The Don's Second Chance Bride

SERENA POV "Q3 net revenue is up fourteen percent." I clicked to the next slide and watched the three men across the table sit up straighter, that always happened when the numbers were green. Men who spent all week pretending they understood the business suddenly found their attention when the profits looked clean. "The import logistics account pulled two point three million above projection." I advanced the slide. "The shortfall in the northern distribution arm is fixable. I've already drafted a restructuring proposal. We implement in Q4 and we're looking at full recovery by February." My phone buzzed against the table. I ignored it. "The southern accounts are the strongest they've been in three years," I continued. "If we maintain current spending discipline, we close the year thirty percent above last" "Serena." My assistant appeared in the doorway, his voice was quiet but his face was not. "I'm sorry. You need to take this." I looked at him for one second. That was enough. "Gentlemen," I said, setting the clicker down. "Five minutes." I was already dialing before I reached the end of the hallway. "Tell me," I said. "He's gone." Ric, my father's head of security, his voice was flat in the way that meant he was holding himself together by force. "Two shots. It was fast. There are already people inside the compound, Serena. People I don't recognize." I stopped walking. My father was dead. I stood in that empty hallway and let it land, one second, two. I felt something crack open deep in my chest and the grief came up fast and hot and I pressed it all the way back down. Not yet. Not here. "The accounts," I said. "Frozen. All of them. I tried to access the operating fund twenty minutes ago and hit a wall." "Offshore routing?" "Same." "Contingency reserve?" "Serena, they're all frozen. Every single one." I turned and walked toward the building exit, keeping my voice even. "Our allies. How many have you reached?" "Tried six numbers," he said. "Three went straight to voicemail. Two are disconnected. One picked up and hung up without speaking." The math moved fast in my head and I did not like where it landed, frozen accounts meant someone had our internal banking codes. Unknown faces at the compound meant the security network had been turned before the first shot was fired, six allies silent in under an hour meant this was not one man making a move. This was a map. Drawn carefully, over a long time, and tonight someone had simply followed it to the end. "Who coordinated the account freeze?" I asked. "That's not something a rival family does. That requires internal access." "I know." "Which means someone inside was working against us. For how long?" Ric was quiet for a moment. "I don't know. A while, I think." I pushed through the building's side door and stepped into the night air. "Where are you now?" "East gate. They're letting me stand here because I'm not a threat to them anymore." His voice dropped. "Serena, you cannot come back here. Do you understand me? Do not come to the compound." "I wasn't going to." I scanned the street, checking both directions out of habit. "I need one thing from you. The neutral broker, Fazio. Is his line still clean?" A short pause. "As far as I know." "Then go somewhere safe and stay there. Don't call me again from this number." "Serena, wait, I need to tell you" "Ric." I kept my voice steady. "Go. Now." I ended the call and stood on the pavement and breathed in slowly through my nose. My father was dead, his empire was being taken apart in real time. Every door I would normally walk through had just closed, and the people who should be standing beside me right now were either running or already on the other side. I had one contact left. One line that might still be open. I pulled up Fazio's number and pressed call. He answered on the second ring. "I was wondering when you'd call," he said. I went still. Not surprise in his voice. Not concern. Just a man sitting somewhere comfortable, already waiting for exactly this call. "I need a meeting," I said carefully. "I know you do. Come to the Meridian building. Top floor, come alone and come now, before this city decides what to do with you." The line went dead before I could respond. I stood there and turned his words over slowly, he had answered too quickly, known too much, said before this city decides what to do with you like the decision was already in motion, like he was already watching from inside whatever had been assembled against my family tonight. The question was not whether Fazio was still neutral. He clearly wasn't. The question was who he was working for now, and whether walking into that building was the smartest move I had left or the last one I would ever make. I flagged a cab, got in, and gave the driver the address, because I had no better option and standing on the pavement was not surviving. The ride was thirty minutes. I used every one of them thinking through what I knew, what I didn't know, and what I needed to establish the moment I walked through that door. Fazio had arranged the meeting, which meant whoever was behind this wanted me in a room. They could have had me killed tonight and hadn't, which meant they wanted something from me that required me alive. That was leverage. Thin, but real. I also thought about my father, just for a moment. Just the shape of him at his desk on Sunday mornings, the way he reviewed my reports and then looked at me with something that was as close to pride as he knew how to show. He was gone. And someone in his own house had helped make it happen. I put it away before the cab stopped. Grief was a resource I couldn't spend tonight. The Meridian building rose at the end of the block and I paid the driver and stood outside for exactly ten seconds, long enough to note the two men near the entrance who were not Fazio's usual staff, and the car parked across the road with its engine running and nobody getting out. I smoothed my jacket, lifted my chin, and walked in. Whatever was waiting for me at the top of that building, I needed to look like I had already planned for it. The elevator doors opened and I stepped inside, and as the doors closed I caught my reflection in the mirrored panel, and the woman looking back at me was composed and steady and gave absolutely nothing away. Good, I thought. Keep it that way. The elevator began to rise and I watched the numbers climb and I told myself I was ready for anything. I was wrong about that. But I wouldn't know it for another sixty seconds.