so sharp it would wound her if I set it free.

A truth that involved a life outside of our shared, fragile bubble in Italy, a life of cutthroat strategy and dark obligations. And yet—God, she deserved to know.

She always did. But I was not ready to articulate the full scope of my terror and my mission.

Not yet. Instead, I did the only thing my restless, desperate, and guilty heart allowed.

I closed the final distance between us. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her against my chest with a force that was not about passion, but about raw, desperate ownership.

My face buried in her hair, I breathed in the warm vanilla and rosewater that clung to her, a scent that had the power to soften the storm raging inside me—if only for a fleeting moment. Her body tensed at first, rigid with suspicion and banked anger.

But slowly, painfully, I felt the resistance in her melt. Her arms came up, sliding around my waist, clinging to the fabric of my suit jacket.

Her voice came muffled against my shoulder, breaking in a way I had never heard before, a sound of profound loss. “I am going to miss you,” she whispered, the words shaking.

The ache in my chest sharpened. I pulled back enough to see her face, my palm cupping her cheek, my thumb brushing across her smooth skin.

“I will miss you too, Tiffany. More than you know.” Her lips parted, like she wanted to argue, to demand more details, to tear down my practiced evasion, but the fight in her eyes faltered.

She seemed to surrender to the simple, crushing weight of separation. Instead of speaking, she closed her eyes, pressing her forehead to mine.

The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything we could not say, everything that loomed in the future. Finally, her whisper was a fragile question.

“Avery… what is this really about?”

I forced a smile. It was gentle, but hollow, devoid of any genuine light. “Let us just say… sometimes life does not give us the luxury of choosing the timing we want for our obligations.”

Her suspicion sharpened, cutting through my attempt at evasion like a laser. “That is not an answer.”

“No,” I admitted, my thumb tracing the line of her jaw, mapping and memorizing every angle of her beautiful face, “but it is the only one I can give you right now.”

Her gaze searched me, her eyes moving across my face like she was trying to read secrets carved beneath my skin. She looked for the lie, for the crack in the facade.

Then her voice broke into a whisper, trembling with quiet, heartbroken devastation. “You are lying to me.”

The words were not an accusation flung in anger—they were a realization, a statement of fact that pierced straight through my resolve. Somehow, that acceptance hurt more than any fight could have.

My forehead dropped against hers, my eyes closing against the onslaught of my own guilt, my voice lowering to a desperate, ragged murmur. “I am not lying, Tiffany. I am protecting. There is a difference. Trust me on this, please.”

She did not reply with words. Instead, she slid her arms tighter around my waist and held me, clinging as if letting go meant losing me to something she could not even name, something she could not fight.

Maybe she was right. Minutes stretched like lifetimes.

Outside, the muffled sound of engines rumbled as the buses were lined up. Students shouted and laughed, their superficial joy bouncing against the cold stone walls of the hotel.

Their tour was ending. Mine, too—but only to give way to a different kind of obligation.

“I hate this,” she finally breathed, her words vibrating softly against my chest.

“What?” I asked, though I knew exactly what she meant.

“That you are always slipping through my fingers. First, the boundaries of the tour. Now this. Always something pulling you away, something secret and powerful that I cannot touch.”

I tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet my gaze, forcing her to see the desperate sincerity in my eyes. “You are not losing me, Tiffany. I promise you that. I will find my way back to you, no matter what it takes.”

Her eyes glistened, holding me in that fragile, desperate way that stripped me of all my defenses, all my pretenses. “Do you mean that, Avery?”

“I have never meant anything more in my life.”

In that moment, stripped of her professor’s mask and her professional detachment, she was not the woman who commanded a classroom with fire in her voice. She was simply Tiffany—raw, vulnerable, heartbreakingly human.

God, she undid me. Her lips curved into the faintest, most reluctant smile, one that tugged painfully at my ribs.

“You are impossible, Avery Von Carter.”

I grinned despite the ache tightening my throat. “And yet, you keep letting me in.”

“Against my better judgment,” she said, but her voice was a breath, softened with every word.

Without warning, she hugged me tighter, burying her face against my collarbone as though she wanted to memorize my scent, my heartbeat. The elaborate bravado I wore like a fine suit of armor cracked and shattered under her touch.

All that remained was the person beneath the Von Carter name, terrified of losing the one thing that felt real. “I will miss you,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

I pressed my lips against her hair, lingering, committing the sensation to memory. “And I will miss you, too. More than you will ever know. Be safe.”

The knock at the door came, sharp and impatient, startling us both out of the confined bubble we had built. Ms. Collway’s clipped, efficient voice pierced through the silence.

“Professor Rose, we are leaving in two minutes. The bus is full. Please hurry.”

Tiffany exhaled, her forehead still pressed against my chest. She did not move.

Neither did I. The world was calling her away, pulling her back to its schedule and its rules.

“Go,” I whispered, my hand cupping her face one last time, a final, painful benediction. “Before they start asking questions that you cannot answer either.”

She shook her head, her lips trembling with denial. “Avery…”

“I will see you soon,” I said, the words nearly breaking me, but delivered with the conviction of a vow. “That is a promise you can hold me to.”

