Chapter 7 - The Weight of an Unborn Future
Marcus left that afternoon, leaving the three folders on my wooden table.
I didn't touch them for two days. They sat there like radioactive material, threatening to destabilize the fragile peace I had built around my heart.
Dante stepping down from Moretti Global was like the sun deciding to stop shining. That company was his blood, his bone, his identity. It was the armor he had forged so nobody would ever look down on the grease-stained kid from Pilsen. To walk away from it was not a strategy; it was corporate suicide.
On Saturday evening, the first snow of the season began to fall, drifting lazily onto the dark waters of Lake Michigan.
I was chopping carrots by the stove when a shadow fell across the frosted window pane.
My heart vaulted into my throat.
The front porch boards groaned under heavy footsteps. Then came three knocks—slow, hesitant, almost humble.
I didn't run to the door. I walked with deliberate, trembling slowness. I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the wooden door open.
Dante was standing on the porch, dusted in fresh snow.
He looked ruined. The immaculate, razor-sharp CEO was gone. He was wearing an old canvas coat I hadn't seen in four years, dark jeans, and boots soaked from the slush. His face was gaunt, his dark stubble unruly, his eyes hollowed out by grief and exhaustion. He was shaking, though I didn't know if it was from the freezing Wisconsin wind or something far deeper.
He didn't try to step inside. He didn't reach for me.
"Marcus told me," Dante rasped. His voice sounded like dry gravel grinding together.
My breath hitched. "Marcus told you what?"
"He told me where you were," Dante whispered. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "And he told me he broke my orders because he thought I was going to kill myself in that penthouse."
"Dante—"
"I don't want you to take me back," he interrupted, his voice cracking violently. "I didn't drive six hours through a blizzard to beg you to return to Chicago. I came because I couldn't live another hour without looking into your eyes and telling you that you were right."
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, burning hot against the freezing draft.
"You were right about Sofia," he said, tears finally spilling over his lashes, tracking through the dirt and stubble on his cheeks. "Not that I slept with her. God, Lena, I never touched her. But you were right that I let her in. I let her into our space because she fed my ego. Because she spoke the language of war that had poisoned my brain. I traded the only pure, beautiful thing in my life for the applause of people who wouldn't care if I died tomorrow."
"You forgot our anniversary, Dante," I said, a tear slipping down my cheek. "You didn't just forget a date. You forgot *us*."
"I know," he sobbed. A grown man, a man who commanded thousands, breaking into pieces on a rickety wooden porch. "I know. And I will spend every second of the rest of my life hating myself for it."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. He knelt in the snow, placing it gently on the wooden doormat before stepping back three paces into the storm.
"Everything I have left is in that trust," he said, his chin trembling. "You don't ever have to see my face again. But you will never want for anything. You are safe, Lena. I finally kept that promise. Even if you hate me forever."
He turned to walk away into the darkness of the snowstorm.
"Dante," I called out.
He froze, his back rigid.
May you like
"Wait."
***
