Chapter 29 Lines In The Sand

• Valentina had spent her entire life drawing lines, telling herself she would not cross them. Lines between loyalty and survival. Between silence and truth. Between herself and Rafael.
• But every warning he gave her only sharpened her resolve. If there was rot in the De la Cruz family, if blood had been traded for power, she needed to know. She would not be another woman who turned her head away because the truth was dangerous.
• That night, when Rafael left for a late meeting with his capos, Valentina slipped from his mansion with a coat thrown over her shoulders and a burner phone tucked into her bag. The city pulsed outside the compound walls neon, noise, danger disguised as life.