LOGINYears.She wrote years.Alessandro.Eighteen years.Luca.Twenty-one years.Matteo.Thirty years.She froze as she looked at the numbers.Thirty years.Thirty years.Thirty years.The realization sent chills down her spine.Matteo wasn't absent but was patient.Althea stared at the page."Oh my God." The words escaped again.Nobody noticed or heard because suddenly, everything looked different as she stared at the papers in front of her.Her brain moved rapidly."No." She said to herself as she placed down the papers on her desk. "He wasn't forgotten. He let himself be forgotten. But he stayed in the margins and stayed invisible."Then she stopped and her eyes widened."That's why."She looked toward the window and saw that the estate grounds below looked peaceful.Matteo never competed with Alessandro.He never competed with Luca.He never competed with Dominic.He waited and the realization terrified her because ambitious people made mistakes while patient people didn't.She grabbed
The Medical Wing never slept.While mostly the other parts of Blackstone had quiet moments, the medical wing never did.There will always be someone needing help.Someone always needed medication.Someone always needed reassurance.Someone always needed saving.It was one of the reasons Althea loved it and hated as well.Today was one of those days because for the first time in years, she just wanted her brain to stop.However, it refused.Seven-thirty in the morning, Althea, taking over the rounds since Helena told her that she needs to go back to her island to check on a patient that one of her doctors had operated on last night, stood beside the bed of the patient she had operated on the previous day.Mr. Carlos Lind.Forty-nine years old.Collapsed lung.Three fractured ribs.Internal bleeding.He should have died but instead, he’s awake and complaining to Althea, which is a very good sign.She checked his chart."Pain?" She questioned calmly."Five."She looked up and gave him a
The mattress shifted again, returning her to the present.Dominic still hadn't slept neither had she.Hours earlier, before they even came to bed, she had already told him.The moment she was finally done from her surgery, Helena informed her about the emergency board announcement.The moment everything changed.Althea still remembered entering their room and finding Dominic sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally.The interrogation.The Axis.The vault.Aurelio.Weeks of stress.Months of uncertainty.Years of responsibility.It all sat visibly on his shoulders."Dominic." She called gently as she closed the door.He looked up and immediately noticed her expression."What happened?" He asked slowly as he stood up.The words had come slowly because even then she sensed it wouldn't end well."There's news." She replied and watched Dominic trying to hide a sigh.That action alone made her chest ache. It was not because he was annoyed but
The room was dark though not completely.Moonlight slipped through the gaps in the curtains, casting pale silver across the bedroom, enough to illuminate outlines of the room.The bed.The dresser.The armchair near the window.The broad shape of Dominic beside her.Althea lay on her side facing away from him, her eyes closed but she wasn’t sleeping.Neither was Dominic.She knew because Dominic had shifted positions four times in the last twenty minutes. The movement is not enough to disturb most people but enough to disturb her because she knew him.Every version of him.The younger Dominic who used to sneak into her study room back at the apartment after an online meeting because he missed her.The determined Dominic who spent nights taking care of her when she’s sick while she fell asleep on his shoulder.The angry Dominic who carried the burden of Alessandro's expectations.The broken Dominic she thought she had lost forever.The man beside her now.She knew all of them and she k
The estate had become unusually active for the night as guards started to occupy positions that have previously been left unguarded.Certain archives had been sealed and several staff members had either been terminated or promoted.Everyone was adapting and adjusting, learning the new order from the new Valtieri patriarch.Matteo approved.Control wasn't seized but maintained.The distinction mattered.He entered the old council chamber, a room most family members avoided.Massive oak table at the center with twelve seats where history has been embedded into every surface.Power.The room smelled like old wood and older secrets.Matteo sat at the head, the seat that was previously occupied by Luca and their father, grandfather. It could have been Alessandro sitting before but Matteo had made sure that he wouldn’t get the chance.He had made sure of that.The symbolic weight alone felt intoxicating.For several moments he simply sat there, enjoying it, the silence as well as the victor
The old Valtieri Estate had always belonged to ghosts.Not the literal ones but to something much worse.Memories.Legacy.Power.The weight of the Valtieri generations lingered within every corridor, every staircase, every carved stone archway.Men had ruled empires from these halls and wars had been funded from these rooms.Governments influenced, dynasties being built and destroyed.For nearly three centuries, the ancestral seat of the Valtieri family had remained unchanged.It endured as it watched generations rise and fall, brothers becoming enemies, sons becoming fathers and watching ambition consume everything it touched.Tonight, the estate belonged to Matteo Valtieri.Finally. The thought brought a smile to his face.A small and dangerous smile.Satisfied.Long overdue.Matteo stood alone in the western gallery overlooking the main courtyard.Night had fallen hours ago and he looked at the ancient estate glowed beneath carefully positioned floodlights.Security personnel move
THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MATURE/SEXUAL CONTENT. PLEASE READ WITH DISCRETIONDominic moved with the kind of carefulness he feels she had only ever read about. The kind that came not from restraint, but from reverence.He kissed her slowly, deeply, learning the shape of her breath, the rhythm of her hea
THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MATURE/SEXUAL CONTENT. PLEASE READ WITH DISCRETIONDominic, with his one hand splayed on her back, gently guided Althea down the bed as they continued to kiss deeply with her hands around his neck.He was always controlled, composed, always the one who led. But with Althea, he
For the next two days, Althea will wake up ahead of him and started to prepare their coffee and will take her bath. She would then put a call to order room service for their breakfast. By the time the staff had arrived and placed their meal by the balcony, Dominic will be stepping out from the vi
Twelve months.It’s been twelve months since Paris, a few months since she accepted the apartment.It didn’t feel like a year, not when their time moved with her gently. Slow but sure and constant. Dominic sometimes would pause, startled by how natural it felt having Alt







