Page 23

That was when I understood the truth.

Ciro Delgado wasn’t brilliant. He was violent and absolutely ruthless.

I studied him for weeks. Learned all I could about his businesses, habits, temper, his strict Catholic mother, the long-dead father, and his women. The boy who had turned to gang life and grown into a man who still wanted innocence kneeling at his feet.

He had a weakness for purity that he could enjoy corrupting.

So I gave him exactly that on the day of his meeting with the partners.

Short plaid skirt. White button-down, opened one button too low. Gold cross resting between the curves of my full breasts. White knee socks with little bows on the outside. Hair tied up in a ponytail. Eyes lowered at the right moments. My real first name had already done half the work. Isabella. A name that hooked into something buried deep enough in him to matter and easy for me to use.

I didn’t stumble into his attention.

I had aimed myself at it.

The partners thought they had fed me to him.

They never understood I’d walked into that conference room with the intention of being taken.

After that, becoming Isabella Delgado on paper was easy. Money opened court records. Fear hurried clerks. Men with badges forgot to ask questions when other men with more money told them not to.

Then Ciro put me to work.

I learned how to make a blade out of paperwork and smile while someone else was crushed.

But paperwork was only the respectable side.

The uglier work paid better.

College women were easy if you knew what they were desperate for. Debt that was too big to ever pay off. Bad fathers. Pretty faces. Big dreams. Girls who wanted modeling contracts, mentorships, travel, scholarships, access to wealth and power. I didn’t drag them anywhere. I opened doors and let hunger guide them through.

Some came back changed.

Some didn’t come back at all.

I slept fine.

Ciro rewarded results with cash, jewelry, trips, and the kind of access men guarded from wives and handed to mistresses when they wanted to hear how impressive they were.

I’d been banking as much as I could.

A Swiss account under one name. Crypto wallets under others. Enough dark-web earnings to make even Ciro’s tech men look basic. They thought I was spending so much time with them because I was fascinated by them. They thought a woman who let them put their hands on her couldn’t possibly be stealing from them at the same time.

Men shared more when their pants were down, and I took notes.

Ciro knew about some of the money. But not all of it.

No man ever got all of me.

I looked at the folder Mr. Byrnes had left on my desk. Thick. Organized. Damning. In nine hours, he’d figured out more about my life and our plans for Club Xyst than most people ever could.

That should have scared me.

And it did.

A little.

But fear was useful when it sharpened the mind.