Chapter 19 - The Master's Gambit
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Beatrice walked into Vincenzo’s office, holding the photograph in her hand.
Vincenzo looked up from his ledgers as she set the old picture down in front of him. He scanned the photograph, then read the inscription on the back.
For the first time since she had met him, Vincenzo looked genuinely surprised.
“She was Rossi’s blood,” Vincenzo murmured softly, his dark eyes tracing the ink on the back. “All those years... her family name, her father’s social standing... it was all constructed.”
“They wanted the entire Costa empire, Vincenzo,” Beatrice said, leaning over his desk. “Not just the docks. Not just the accounts. They wanted to erase your bloodline completely.”
Vincenzo slowly stood up, looking at her with a mixture of awe and fierce pride.
“And a maid in a gray uniform stopped a twenty-year war with a single glass vial,” Vincenzo said softly.
He walked around his desk, stopping right in front of her. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small black velvet box.
May you like
He opened it.
Inside sat a flawless, cushion-cut black diamond ring surrounded by platinum leaves—the ancestral ring of the Costa family matriarch.
