Chapter 10 - The Queen of ManhattanSix months later, the front page of the New York Times financial section featured a profile that sent shockwaves through the global corporate elite.
It wasn't about a merger, a bankruptcy, or a scandal.
It was a full-page feature detailing the ascension of Isabella Duca—now recognized as the sole owner and chief executive of Duca Global Holdings, the most powerful maritime intelligence and logistics conglomerate in the western hemisphere.
In the center of the page was a photograph of me standing on the balcony of our new headquarters overlooking the harbor. I wore a sharp, custom-tailored charcoal suit, my hair pulled back, my expression calm, unyielding, and utterly sovereign.
Down in Queens, my mother had finally retired from the day-to-day operations, though she still kept an office down the hall to review high-level security portfolios and drink espresso while watching the markets move at our command.
As for Matteo Romano?
He was currently serving a federal prison sentence in upstate New York, sharing a cell block with the very corporate executives he had once blamed for his downfall.
Word had filtered through the legal grapevine that he had tried to reach out once, sending a desperate, handwritten letter to our corporate headquarters begging for legal representation, pleading for a second chance, reminding me of the seven years we had spent together.
My assistant Chloe had brought the letter into my office, holding it between two fingers as if it were a biohazard.
“Should I shred it?” she asked.
I didn't even look up from the multi-billion-dollar acquisition contract I was reviewing.
“File it under historical fiction, Chloe,” I said, signing my name across the bottom of the document with a heavy, steady hand.
Then I closed the folder, stood up, and looked out across the city that had once thought it could dictate my worth.
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They had given me a wedding ring and expected me to fall in line.
Instead, I took the empire.
