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My fingers clench around the edge of the desk. I’ve been played. Deceived. I don’t like being deceived.

“Keep going,” I say, voice steady despite the anger building inside me. “What else did you find?”

Nicolo hesitates. “Turn to the last page.”

I flip through the remaining documents until I reach what appears to be a birth certificate. Not the altered one from their adoption, but the original. My eyes fix on the surname.

DeLuca.

Aria and Chiara DeLuca.

The name hits me like a physical blow. My blood turns to ice in my veins. DeLuca. A name I haven’t heard spoken in overtwenty-five years. A name my father made sure would never be spoken again.

“This can’t be right,” I say, though I know it is. Nicolo wouldn’t bring me incorrect information. Not about something this significant.

“I verified it three times,” Nicolo says. “Different sources. It’s legitimate.”

I stare at the birth certificate. Emilio and Sofia DeLuca. Parents of twin daughters. Born June 12, twenty-five years ago.

The DeLucas. The family my father wiped out in a single night. Every member. Every associate. Every distant cousin. A brutal power grab that established the Bianchis as the dominant family in New York’s underworld for a generation.

Or so we thought.

“How?” I ask. The question encompasses everything. How did they survive? How did they hide for so long? How did I end up engaged to one of them?

Nicolo pulls another sheet from the back of the folder, placing it on top of the birth certificate. A police report from twenty-five years ago.

“Their aunt, Teresa DeLuca, escaped the night of the purge. She had the twins with her. They were just two months old. She disappeared, changed their names, placed them in the orphanage system under false identities.”

I remember Teresa DeLuca. My father’s men searched for her for years, but they never found her. Now I know why. She didn’t run. She hid in plain sight, protected her nieces, and then disappeared.

“The aunt?” I ask.

“Died of cancer fifteen years ago.”

So the twins grew up not knowing who they were. Or did they? The question burns in my mind. Does Chiara know hertrue identity? Does Aria? Was their entrance into my life a random chance or calculated revenge?

I think back to that night with Aria. Her nervousness when she saw the violence. Was it all an act? Was she playing me from the beginning?

“Is there any indication they know who they are? Who I am?” I ask.

Nicolo shakes his head. “Nothing concrete.”

“And then there’s the debt,” Nicolo continues. “Chiara has significant debt, while her sister has none. One has to wonder where all this money goes. So far, we’ve assessed that she owes different sharks over a hundred thousand dollars.”

The paranoia in my mind grows louder. Chiara Rossi—or rather, DeLuca—let me believe she was the one I saved when she agreed to this marriage. But why? What does she really want? Is she trying to get close to me? And then what—kill me on our wedding night? Take revenge for their parents?

How much of this does Aria even know?

“You need to call off the wedding,” Nicolo says. “At least until we know more.”

I stare at the photograph of the twins. Young girls with haunted eyes. Daughters of a man my father murdered. I should be furious. I should be calling my security team and arranging for Chiara—or whoever she is—to disappear.

Instead, I find myself intrigued. Impressed, even. The audacity of their plan. The patience. Twenty-five years of waiting for revenge.

“No,” I say, closing the folder. “The wedding proceeds as planned.”

Nicolo’s face betrays his shock. “Marco, this is madness. They’re DeLucas. Do you understand what that means?”