Chapter 3 The Proposal

The silence was broken only by the ticking of a clock that seemed to count down the minutes to my doom.

I stood in the middle of my father's office, the De Luca file opened on top of his mahogany desk. The rage was now solidified. It wasn't a raging inferno; it was a precious stone, hard and translucent enough to cut right through whatever lay ahead.

Aconitine. Not a heart attack but murder. My father wasn't killed by an errant coronary artery; he was poisoned by the man who wanted the power he held.

I studied the photograph of Luca De Luca that was attached to the last page of the file. The picture depicted a man of exquisite beauty in a way that felt menacing. Perfect jawline, piercing eyes, and the title of being the most ruthless individual in the tri-state area.

I couldn't stand against him in court. It would be an utter loss. I wouldn't prevail against him in corporate strategy either; he'd eat me alive. He expected me to run away. He expected me to give up.

"You're overthinking things, Arya."

I didn't look up. The image in the window was not my own. I was too old and cold for myself. "I'm not overthinking, Elias. I'm figuring out the price of admission."

Elias was leaning against the door, shadowed in the corner of the room. "Admission to what? His kingdom? That's just a meat grinder."

"Then I have to be the butcher," I replied softly.

I thought about all the variables involved. Luca wanted the Veritas assets. He wanted the shipping ports. More than that, he wanted absolute power. He was a man who planned long-term, and in the world we lived in, there was only one legal avenue to merge two empires without firing a single bullet.

I grabbed a pen. No letter was written; a term sheet was drafted.

Duration: Two years.

Assets: Transfer of all Sterling shipping routes upon completion.

Clause: Access to all De Luca company servers.

It was a suicide mission, packaged in an investment strategy. I would allow him to have me every night and every day until I found the proof to bring him down from the inside out. I would be his trophy catch, and his last mistake.

"Are you serious?" Elias demanded, stepping forward when he read the title on the page. "He will know what you're doing."

"I don't care," I answered, calm but my heart cold as stone. "He sees me as a prize. He doesn't know that I am a Trojan horse."

I glanced at the clock. Midnight. Below me, in the darkness, Luca De Luca was rejoicing in his defeat of my father, thinking that he had ended the lineage of the Veritas family.

But he did not know what I was planning.

"What are you going to do?" Elias asked, horror coloring his voice.

I grabbed the folder and tucked it under my arm. I could feel the bizarre sense of peace settling over me. No grief here anymore; only the plan. I would infiltrate the enemy's camp, and fool him into believing he had already won.

Until it was too late.

"I'm marrying Luca De Luca."