“Congratulations to our Charity Excellence Winner, Adelaide Orazio!” Everything I had worked so hard on had culminated in this. My family’s darkened reputation made glossy and new. I had clawed my family’s future back from the brink. My legacy was safe. Could anyone in this room achieve what I had? I doubted it. My gaze cleared, pinned on the men I thought were my soul mates. And the woman who had exposed their duplicity. I knew my worth. Just as I knew what I had to do. Ensure these men knew they were dead to me. My heart shriveled in my chest, poisoned by deceit.
