I held my breath, my gaze locked on the name Carina.
When we'd chosen her name, Dante had insisted on weaving in a piece of my mother's name to prove his devotion to the Montecarlo line. But when the birth record was filed, the name had been altered. A different spelling. A different root.
He'd laughed it off. "Sounds the same. Doesn't change what it means."
Carina. Serafina.
I laughed.
He was right. It didn't change what it meant.
Because his devotion had always been to another woman.
I closed the screen and, through a contact outside the Family's usual network, hired an elite private investigator at top dollar. Someone with no ties to any of the allied families. Someone who owed me nothing and therefore couldn't be bought off by anyone who owed me everything.
By that evening, Serafina Conti's entire history, from childhood to the present, was on my phone. Minor connections to the Conti clan. No real power. No real name. Just enough proximity to this world to know how to move through it without being noticed.
I was reading the last page when I heard voices at the front door. Dante's low murmur. Carina's high, bright laugh cutting through the marble foyer.