"My three-year-old maid’s daughter secretly led me upstairs and showed me the woman I planned to marry threatening her mother and implying she could make the little girl disappear. Vivien thought no one important was listening, but she had made one mistake: the child knew exactly which man in that house everyone feared.

Vivien collapsed to her knees, the heavy white silk of her wedding dress pooling around her on the floor like a surrendered flag. The elegant, confident socialite was completely destroyed, replaced by a sobbing, terrified woman realizing she was trapped in a cage with a monster.

"I'm sorry!" Vivien shrieked, burying her face in her hands, weeping hysterically. "Carlo forced me! He threatened to kill my family if I didn't help him infiltrate your estate! I had no choice, Lorenzo! I love you! I swear I love you!"

I looked down at her with pure, unadulterated disgust.

"You love power," I corrected coldly. "And you thought I was foolish enough to hand it to you."

"What are you going to do to me?" she sobbed, looking up at me with ruined, mascara-stained eyes. "Are you going to kill me?"

"Killing you would be too easy," I said, crouching down so I was eye level with her panic. "I want you to live a very long, very miserable life."

I pulled a second document from my pocket and tossed it onto the floor in front of her.

"That is a full confession," I explained. "It details your involvement in corporate espionage, embezzlement, and attempted murder. You are going to sign it right now."

Vivien stared at the paper in sheer horror. "If I sign that, I'll go to federal prison for the rest of my life!"

"If you don't sign it," I whispered, leaning in close enough that she could feel the coldness of my breath, "I will hand you over to Rocco. And I promise you, federal prison will seem like a luxury resort compared to what he will do to you."

She didn't hesitate. With violently shaking hands, she took the pen I offered and scrawled her signature across the bottom of the page, sealing her own fate.

"Get up," I ordered, standing back up.

Vivien scrambled to her feet, clutching the heavy skirts of her ruined wedding dress.

"Now," I commanded smoothly, "we are going to walk out to the ballroom. You are going to take a microphone, and you are going to announce to all three hundred guests that the wedding is canceled because you are a fraud, a thief, and a traitor."