Vincenzo nods. “That’s exactly what your father would say.”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “Don’t compare me to him. Not right now.”
“Fair enough.” He pulls out his phone and holds it up. “I’ll make the arrangements with the capos now.”
My shoulders quake as I sink onto the couch and drop my head into my hands. Dad is still lying in that bed, unconscious, broken, and with secrets he might never get to explain. In a few hours, I’ll sit across from his most trusted men, men who’ve known me since I was a kid in pigtails sneaking cannoli from the kitchen during Sunday dinners. I’ll have to convince them that a woman they’ve never taken seriously as a leader is capable of running an empire she never wanted, nor understood.
And somewhere out there, Lochlan Molloy is waking up to the same reality I am struggling with.
We’re trapped, caught in a dangerous web our fathers wove out of desperation and a struggle for control.
“Adriana?”
I look up. My sister, my mother, and Vincenzo are all watching me. And waiting.
My whole life, I’ve commanded boardrooms full of powerful men who wanted to see me fail. I’ve negotiated billion-dollar deals that would make most people’s knees buckle. I built a consulting empire from nothing but ambition and spite and aburning, relentless need to prove that Adriana Colonna was more than Francesco DiMicheli’s daughter.
This is different. This is blood and bullets and families who kill with the ease of taking a breath.
But the principle is the same.
Never let them see you cower.
I straighten my spine, lift my chin, and look at the people counting on me to be stronger than any of us feel right now.
“Let’s get to work.”
CHAPTER 4
LOCHLAN
Whatever happens,don’t you ever lie to me.
Adriana’s words have been looping through my head since I walked out of that hospital. They stayed with me during my drive home, all through the scalding shower that turned my skin blotchy and red. They festered in the two hours of sleep I managed to get before my brain kicked back on and wouldn’t shut up.
Don’t ever lie to me.
She said it like a dare. Like she already knew I would.
She’s right. I’m already lying to her. I’ve been lying since the second I pulled her out of that gala, because I knew the attack was coming and I didn’t warn anyone. I just saved her and let the rest of them fall.
And now I’m supposed to marry her.
I can’t sleep after that thought lands like a brick on my head, so I do what I always do when I can’t sleep. I research. It’s kind of an occupational hazard. I always need intel on clients, their associates, and their enemies so I can provide top-tier security for them.
I grab my laptop, type her name into Google, and pages of results appear in seconds.
Adriana Colonna.
TheForbesprofile shows up first.
How One Woman Built a $300 Million Consulting Empire Without a Single Dollar of Family Money
There’s a photo of her in a navy blazer with her arms crossed, standing in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Boston skyline. She’s not smiling. She’s looking at the camera like it owes her a favor.
I stare at that photo for way too long.
TheWall Street Journalarticle shows up next in the search results. Then Bloomberg. Then some podcast interview where she talked about scaling her firm from three employees to two hundred in under a decade. Her voice is different in that interview… more relaxed and almost warm when she talks about her team. She laughs once, a real laugh, and fuck me, my heart jumps the tiniest bit.