Her eyes shimmered with tears, but she nodded, accepting the inevitable. Slowly, painfully, she stepped back, pulling the mask of composure—the calm, strict-professor expression—over her features.

By the time she opened the door, her face carried the controlled, professional calm the world knew her by. But I had memorized every flicker of her gaze, every barely perceptible twitch of her lips.

Beneath that façade, she was breaking. She knew as well as I did—I was not walking onto that bus.

Just before she slipped into the noisy hall, she turned her head slightly, catching my eyes for the briefest, most profound moment. A silent plea lingered in them: Do not do this.

Do not disappear into the shadows of Von Carter obligations. Do not become the woman I fear you are.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, forcing the faintest smile. Not the smirk.

Not the cocky, untouchable grin. Something quieter, something vulnerable, something bare, meant only for her.

Her eyes softened, a tiny signal of understanding and trust, before she slipped into the hall. Then she was gone.

The door closing felt like a final, definitive period on a chapter.

❖

I ended the call with Marissa—a confirmation on time and location—and let the phone slide from my grip onto the heavy mahogany desk. The sound echoed in the quiet room.

A weary exhale left me as I dragged my hand over my face. One hour.

That was all I had. Enough time to smooth out the internal storm, enough time to wear the polished mask of Avery Von Carter—the calm, untouchable authority the business world expected.

But under the mask, the storm still burned, fed by guilt and grim determination. It had a name, and it was not Luca or Matteo.

Tiffany.

The reports and documents scattered before me—a lexicon of financial treachery—blurred into meaningless ink. My eyes traced lines of figures, false invoices, obscure offshore accounts, but none held my attention.

Instead, the memory of her hug in the hotel room returned with merciless clarity. The warmth of her arms, the trembling softness in her voice as she whispered she would miss me.

She did not know the truth. She thought I stayed behind for a simple “company matter.”

She did not know I remained in Florence to pull knives out of the family’s back and, more crucially, to fight my father’s command. Would she understand if she knew the full horror?

Or would she look at me with the cold disdain I had seen in Luca’s eyes—as though I were just another Von Carter blade, cutting without hesitation, eliminating anyone who stood in the way of power? The thought weighed on me, because the truth of my past was darker than she imagined.

The Von Carters never forgave betrayal. We eliminated it.

Quietly, ruthlessly. Before Tiffany, I had done what was necessary—two, maybe three times—to safeguard the dynasty.

I carried that stain on my hands, that shadow of the legacy no one dared speak aloud. It had been survival, always survival.

But now… now I had changed the rules of engagement. Meeting her had changed everything.

For the first time, I wanted to prove that I did not have to fight the way my father did. I could win without shadows, without blood, without the weight of a permanent secret.

I only prayed that if Tiffany ever discovered who the Von Carters were—who I had been—she would still understand the man I was fighting to become. The sharp, official knock at the door broke the painful spiral.

I pushed myself to my feet, adjusted the blazer across my shoulders, and moved to answer. Marissa stood there.

Always composed, razor-sharp. Her dark hair was pulled back into a severe coil, her presence commanding without effort.

She carried a slim, heavy folder under her arm, the weight of two sleepless nights reflected in the dark circles beneath her eyes. She looked like she belonged in every ruthless boardroom, every hostile takeover meeting in Milan—impossible to shake, impossible to intimidate.

My most trusted strategic partner. “On time,” I said, stepping aside, a grim smile touching my lips.

Her lips curved in a dry smile. “You would not forgive me otherwise, Avery. You hate wasting minutes.”

She walked in, her heels clicking a rhythm against the wooden floor, and set the folder on my desk with a thud. She opened it, laying out the documents in precise order, each page like a blade in a war chest.

“I have spent the last hours combing through every lead,” she said, her voice steady though weariness tugged beneath the surface. “DeLuca and Bianchi have been careful. Shell companies, layers of middlemen, falsified documents that look professionally audited. What we have is enough to ruin them, certainly. But not enough to finish them with certainty, not without years of litigation.”

I leaned against the desk, folding my arms, my gaze heavy on her face. “Then we need more. If they fall, I want them to stay down. Permanently. No second chances for revenge.”

Marissa flipped to another page, her finger tapping against a complex string of offshore account numbers. “DeLuca leans on offshore accounts, mostly under family names and obscure foundations. If we expose the full breadth of the tax evasion and money laundering, the authorities will have enough leverage to prosecute, not just freeze assets. Bianchi is tied to a staggering amount of forged paperwork and real estate fraud—selling the same properties multiple times, inflated appraisals. If you give me two weeks of surgical investigation, I can build a solid case for federal prosecution.”

“Two weeks?” My jaw tightened with immediate, violent rejection of the timeline.

“That is far too long. In two weeks, they will have buried half their mess. I do not want a case, Marissa. I want them stripped now. I want the immediate, irreversible collapse of their empire.”

Her eyes lifted to mine, sharp and unyielding, meeting my intensity with her own. “You want them destroyed, Avery. That is not the same as justice. Your father would say ‘eliminate them.’ You chose the law. The law is meticulous.”

