Neither of them slept.
Valentina sat on the floor of the hidden room long after Damien had gone, photographs spread across her lap like a hand of cards she couldn't figure out how to play. By the time the first grey light touched the windows, she'd made a decision she wasn't proud of.
She would deny everything.
Not the room. Not the photographs. But the plan — the seven years of quiet preparation, the folder she still kept hidden in her own apartment detailing every transaction, every rumor, every thread that led back to the Moretti name. If Damien knew the full scope of what she'd built against him, there would be no marriage left to negotiate. Only a war she wasn't ready to fight from inside enemy walls.
She found him in the breakfast room an hour later, already dressed, already work
