Then Viktor started to clap. Slow. Mocking. Dangerous.
"Bravo, Cesare," he called out. "Very bold. Very... strategic. But I wonder—does Giovanni Lombardo know about this 'agreement' you claim to have made with him?"
My blood ran cold.
I gambled that Viktor wouldn't have contacted Giovanni yet.
I gambled wrong.
Viktor pulled out his phone, held it up. "Because I have him on the line right now. And he seems very confused about this supposed agreement. Would you like to speak with him?"
The room erupted—voices raised, people moving, chaos beginning.
Paola looked at me, horror in her eyes. "What do we do?"
I stared at Viktor—at my enemy holding the phone like a weapon, at the crowd turning skeptical, at six years of power crumbling in real-time.
And made the only choice left: "Giovanni. Yes. Put him on speaker."
CHAPTER 9
Paola
The club pressed in—too hot, too loud, too many hostile eyes tracking my every breath. I felt exposed.
It was 11:34 p.m. Three hours since this anniversary celebration started. Three hours since our carefully constructed world began its spectacular collapse.
Viktor held his phone aloft like a weapon. The room had gone silent—hundreds of people watching, waiting, hungry for blood.
"Giovanni?" Viktor's voice carried across the space. "Your daughter Paola has something to tell you."
My father's voice crackled through the speaker: "What the hell is going on? Viktor called me saying—"
Cesare's hand was iron on my back. The only thing keeping me upright.
"Giovanni," Cesare said, voice steady despite the chaos. "I was just explaining to our guests about the arrangement we made regarding the marriage."
"What arrangement? Viktor said you're claiming I agreed to substitute Paola for Bianca. That's a lie."
My breath stopped.
I remembered that morning—his cold voice in my childhood bedroom:One daughter or the other—it makes no difference to me.He'd forced me down that aisle, threatened death and bloodshed if I refused.
And now he was denying it. Publicly.
"I sent Bianca to that wedding," my father continued, voice firm with false conviction. "What she did after that—whether she got cold feet, whether there was some switch—I had no knowledge of it."
Complete, calculated denial.
Protecting his reputation at his daughter's expense.
Viktor's smile turned triumphant. "So there was no agreement?"
"None. If Cesare Monti married the wrong daughter, that's between him and my daughters. I fulfilled my end by sending Bianca."
The betrayal cut deeper than anything Viktor could do. My own father, throwing me to the wolves.
Cesare didn't argue—he recognized a lost cause. "This conversation is over. We'll discuss this privately. Later."