I tilted my head, letting the silence stretch between us, a silence heavy with the difference between our two philosophies. “Who said I only wanted justice, Marissa? Justice is for the courts. Destruction is for the Von Carters.”

Her mask of composure faltered. A quick, sharp flicker of concern appeared in her gaze, as though for the first time she saw something beneath my polished exterior—something darker, something dangerous that my father had instilled.

But she was Marissa. She recovered, flipping another page, grounding herself in facts. “Then here is what we do, since speed is your mandate. We bait them. We push them into making mistakes that accelerate their downfall.”

“Explain the specifics,” I said, leaning forward, the strategist now fully engaged.

“DeLuca still has a few trusted loyalists inside the company, men who believe he is still the future. We can plant false information through those channels—highly attractive numbers, a lucrative deal he will not be able to resist touching, something requiring immediate, ill-advised action. Once he tries to move the bait, we have him on wire fraud, irrefutably. As for Bianchi, his primary weakness is his colossal pride. If we let it slip into the right circles that someone else—a rival foreign investor—is circling his real estate empire, he will move too fast to protect his ego and his perceived territory. One reckless, illegal move to secure an asset, and he will be ours.”

A slow, predatory smile pulled at my lips, a genuine expression of admiration for her ruthless efficiency. “You sound like a Von Carter already, Marissa.”

She shot me a look of dry disapproval. “Do not flatter yourself. I am just good at my job. I adapt to the client’s objective. You want a war fought in the daylight; I will give you a clean, strategic assassination of their finances.”

I chuckled, though the sound felt heavier than it should have. Inside, something twisted—the realization that despite my high-minded rejection of my father’s path, I was still using his methods: manipulation, misdirection, and traps.

The legacy was always there, whispering, reminding. Marissa studied me in the heavy silence, then leaned back, folding her arms across her chest.

Her eyes never wavered, searching mine for something more. “Avery, let me ask you something. Off the record. Purely professional curiosity.”

I arched a brow, giving her permission. “Go on.”

“Why does this matter so much to you? Yes, they betrayed your company. Yes, they stole a substantial amount. But I see more than standard vengeance in you. You are invested, which is usually sloppy. There is a conviction here that goes beyond the bottom line.”

Her bluntness caught me off guard. I hesitated, torn between the simple, safe mask and the complicated, vulnerable truth.

Finally, I let the words fall, a quiet, necessary confession I needed to articulate. “Because this is not just about money. Or reputation. It is about proving I can win without blood. Proving I do not need to play by my father’s ancient, brutal rules. Proving that my way, the public, accountable way, is better and stronger.”

Her gaze softened, almost imperceptibly, a humanizing moment in a room full of hard facts and figures. “Then we will do it your way, Avery. We will build your public spectacle. But remember what I said: law cuts clean—but it also cuts slow. You are going to be here for a while, managing the fallout, steering the ship. Can you live with that? Can you live with the separation and the time it will take?”

The question lingered in the air, sharp as glass. I did not answer right away.

My thoughts drifted, unbidden, to Tiffany. Her laugh. Her lips. Her whispered promise to miss me.

Would she still whisper those promises if she learned the full truth? That before her, I had already eliminated men who crossed the Von Carters, that I carried the family’s dark heritage?

But I had already changed the rules for her. I had chosen a different kind of war.

I wanted to believe she would understand the man who fought with light, not shadows. “Yes,” I said finally, my voice steady, hardened with resolve. “I can live with it. I will see it through.”

The room shifted back into war. For the next hours, we buried ourselves in strategy.

Marissa scribbled notes with precise, clinical efficiency. I made encrypted calls, directing the planting of the financial bait.

Messages buzzed across hidden channels, firing up the machine of Von Carter destruction. Piece by piece, the trap was built.

DeLuca would be fed the numbers he could not resist. Bianchi would lash out at the shadows we projected.

And we would be waiting. When midnight came, Marissa closed the folder with a snap, fatigue softening her edges into a momentary weariness. “You have your war, Avery. The initial assault is ready. Now you need to see it through with no hesitation.”

I walked her to the door. She turned, her eyes searching mine briefly before she masked herself again with cool professionalism.

“Marissa,” I said, stopping her.

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For believing in the process over the easy solution.”

For a heartbeat, something softened in her gaze, a small window into her own convictions. Then it was gone.

She gave me a small, sharp smile. “Do not thank me yet. We are not finished. You have two weeks of hell ahead of you.”

The door closed behind her, leaving me alone again with the silence, which now felt less like an ending and more like the beginning of an empty battlefield. I sank into the chair, the weight of everything pressing down.

Outside, the city of Florence glittered, cold and watchful. The plan was set.

The war was mine. But in the quiet, when the adrenaline faded, it was not DeLuca or Bianchi I saw in my mind, or the congratulatory grimace of my father.

It was Tiffany. Always Tiffany.

Her laugh. Her kiss. Her whispered promises to wait.

I closed my eyes, the ache in my chest almost unbearable, and whispered into the emptiness, a fragile, desperate prayer across the distance that had just opened between us. “Wait for me, Tesoro. Just wait.”

And though the room was silent, I swore I could hear her voice answering, soft as memory, strong enough to hold me together until the battle was won.