Chapter 17%
I’m standing on the rooftop helipad of the tallest Rosinni skyscraper in Milan.
The wind is sharp up here it whips against my face like it’s trying to test me, like it still thinks I’m the girl who used to flinch when the air got too cold But I don’t flinch anymore. I just stand still, tall, spine straight, eyes locked on the skyline of Milan as the sun claws its way up behind it?
I used to stare at buildings like this from the sidewalk Scrubbing lobby floors. Picking up crushed cigarette butts near marble columns. Id whisper to myself while mopping: One day, one day, you’ll stop crawling. Thirty years beneath the glass ceilings of men like Edmund. Thirty years smiling politely while the world looked past me.8
Now Lown the building.
“I spent three decades looking up at towers like this,” I murmur. “Cleaning the floors beneath them. Today, I own the skyline.”
Footsteps behind me. I don’t need to turn. I know who it is. Matteo’s gart is always heavy, deliberate. Enzo walks faster, like he’s always half an inch from trouble.
Matteo comes to my side. Puts a hand on my shoulder. It’s warm. Steady.
“We’re so proud of you, sorella,” he says. “You survived hell. Now we teach you to rule.“2
I don’t answer right away. I watch the sun rise a little higher–red–gold fire bleeding through the smog. Power looks good in daylight.
Enzo’s voice is smoother. More heat in it.%
“You’re a Rossini. You always were. With Lucien by your side, you’ll take back every second they stole. Every name they called you. Every smile they gave your enemy instead of you.“2
I turn to look at them–my blood. The only ones who didn’t forget me when I was dressed in silence. The only ones who never once said I was too small, too slow, too poor%
I breathe in deep, like I’m letting go of something heavy.%
“No more tears,” I say. “No more apologies. You teach me everything. I want all of it. Every ledger. Every contract. Every enemy’s name and the weapons they hide. I want to know how to build an empire from concrete and bones. I won’t be just a symbol. I’ll be a storm.“&
And I mean it. I mean every damn word.
The days come fast. I don’t waste them.”
Lucien trains me like he’s preparing a soldier. We don’t talk feelings. We talk numbers. Corporate structures. Off–shore accounts. Supply chain disruptions. Weapons permits. How to silence a reporter without blood. How to silence one with it.§
I watch him, mimic him, then do it better.”
There’s a sharpness in me that surprises even him. I see angles. Weak points. Emotional leverage. People call it manipulation–I call it survival. I ask the right questions, study the right files, learn which shell companies hide the dirtiest truths.
“You absorb things fast,” Lucien tells me one night, after I dismantle a thirty–million–dollar trade scam with nothing but a pen and two names. “You’re ruthless. I wasn’t expecting that.”
I sip my espresso and look him dead in the eyes.”
“That’s because you were expecting a maid.”
He doesn’t argue./
The media loses its mind.!!
They post old pictures of me. In uniforms. Hair tied back. Kneeling on tile floors beside scrub buckets. Headlines scream scandal like it’s breaking news.%
“From Housekeeper to Heiress: The Scandal of the Century.”
“The Morocco Maid Who Took Milan.”
“The Widow with Teeth.”
They think it’s shame. But it’s not. It’s proof. Proof that I came from dirt and now sit above every glass ceiling they ever tried to build.
I sit at breakfast in silk. I read one of the trashy headlines out loud and laugh. Real, guttural laugh. Enzo almost chokes on his toast.
“Let them talk,” I say. “They want a crown without knowing the cost of crawling.”
Lucien doesn’t laugh. He just watches me, eyes soft and sharp all at once. He’s always watching now, like he doesn’t quite know how ! turned from smoke to fire without warning.”
“You’re terrifying,” he says quietly, “in the most beautiful way.“}
I glance at him, smirking just a little.”
“Good. I want to be.”%
And I will be.”
The storm was already waiting before the alarms screamed.}
I’d been in the war room with Lucien, Matteo, and Enzo–blueprints spread across the long steel table, satellite images of ports, trade
3:15 PM 0
routes, and encrypted ledgers flickering on the screens. The expansion plans were finally sharp enough to slice through Europe’s underbelly, and we were carving our mark into it inch by inch.
Thunder cracked somewhere in the distance, like the sky itself was warning us. I didn’t flinch. I just reached for my pen.§
Then the alarms went off.
The whole estate shifted Guards burst in, weapons drawn, earpieces crackling. There was gunfire outside–short bursts, disciplined. Whoever it was wasn’t here to make a statement. They were here to survive something.”
One of the guards leaned in to whisper, but Lucien was already moving. I stood, calm, watching him bark orders in a voice that usually only came out before blood.
“It’s him,” Enzo said, face dark, lips curling. “The bastard came crawling.”
Lucien spun toward me. “Edmund. He’s at the gate. Wounded. One man left. He forced his way through like some pathetic war dog.”
Matteo snarled. “Then put him down. He should’ve died years ago.“%
I held up a hand. Still. Quiet. Absolute.
“Let the dead man speak.”
They all froze at that. Lucien looked at me like I’d grown fangs.
“I said speak, not survive. I’ll hear him. Then you can decide how deep the grave goes.”>
-2
The atrium was all marble and gold, but the storm outside dulled everything, turned the whole place the color of iron.
He was already there when I walked in–bloody, hunched, eyes wide with something between awe and desperation. His suit was torn at
the shoulder. The graze had soaked half his shirt in crimson. Even with the wound, he looked like a man who hadn’t felt pain until now. He saw me and froze.}
Not the woman he remembered. Not the maid. Not the obedient ghost in a linen apron. I walked toward him in black slacks and a fitted blazer, silk shirt sharp against my skin, diamonds at my throat like armor. I didn’t smile.
He blinked like he couldn’t quite believe it.
“You-” he started. “You look like… like them.”
“No,” I said. “They look like frauds. I look like justice.”
3:15 PM
а
He flinched. It was small. But I saw it.”
