Chapter 5 - Poison In Silk
Three days after I vanished, Sofia Vale visited the penthouse.
She expected to find Dante in a state of calculating triumph, ready to discuss the Vale family merger. She expected a man liberated from an inconvenient, low-profile wife who didn't fit into the upper echelons of political dominance.
Instead, she found a demon.
Dante hadn't slept in seventy-two hours. The penthouse was pitch-black except for the flickering screens of four laptops. Empty bottles of Macallan sat on the kitchen counter next to the spot where my wedding ring had lain.
"Dante?" Sofia’s voice was velvet as she walked into the living room, dressed in an ivory cashmere coat. "You aren't answering the board's calls. My father is waiting at the Chicago Club. The paperwork is ready."
Dante was sitting on the floor by the floor-to-ceiling glass, holding my old blue ceramic mug—the one my mother gave me that had a tiny chip on the rim.
He didn't look up. "Did you tip off the federal inspectors, Sofia?"
Her footsteps halted. "What are you talking about?"
Dante slowly rose to his feet. Standing at six-foot-three, his eyes sunken and bloodshot, he looked less like an executive and more like a butcher who had run out of patience.
"My forensic IT team spent the last forty-eight hours peeling back your encrypted servers," Dante said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. "The regulatory block. The antitrust leak. The anonymous whistleblower from the logistics hub. It wasn't your father. It was you."
Sofia’s composure flickered, but only for an instant. "Dante, be practical. I created leverage. I forced you into a corner so you would see what we could be together. Lena is a relic from your past! She’s a schoolteacher from a broken neighborhood. She doesn't belong here. She holds you back!"
Dante moved with terrifying speed. In a flash, he closed the distance, his hand slamming into the drywall an inch from her temple, trapping her against the concrete pillar.
"Lena is the only clean thing in my miserable life," Dante snarled, his breath hot and ragged against her face. "She is the only person on this earth who loved me when I had grease under my fingernails and ten dollars in my bank account. You? You are a parasite."
"I can ruin your company tomorrow!" Sofia hissed, the mask finally slipping, her face contorting into venomous hatred.
"Ruin it," Dante whispered, his lips parting in a cold, psychotic smile. "Burn every single ship to the bottom of Lake Michigan. File the warrants. Bankrupt me. Because I don't give a damn about Moretti Global anymore. Get out of my home before I make sure you spend the rest of your life in a federal penitentiary."
When Sofia fled, slamming the heavy door behind her, Dante collapsed against the wall, sliding to the floor, burying his face in his hands.
He had won the war against Sofia Vale.
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And in doing so, he had lost the only person whose opinion of him had ever mattered.
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