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“So,” I say, tapping my fingers on the unopened folder. “Did you find something interesting about my bride-to-be?”

Nicolo’s jaw tightens. “You could say that.”

“This is why I had you run the check, Nicolo. So that there are no surprises.” I don’t even know her full name. “Well?”

“I found something that could be dangerous, Marco.”

I frown. “For her or for me?”

“For both of you.”

Now he has my complete attention. I flip open the folder. The first page is a photograph, yellow with age. Two little girls, identical in every way, stand in front of a building I recognize as St. Catherine’s Orphanage in Brooklyn. Below the photo, their names:Aria and Chiara Rossi.

“Twins?” The word comes out sharper than I intended. “She has a twin?”

Nicolo nods once. “Identical twins.”

I stare at the photograph, studying the faces of the two girls. Same blonde hair, same features. Identical smiles. I flip to the next page, a detailed history of their time at the orphanage.

“Parents died when they were infants,” I murmur, scanning the document. “Adopted at birth, but then back into the system at age two when the adoptive parents died in a car accident. How tragic.”

Something cold settles in my chest as I turn the pages. These girls had a hard life. Bounced from home to home. The reports detail instances of neglect and possible abuse. Nothing concrete enough for charges, but enough to make me clench my jaw.

“Aria attempted college,” Nicolo offers. “Dropped out after two semesters. Couldn’t afford the tuition.”

I find the page he’s referencing. City College of New York. Nursing program. Incomplete. I turn to the next page.

A list of debts in Chiara’s name. Credit cards. Payday loans. Medical bills.

“And the sister? Aria?”

“Kept a lower profile. Worked service jobs earlier, but now has two shifts. One at a bookstore, the other at a pharmacy at night.”

For some reason, that nags at me too. She wanted to be a nurse, and when that didn’t work out for her, she still clung to being as close to medicine as possible. Chiara’s sister—the woman I don’t even know—becomes more intriguing with every detail Nicolo reveals.

I stop on a page detailing Aria’s employment history.

“Tell me more about them and their work schedules.”

Nicolo’s expression doesn’t change. “According to these records, Chiara has often been in two places at once.”

“Explain,” I say, looking up at him now.

He shuffles on his feet, as though he knows something I don’t. “From the intel we gathered, she’s been spotted roaming the city’s darkest corners while her sister, Aria, covers for her at the café. We know this because Chiara punched in at work—butat the exact same time, her phone logs show taxis picking her up miles away.”

The realization hits me like a bucket of ice water. The woman I met didn’t seem like the type to sell herself into marriage within seconds. She was too grounded, too proud, too… different.

“I saved Aria that night. Not Chiara.”

The woman I dug my finger into—the woman who’s haunted my every thought since that night, who burned herself into my skin.

She was different from the women I usually encounter: direct, unimpressed by my power, clumsy with her manners—a breath of fresh air after the calculating social climbers who typically orbit my world.

And she was Aria. Not Chiara.

“Are you certain?” I ask, though I already know the answer. Nicolo wouldn’t make this kind of mistake.

“Yes. The woman you’re scheduled to marry today is Chiara Ross. The woman you met that night was almost certainly her twin sister, Aria.”