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This leaves only one option: bring her into the fold, make her complicit, and ensure her loyalty not through fear but through understanding.

Through truth.

My phone vibrates with a text from Antonio De Angelis: Luca is taking meetings all day tomorrow. Security handoff to Rodriguez at 9 AM.

Perfect. An opening I hadn’t anticipated.

I type a quick response confirming the schedule change. By 4 AM, my plan is set.

The De Angelis estate is silent in these pre-dawn hours as I slip through shadows to Isadora’s wing. Security cameras rotate on predictable patterns I’ve memorized, guards drowsy in the lull before shift change.

I find her awake, as I suspected she would be. She sits in the window seat of her bedroom, moonlight silvering her profile as she stares out at the gardens. She’s wearing silk pajamas, hair loose around her shoulders—a private version of herself few ever see.

She tenses when she notices me at her door, but doesn’t startle. On some level, she’s been expecting me.

“Your security detail changes in a few hours,” I say, keeping my voice low as I scan for listening devices or watching eyes. “Rodriguez takes over at nine.”

“My father mentioned it,” she replies, equally measured. “Luca has meetings.”

“Yes.” I step closer, closing the door silently behind me. “Which gives us a window of opportunity.”

Her eyes narrow with suspicion. “Opportunity for what?”

“For truth.” I hold her gaze steadily. “You asked who I really am. Today, I’ll show you.”

Interest flashes across her features, though she tries to mask it with indifference. “And why would you do that?”

“Because you’re right.” The admission costs me, but I need her trust. “You’re walking into a family built on lies. You deserve to know what you’re marrying into.”

She shifts in the window seat, the moonlight casting shadows across her face as she studies me with those perceptive green eyes that seem to strip away layers of deception I’ve spent years perfecting.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you marry Luca in six days with only half the story.” I shrug, as if her decision means nothing to me, when in truth it means everything. “Your choice,principessa.”

Her lips press together at the endearment, but I catch the slight acceleration in her pulse at the base of her throat. She wants to know. Curiosity has always been her weakness—the same curiosity that led her to a club alone, that made her look through my jacket.

“Where would we be going?” she asks finally.

“To see Maria. Then to where it all began.”

She rises, bare feet silent on the plush carpet. “I’ll need to change.”

“Quickly,” I say, glancing at my watch. “Casual clothes. Nothing that marks you as wealthy. We need to be gone before the house wakes.”

She nods, moving to her closet. I turn to give her privacy, focusing on the garden below instead of the whisper of silk as she changes. When she clears her throat, I turn to find her in jeans and a simple sweater, hair pulled back in a loose ponytail—so different from the polished society princess, yet somehow more real. More herself.

“Meet me by the east gate in ten minutes,” I tell her. “Bring nothing that can be tracked.”

She nods, and for a moment, we stand there, tension crackling between us like a live wire—desire and danger so intertwined I can no longer separate them. Then she brushes past me, her scent leaving a trail that makes my body remember things my mind is trying to forget.

I watch her walk away, knowing I’m taking a risk that could sabotage everything I’ve worked for. Yet there’s no alternative. Not anymore.

The car moves silently through Queens, far from the manicured estates of Long Island, where both our families hold court. Dawn is just breaking over the city, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. Isadora sits beside me in the passenger seat, her profile outlined against the emerging light. She hasn’t spoken since we left the De Angelis property, respecting my need for concentration as I ensure we aren’t followed.

“No one knows about Maria,” I say finally, breaking the silence. “Not even the men I trust with my life.”

“Yet you’re bringing me to her.” She turns to face me, confusion evident in her expression. “Why?”