The flash drive cracked open like a confession.

I sat at the long table in the strategy room, hands tight around a glass of water I hadn’t touched. On screen, the files began to load—folders upon folders, timestamped. Matteo stood behind me, arms folded tight across his chest, jaw locked.

The first video flickered to life.

Grainy footage. My bedroom. Still and dim. Just me, reading by the window. Another clip: the training hall. My form moving through sparring drills. Another—this one made my stomach turn—my private strategy sessions. Me and Matteo discussing trade corridors. Me and Luca debating alliances over maps littered with pawn pieces and red string.

I had been watched.

Watched while I learned to lead. Watched while I slept. Watched in silence and safety, not realizing I was never safe at all.

Luca stood near the monitor, his fists clenched. “This wasn’t a guess,” he muttered. “This wasn’t someone poking around. They had access. Full intel. Movements, meetings, conversations.”

“They were feeding her,” Matteo said, voice like iron. “Every move we made.”

Her.

Valentina.

I didn’t have to ask. The pieces clicked together too easily now—how the press got their timing so precise, how rumors spread before I opened my mouth, how someone always seemed to know what was happening in our walls before we did.

Matteo’s hand slammed down on the table. “I want a full security sweep. Every guard, every maid, every—”

“No.” My voice came out steady, but too cold. It scraped my throat on the way out. “I’ll handle it.”

He turned sharply. “You’re not interrogating staff. You’re not a soldier.”

I stood slowly, my reflection catching in the glass cabinet beside me—sharp lines, tired eyes, a spine I had bent until it calcified into steel.

“No,” I agreed. “I’m not a soldier.”

I looked myself in the eyes.

“I’m worse. I’m a woman with motive.”

Matteo didn’t argue after that.

I spent the next three hours locked in an underground conference room, pulling in names one by one.

A server who stammered too much. A guard who didn’t remember his own shift schedule. A maid who claimed she never stepped foot near the tech wing—except she had, four times in the last week. Every alibi they gave, I tore through it. No yelling. Just silence. Just watching.

One by one, they left, pale and shaken, but none of them cracked.

By the fourth, my voice had gone hoarse. My hands trembled each time I set down a file.

And still—no real answers.

Just lies.

By the fifth, I dismissed them mid-sentence. I couldn’t listen anymore. I couldn’t breathe in that room.

I stormed out and found myself in the main hall, backlit by marble and shadows. My chest ached. My vision swam. And for a terrifying moment, I didn’t feel powerful—I felt alone.

I pressed a hand to my temple. My knees buckled.

I didn’t fall. Well, almost didn’t.

“Aria.” Luca’s voice: low, firm, immediate. His hands firm on my waist. I hadn’t even heard him approach.

“I’m fine,” I snapped. Too sharp. Too obvious.

His eyes softened. “No, you’re not.”

I tried to walk past him. “Don’t pity me, Luca. Not now.”

But he reached out—not to block me. Just… to anchor me.

I stopped.

The silence stretched.

“I let them in,” I whispered. “I let them breathe my air. Sleep under our roof. And they betrayed me.”

“You didn’t let them in,” he said gently. “They wormed their way in. Because that’s what cowards do when they can’t face power head-on.”

I met his eyes then—and something broke. Not a sob. Not a scream.

Just breath.

A long, painful exhale. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes.

“Do you know what it’s like?” I said softly. “To try this hard. To fight for every inch. And still feel like someone’s clawing it away from underneath you?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I do.”

I turned my head to him, and for once, I didn’t mask the exhaustion.

“I’m so tired, Luca.”

He stepped closer. Not to touch. Just close enough that his presence wrapped around me.

“You’re allowed to be tired,” he said. “You’re not allowed to stop.”

I let the silence hold between us.

Then he added, “You know she’s getting reckless, right?”

I nodded slowly. “Reckless means close.”

“It means desperate,” he corrected. “And desperation is when people start slipping.”

I pushed off the wall and stood tall again. “Good. Let her slip. I’m done playing chess. I’m going for the throat.”

Luca’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “Now that’s the Aria I believe in.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You believed in me?”

“From the first time you pretended a kitchen wound didn’t hurt.” His voice was soft. “I saw the queen even when you didn’t.”

A pause.

Then I whispered, “Thank you.”