Chapter 6 Bloodlines and Blueprints

(Valentina)

The storm rolled in around midnight, as if the universe had decided to soundtrack my descent into madness.

Rain pelted the windows of my room, wind howling like a dying thing. I paced.

My skin crawled with everything I'd seen, everything Lorenzo hadn't said. He was hiding something. And I was done being kept in the dark.

I wasn't Serafina.

I wouldn't vanish without a trace.

I opened the drawer beside the bed and pulled out the silver pin I'd hidden in the lining of my dress from the wedding day sharp, narrow, and perfect for locks.

If Lorenzo had a key, maybe I didn't need one.

I slipped out of the room like a shadow.

Two guards stood at the hallway's end. I didn't need to see their faces I'd memorized their patterns, their rotations. I timed my steps to silence.

The steel door waited at the end of the south wing.

It looked ancient. Cold. Sentient.

My hands trembled as I knelt, pressing the pin into the lock. I'd done this before in another life, breaking into my father's study, trying to find out why he looked at Serafina like she was glass and at me like I was fire.

Click.

I froze.

The door creaked open a quarter inch.

The air beyond was different. Damp. Metallic.

I stepped in, closing the door behind me. There were no lights. Only the glow from a flickering emergency bulb at the far end.

The hallway descended into the earth.

Stone walls. Noises. Water dripping.

I walked, carefully, each step an echo in the dark.

The corridor opened into a room a vault? No, something worse.

There were weapons on the walls. Files. Cabinets. And on a central table... photos.

I picked one up.

My sister.

Serafina, standing beside Alessandro, not in a wedding gown, but in black. Holding a gun. Smiling.

My chest constricted.

There were more. Photos of her with Lorenzo. With men I didn't know. Some with bodies lying behind them.

My breath hitched.

Serafina was never innocent.

The girl I thought I knew was a mask. And whatever role she played in this house it wasn't bride.

She was born to this world.

And I was the idiot who didn't see it.

A creak behind me made me spin.

Alessandro.

He stood in the doorway, drenched from the storm, his shirt unbuttoned, chest rising with fury. His hair slicked back. Cold eyes burning.

"You shouldn't be here, Valentina."

I dropped the photo.

"You lied to me," I hissed.

"I didn't owe you the truth."

"She was one of you," I spat. "This was never about replacing a bride. It was about keeping a secret."

He stepped forward, slow and deliberate.

"You don't understand what you've stepped into."

"Then explain. Tell me why my sister was trained like a soldier. Tell me what this place is what you really are."

He stopped inches away from me.

"What I am," he said darkly, "is the reason you're still alive."

I laughed. Bitter. Broken.

"No. I'm alive because I'm leverage. Because your people needed a Russo body at the altar. A Russo face to calm the other families."

His jaw clenched.

"You think I wanted this? That I wanted you?"

I flinched.

Then met his gaze.

"No. But you have me now. So what will you do? Kill me?"

He grabbed my wrist, pulled me against him. Not gently.

"No. Killing you would be a mercy. You broke into a restricted vault. You disrespected me. You disobeyed my law."

I yanked my arm free.

"Your laws don't apply to me."

"You're my wife."

"By force. Not by choice."

He stared at me, and something in his expression cracked. Just a little.

"You want truth? Then come with me."

Before I could resist, he dragged me through a back corridor.

Down another flight of stairs. Through iron gates. Into a sub level that smelled like oil and ash.

He opened another door.

Inside was a table. A black book. And a single chair.

"Sit."

"No."

He shoved me into it.

"This is your legacy," he snarled. "This is what your family built. Your father, Valentina. Your real inheritance. Serafina was supposed to continue the bloodline. But she ran."

I froze.

"What?"

"She didn't vanish. She defected."

I blinked.

"She betrayed you?"

"She betrayed all of us."

I looked at the book.

Names. Families. Blood contracts.

And there it was my name. Beneath Serafina's. Written in ink. Dated the day after her disappearance.

I wasn't just a substitute.

I was plan B.

I felt the ground vanish beneath me.

Alessandro's voice was gravel and glass.

"Now you understand. This wasn't about love. Or marriage. This was about keeping the De Luca throne from collapsing."

I looked up at him, my voice barely a whisper.

"And now?"

"Now you get to choose," he said. "You become my queen... or my prisoner."

I stood.

"Or your enemy."

He didn't blink.

"That's a dangerous path."

"I was never meant to be safe."

The storm outside intensified. Thunder cracked the sky in half.

But inside the vault, a deadlier war had just begun.