Claimed by the Consigliere

Beatrice Rinaldi has spent her life being the useful daughter of a powerful house. She was always going to be an asset, in a marriage, to somebody.\n\nShe did not expect the somebody to be Matteo Corsi.\n\nThe consigliere chose her for equilibrium — a wife every faction would accept. He shook her hand at the altar and went back to a meeting. Beatrice learned the house from the inside: the ledgers, the men, the doors that lock from the corridor. She also learned why he married her, and it wasn't for her.\n\nThen someone shoots Matteo in the family chapel, and Beatrice has one hour to decide whether the house survives him.\n\nShe has every debt the family owes her, one phone call, and no intention of asking permission. When Matteo wakes, the vote is already done.\n\nHis wife ran it.