Chapter 4

A training day for the Vittori family was never just about training. A negotiation table stood beside the shooting range, surrounded by Marco, the lawyers, and several young men preparing to enter the Council. Who stood on which side, and who received which shipping route, usually mattered more than the bullseye.

Elena arrived early. She only wanted to finish the last etiquette assessment and then cross this place off her calendar for good.

Nico arrived late. Bianca walked beside him with a black-and-silver pass hanging at her throat. It was Elena's personal secondary access pass, which had disappeared the year before. It opened several Moretti safe houses and could summon the emergency convoy.

"Someone followed her last night," Nico said before anyone could ask. "I told her to hold on to it for now."

Elena looked at the card and did not ask why he had not told her first. She already knew the answer. In Nico's mind, her resources, like her, were his to assign by default.

"Good timing," she said.

Nico seemed to relax. He took a compiled casino ledger from his assistant and handed her a temporary access card for the Vittori vault. "You've been buried in that dull port material lately. Take this. Once the revocation is behind us, you can still take part in the family finances."

Bianca's eyes settled on the access card, then dropped again.

Elena took the card and held it out to Bianca.

"Since you're the one most in need of protection, you're also the one who most needs to learn the books. Take it."

Bianca did not take it, but the tears came first. "You think I'm not good enough for it, don't you?"

Nico's face went cold at once. "Elena, don't take it out on her."

"I'm not taking anything out on anyone." Elena turned to Marco. "Deactivate every secondary access pass issued in my name. Effective immediately. No one from the Vittori family may call the Moretti convoy or use its emergency channel until the revocation is complete."

The shooting range went quiet. Marco glanced at Nico, then took out his terminal anyway.

"Do you have to go this far?" Nico asked, keeping his voice low.

"You're the one who said we're only family." Elena looked at him. "Even family asks before borrowing something."

The terminal gave a soft chime and the card status went from green to gray. Bianca's fingers twitched, and she hid her hand in her sleeve.

Elena noticed the movement. The container-seal imprint on Bianca's wrist had faded a little, but an ordinary scar would not have left that shape.

Nico took the vault card back, as if he finally understood that she would not accept anything he arranged for her.

But he was only puzzled. He was not afraid.

He did not understand that the card was not the only thing Elena had revoked.

A score was called at the far end of the range, and Nico turned without thinking. Elena had already walked away without waiting for him to catch up as she once had. Those few steps felt strange to him for the first time, and they made Bianca close her fist around the now-useless pass.

She was locking, one by one, every door that could have dragged her back into her last life.