“Over my dead body.”

I wanted the words to sound fearless.

They didn’t.

My voice trembled.

Alessandro Moretti noticed.

Of course he did.

He noticed everything.

His gaze remained fixed on mine.

“That can be arranged.”

I stared at him.

He didn’t smile.

He wasn’t joking.

“Or,” he continued quietly, “you marry me, and your mother receives the treatment she needs.”

I hated him in that moment.

I hated my father.

I hated my sister for dying.

I hated myself most of all because the moment he mentioned my mother’s name, my resistance weakened.

“What happens if I run?”

“I find you.”

“How?”

“You won’t like the answer.”

I stepped closer.

“I am not property.”

Something changed in his expression.

Barely.

“You’re right.”

I wasn’t expecting that.

He continued:

“But everyone in this house is trapped by someone else’s decisions.”

He glanced toward the closed doors behind me.

“Your father is trapped by the alliance.”

“The Bellandi family is trapped by the agreement.”

“My family is trapped by the blood that has already been spilled.”

“And you?”

I asked.

His eyes returned to mine.

“I am trapped by a dead woman.”

Silence.

For the first time, I saw something human beneath the coldness.

Pain.

It disappeared almost immediately.

“The wedding was supposed to happen in three days,” he said. “Your sister’s death changed nothing for the families involved. The agreement remains.”

“And replacing her with me fixes it?”

“It gives everyone the appearance that nothing has changed.”

I stared at him.

“So I’m a disguise.”

His jaw tightened.

“Yes.”

At least he didn’t lie.

That almost made it worse.

The others eventually left.

The enormous bedroom they gave me was larger than the entire apartment where my mother had spent the last three years fighting to stay alive.

I stood beside the window.

I should have been terrified.

Instead, I was furious.

My sister was dead.

My mother was sick.

My father had sold me.

And the man I was supposed to marry looked at me as though I were a problem he intended to solve.

I couldn’t sleep.

Around midnight, I heard voices below.

I moved toward the window.

The terrace was beneath me.

Four men stood outside.

My father was among them.

I recognized Adrian Vale.

Another man stood beside him, speaking in a low voice.

I opened the window a fraction.

The words carried upward.

“…the Marchetti family will know.”

My father answered.

“They don’t need to know everything.”

“They will know soon enough.”

Then Adrian spoke.

“What happens when they discover the bride isn’t Valentina?”

My father’s voice hardened.

“They won’t.”

A pause.

Then:

“Her death was an accident.”

I froze.

Something inside me went cold.

Accident.

The word echoed through my head.

My sister had died in a car crash.

That was what they had told me.

That was what the newspapers had reported.

That was why no one had questioned anything.

Then Adrian spoke again.

“She wasn’t killed by accident, Gabriel.”

My fingers tightened around the windowsill.

My father said nothing.

Adrian continued.

“Someone wanted Valentina dead before she married Moretti.”

The world tilted.

I pressed one hand over my mouth.

“No,” my father whispered.

“Yes.”

Adrian’s voice became lower.

“And if they were willing to kill Valentina to stop the alliance, why would they hesitate to kill Isabella?”

My blood turned to ice.

I couldn’t breathe.

They weren’t discussing whether I would survive the wedding.

They were discussing whether I would survive long enough to reach it.

Adrian said one final thing.

“She’s not the bride replacing Valentina.”

A pause.

“She is the second target.”

I stumbled backward from the window.

My knees struck the bed.

For several seconds, I could only stare into darkness.

My sister had not died because she was unlucky.

Someone had wanted her dead.

And now I understood why everyone had been so eager to bring me here.

The wedding was not simply about saving an alliance.

It was about convincing the world that the alliance had survived.

Which meant someone had to stand where Valentina had stood.

Wear her ring.

Wear her dress.

Walk down the same aisle.

Smile for the same photographs.

And if the person who killed Valentina came looking for the bride again—

they would find me.

I barely slept.

At dawn, someone knocked on my door.

I didn’t answer.

The door opened anyway.

Alessandro stood there.

He looked at me for a long moment.

“You heard them.”

It wasn’t a question.

I stood.

“You knew.”

