The drive back to Monaco was a silent, speeding bullet through the night. Inside the limousine, the air was thick with the aftershock of their victory, a strange, electric cocktail of triumph and dread. The glittering facade of the Cap-Ferrat villa, now a scene of Giancarlo’s very public implosion, receded in the tinted windows, but the echo of the chaos followed them.
Isabella sat stiffly, her emerald gown feeling like a costume from a play that had just ended in a riot. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, but she could still feel the phantom tremor in them — the adrenaline of standing before that crowd and dismantling a billion-dollar lie.
Alessandro was on the phone, his voice a low, relentless stream of Italian. He was securing the chain of custody for the evidence, the real f
