The morning light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my high-rise apartment was cold, grey, and unforgiving. On my glass coffee table sat the leather-bound document Nikolai Moretti’s lawyer had delivered precisely at eight o'clock.

It was the annual Chicago Maritime Gala—the very event where my father usually showcased Hart Shipping’s dominance. Tonight, however, it was supposed to be Julian and Serena’s grand victory lap. They wanted the city to see them as Chicago’s new golden couple.

When Penny and I had arrived in Nikolai’s armored Maybach, the paparazzi flashes had been so blinding they looked like lightning strikes against the dark wet pavement.

I walked into the ballroom on Nikolai’s arm.

I didn't wear white. I wore a backless crimson silk gown that clung to every curve of my body like wet paint, trailing behind me on the polished marble floors. Around my neck hung a necklace of raw, uncut black diamonds—a gift from Nikolai’s personal vault.

The moment we crossed the threshold, the orchestra stopped playing. Conversations died mid-sentence. Six hundred pairs of eyes swung toward us.

Sitting at the head table near the stage were Julian, Serena, my parents, and Vittorio Moretti—the dying patriarch of the Moretti empire, sitting in a velvet wheelchair surrounded by heavy security.

Serena gasped, her champagne glass slipping from her fingers and shattering against the floor. She was wearing a soft pastel blue gown, looking frail and delicate, but the moment she saw me standing beside Nikolai—radiant, commanding, and wearing the Moretti signet ring—her face twisted with ugly jealousy.

Julian stood up so fast he knocked his chair backward. "What is she doing here?!" he demanded, his voice echoing across the silent room. "Nikolai! You brought this... this woman to a private family gala?!"

Nikolai didn't even accelerate his stride. He led me toward the head table with the calm, terrifying elegance of an apex predator inspecting his territory.

"Mind your tongue, Julian," Nikolai said, his voice carrying clearly to every corner of the room. "You are speaking to your future sister-in-law. And the new majority shareholder of the Lakeshore Logistics Authority."

A collective gasp swept through the crowd.

Julian’s face went pale. "What are you talking about?!"

I stepped forward, slipping my hand out of Nikolai’s arm and leaning slightly over the table toward Julian. "I signed the deal this afternoon, Julian. The city transferred the Lakeshore maritime permits to my personal holding company. The very permits you needed to secure your father's vote."

Julian looked frantically toward my father. "Arthur! Is this true?!"

Arthur couldn't even look him in the eye. He stared at his dinner plate, his shoulders slumped in total defeat. "She... she owned the intellectual property rights to the freight routing, Julian. Without her signature, the permits are worthless."

Serena jumped to her feet, her eyes red with sudden rage. "Evelyn! How could you do this to us?! You're doing this out of spite! Just because Julian loved me instead of you!"

I looked at my little sister—the girl who had spent her entire life taking my clothes, my toys, my friends, and finally my fiancé.

"I didn't do this out of spite, Serena," I said, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper that cut through her frantic screaming. "I did this because I am good at my job. You took a man who trades on image. I took the empire that pays for your dress."

Old Vittorio Moretti leaned forward in his wheelchair, his withered, scarred hands gripping the armrests. His dark, sunken eyes moved from Julian’s panicking face to my calm, unyielding posture, and finally to Nikolai, who stood behind me like a shadow of death.

A low, wheezing laugh bubbled up from the old man's chest.

"Well, well..." Vittorio croaked, his raspy voice commanding instant silence from everyone in the room. "It seems my youngest son traded a stallion for a lapdog."

Julian flushed with deep humiliation. "Father! You can't listen to them! Nikolai is manipulating her!"

"Nikolai didn't steal your freight permits, boy!" Vittorio spat, slamming his cane against the floor. "She did! She stripped you of your leverage before you even poured your champagne!"

Vittorio turned his dark gaze toward me. A strange, twisted look of respect flickered in his dying eyes. "You have teeth, girl. I like teeth in a Moretti woman."

"She isn't a Moretti yet!" Serena shrieked, totally losing her composure. "Julian and I are getting married next week! We are the future of this family!"

"You are nothing," Nikolai interrupted coldly, stepping beside me and placing his hand gently on the small of my back. "You are a girl who wears stole silk. Evelyn is the woman who will run Chicago."

Nikolai pulled a folded document from his coat pocket and tossed it onto Vittorio’s lap.

"What is this?" Vittorio asked.

"Julian’s offshore bank statements in the Cayman Islands," Nikolai answered smoothly. "It seems your honorable younger son has been embezzling from the family’s shipping accounts for eighteen months to pay off his gambling debts in Macau. He didn't want Evelyn because he loved her family. He wanted her to fix his books before your council audited his faction."

The entire ballroom went dead quiet.

Julian looked as if he had been shot through the heart. He stumbled back, his eyes wild with terror. "That's... that's a lie! He forged those!"

"I don't forge, brother," Nikolai replied softly. "I just collect facts."

Vittorio slowly picked up the document. As his eyes scanned the numbers, his face darkened into a terrifying mask of rage. He looked up at Julian, his voice trembling with lethal authority.

"Guard," Vittorio whispered.

Four massive men stepped forward from the shadows.

"Take my son to the basement at the docks," Vittorio ordered cold-bloodedly. "He stays there until the council convenes."

"Father! No! Please! Serena, help me!" Julian screamed as the bodyguards grabbed his arms, dragging him kicking and screaming across the marble floor of the Drake Hotel, right past the hundreds of Chicago’s elite who watched in stunned, horrified silence.

Serena collapsed into her chair, sobbing hysterically as her fairytale shattered into a million bloody pieces.

Nikolai didn't even watch his brother being dragged away. He casually picked up a glass of red wine from the head table, handed it to me, and raised his own.