His face hardened.

“I suspected.”

“You knew my sister was murdered.”

“I knew there were inconsistencies.”

“And you still expected me to marry you?”

“No.”

That answer stopped me.

“No?”

“I expected you to survive long enough for us to find who killed her.”

I stared at him.

“Us?”

He stepped inside and closed the door.

“I don’t trust your father.”

Neither did I.

“I don’t trust the men downstairs.”

“Neither do I.”

“And I don’t trust you.”

Something almost resembling approval touched his eyes.

“Good.”

He placed a thin black folder on the table.

“This is everything we know about Valentina’s death.”

My hands hovered over it.

“Why give this to me?”

“Because if someone killed your sister to stop this marriage, then they will assume you know nothing.”

“And that’s useful?”

“It makes you invisible.”

I laughed bitterly.

“I’m standing in a mansion full of armed men, wearing someone else’s life. Nothing about this feels invisible.”

“No.”

His gaze sharpened.

“It feels like a target.”

I opened the folder.

Photographs.

Police reports.

A damaged car.

A medical report.

And one photograph that made my stomach twist.

Valentina was smiling.

Alive.

Three days before her death.

But on the back of the photograph, someone had written a sentence.

I recognized the handwriting.

My father’s.

DO NOT LET HER MARRY HIM.

I looked up.

“Why did my father write this?”

Alessandro said nothing.

“Why did he want my sister to stay away from you?”

Still nothing.

Then I saw the final document.

A bank transfer.

One hundred thousand dollars.

Sent forty-eight hours before Valentina’s death.

The recipient’s name had been blacked out.

But the account number was visible.

I knew it.

Because my father had once used the same account to pay for my mother’s hospital bills.

My hands began to shake.

“My father…”

Alessandro took the paper from me.

His expression changed.

For the first time since I had met him, the cold mask cracked.

“This isn’t possible.”

“What?”

He looked toward the door.

Then back at me.

“The money came from your father’s account.”

My heart hammered.

“To whom?”

He turned the page.

There was a second name beneath the black ink.

A name I had never heard before.

But Alessandro knew it.

His face went completely still.

“Who is that?”

He didn’t answer.

“Alessandro.”

His eyes lifted to mine.

“That,” he said quietly, “is the man who was supposed to be dead.”

A chill ran through me.

“Whose man?”

He stepped closer.

“Your sister’s.”

I couldn’t speak.

Outside the bedroom, footsteps passed.

Then stopped.

Someone was standing on the other side of the door.

Alessandro noticed it too.

His hand moved slowly toward the weapon beneath his jacket.

The footsteps disappeared.

But the silence that followed was worse.

I looked down at the photograph of my dead sister.

For the first time, I noticed something I had missed before.

Around Valentina’s wrist was a thin silver bracelet.

I had seen it once.

Years ago.

In a photograph my mother kept hidden inside an old suitcase.

My mother had owned the same bracelet.

The same engraving.

Three words.

NEVER TRUST HIM.

I looked at Alessandro.

He was watching me.

“What?” he asked.

I swallowed.

“My mother knew your family.”

His expression changed.

“What did you say?”

Before I could answer, a scream came from downstairs.

Then a gunshot.

Alessandro pulled me behind him.

Another shot shattered the silence.

Men began shouting through the hallway.

He looked at me.

And for the first time, the ruthless man everyone feared looked genuinely afraid.

Not for himself.

For me.

“Stay here.”

“No.”

“Isabella—”

“If someone killed my sister because of this wedding, I’m not hiding while they decide whether I die next.”

He stared at me.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

“All right.”

He opened the door.

The mansion had erupted into chaos.

And somewhere downstairs, someone had just killed one of the men guarding the family.

The wedding was less than seventy-two hours away.

My sister was dead.

My father was lying.

My mother knew more than she had ever told me.

And the man I had been forced to marry might be the only person standing between me and the same fate that had taken Valentina.

But as I stepped into the corridor beside Alessandro, one terrible thought settled into my mind.

Perhaps the most dangerous secret wasn’t who killed my sister.

Perhaps it was why they had needed her dead—

and why they had chosen me to replace her.