Crimson Empire, Divided Hearts

Previously

…A soft, satisfied laugh echoed through the phone. “And you, Alessandro, are precisely what I’ve been waiting for.” Later that evening, as Val dressed for her dinner with Alessandro, her younger sister Sofia was nowhere to be found. Val assumed she was out with her friends, pursuing the frivolous social life of a young woman unburdened by empire-building. She rarely questioned Sofia’s comings and goings, trusting her implicitly. It was a trust that, like a fragile silken thread, was being deliberately, meticulously frayed, one clandestine meeting at a time. The serpent was truly in her garden, and Val, blinded by love and the dazzling light of her own ambition, remained entirely unaware.