AT THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, MY HUSBAND HUNG ME FROM THE CEILING BEAM AND WHPPED ME 30 TIMES, JUST BECAUSE I HAD STAINED HIS MISTRESS'S CLOTHES. I CALLED MY FIVE GANGSTER BROTHERS: "MAKE HIS ENTIRE FAMILY LIVE A FATE WORSE THAN DETH."

Instead, his morning started with a call from his chief financial officer.

I sat in the library of the Moretti family estate in Long Island, sipping black coffee. The room was lined with dark mahogany shelves, leather chairs, and four giant monitors set up on the central conference table. Dominic sat behind two laptops, his fingers flying across the keyboards like a concert pianist.

"It's starting," Dominic said, turning his screen toward me. "Adrian's company, Vale Logistics, just received an emergency notice from the Department of Transportation. Their maritime shipping license in New Jersey has been suspended pending an immediate federal audit."

"How?" I asked, looking at the legal notices flashing across the screen.

"Because three years ago, when you paid off Adrian's company debts using your private trust, you signed a joint-venture rider," Dominic explained with a cold grin. "You owned thirty-four percent of the voting shares in Vale Logistics under a shell company registered in Delaware. Luca transferred those shares to our holding firm at 4:00 AM. We just filed an emergency injunction claiming corporate fraud against Adrian and his father."

My phone rang. The screen displayed: ADRIAN.

I tapped the speaker button and set the phone on the table.

"Where the hell are you?!" Adrian screamed into the receiver, his voice tight with rage. "The front gate security says you walked out in the middle of the night! Get your pathetic ass back home right now! My mother is having a nervous breakdown, and the bank just froze our primary payroll account!"

I took a slow sip of my coffee. "Good morning, Adrian."

"Don't 'good morning' me, you crazy bitch!" he yelled. "What did you do to the company account? Did you steal my credentials?!"

"I didn't steal anything, Adrian," I replied, my voice completely relaxed. "I simply reclaimed what was mine. Remember when you told your guests last night that I was just a penniless charity case you saved from the streets?"

"You are a charity case!" Adrian barked. "You have nothing! Your family is dead!"

Luca, who was sitting across the table reading a legal brief, slowly stood up and walked over to the phone.

"Adrian Vale," Luca said into the microphone. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an authority that cut through Adrian's screaming like a razor through paper.

The line went dead quiet for three seconds.

"Who the hell is this?" Adrian demanded, though a faint note of hesitation entered his voice. "Is this one of your low-life friends, Anna?"

"My name is Luca Moretti," my brother said smoothly. "And you have twenty-four hours to gather your father, your mother, and your little brother, and get on your knees in front of my sister."

Adrian let out a forced, arrogant laugh, though it sounded thin. "Moretti? What kind of ridiculous joke is this? Anna doesn't have a family!"

"Check your email, Adrian," Luca replied calmly. "And tell your mistress, Vanessa Crowe, that her father's architectural firm just lost its municipal contract with the City of New York. Have a wonderful day."

Luca tapped the red button, terminating the call.

Within ten minutes, Leo had tapped into the internal security cameras of the Vale estate. On the main monitor in our library, we watched the living room of Adrian's house.

Adrian was standing in his robe, pacing frantically while his mistress, Vanessa, sat on the sofa in tears, holding her cell phone to her ear.

His mother, Eleanor, was screaming at a maid, while his brother, Marcus—the one who had recorded my beating on his phone—was staring at his laptop screen with a pale, horrified face.

"Adrian!" Marcus yelled, his voice cracking. "Look at the news! Look at Wall Street Wire!"

On the TV screen inside the Vale living room, a news ticker began running across the bottom of the screen: VALE LOGISTICS UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION FOR CONTRACT FRAUD; STOCK DROPS 42% IN PRE-MARKET TRADING.

Adrian dropped his coffee cup onto the Persian rug, watching it shatter into a hundred pieces.