Chapter Seven

The white envelope remained untouched on the dining table, glaring under the harsh fluorescent light like a radioactive stone. Victoria sat on her bed, her knees pulled tight against her chest. She hadn't cried since Eleanor left. Instead, a hollow, freezing numbness had settled deep in her bones.

She looked at her phone. It was 11:14 PM.

Her screen flashed. 14 Missed Calls: Max.

Then, a text message came through:

“Victoria, I’m boarding the flight to Tokyo for the Herrera merger meetings. My mother set it up, but I am only going to finalize my voting independence. I will break the alliance. I will be back in forty-eight hours. Please, wait for me. Don't believe anything she tells you. I love you.”

Victoria stared at the words I love you. Weeks ago, they would have made her heart soar. Now, they felt like a beautiful, fragile glass bridge built over a lethal canyon. He is a Monteverde, Eleanor’s voice echoed in her mind. In the end, they always choose the empire.

She turned her phone off, placed it face down on her nightstand, and closed her eyes, wishing she could erase the last month of her life.

***

Six thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean, the private Monteverde Gulfstream jet cut through the turbulent midnight sky.

Inside the luxurious leather-bound cabin, Maximo didn't look at the corporate portfolios laid out before him. He stared out the dark window, watching the distant city lights fade into black cloud cover. His chest felt tight, a suffocating pressure building behind his ribs. He had tried calling Victoria a dozen times before takeoff, but it went straight to voicemail.

"Sir," his personal assistant, David, murmured from across the aisle, looking up from his tablet. "Madame Eleanor just called the Tokyo office. She has moved the dinner with the Herrera family to tomorrow evening at seven. She expects you to make the formal announcement."

"There will be no announcement," Maximo said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register. "The moment we land, schedule a private session with our Japanese legal council. I am signing over the East Block assets to an independent trust."

David swallowed hard, nodding. "Understood, sir. But your mother—"

"My mother does not own me, David," Maximo snapped, his fingers tightening around his gold fountain pen until the metal creaked. "And she will not dictate who I marry."

Suddenly, the cabin shuddered violently.

The warning lights flashed red across the ceiling panels, casting a bloody glow over the interior. The jet groaned, a horrific metallic shriek echoing from the left wing as the aircraft violently pitched to the side.

"We're dropping altitude!" the co-pilot’s frantic voice exploded over the intercom system. "Engine three failure! Oxygen masks down—"

The cabin pressure dropped instantly. The plastic masks dropped from the ceiling, dancing wildly in the chaotic turbulence. Maximo was thrown against the window, his head slamming hard against the frame. Crimson blood instantly blurred his vision, dripping down his temple.

Through the ringing in his ears and the terrifying roar of the wind, Maximo didn't think about his billions. He didn't think about his empire, his mother, or his legacy.

He thought of a rainy coffee shop in Manila. He thought of ink-stained fingers and a bright, beautiful laugh that made him feel alive.

Victoria, his mind screamed as the jet went into a steep, terrifying spiral toward the dark sea below. I have to get back to Victoria.

Then, the world went entirely black.

***

The next morning, the rain returned to Manila with a vengeance.

Victoria woke up early, her body aching from a restless sleep. She made a cup of black coffee, trying to ignore the white envelope still sitting on the table. She reached for her phone, turning it back on, expecting more desperate texts from Max.

Instead, her lock screen was flooded with breaking news alerts from every major media outlet in the country.

BREAKING: MONTEVERDE HOLDINGS PRIVATE JET CRASHES EN ROUTE TO TOKYO.

CEO MAXIMO MONTEVERDE REPORTEDLY IN CRITICAL CONDITION.

Victoria’s coffee mug slipped from her fingers. It shattered against the tile floor, hot liquid splashing over her bare feet, but she didn't feel it. She fell to her knees, scrambling for her phone, her hands shaking so violently she could barely unlock the screen.

The news articles were brutal. The private aircraft had experienced a catastrophic engine failure over the ocean near Okinawa. A daring rescue team had recovered the wreckage at dawn. Maximo was alive, but he had sustained severe head trauma and was currently in a medically induced coma at a private, highly secure hospital in Tokyo.

"No," Victoria whispered, tears finally bursting from her eyes, hot and uncontrollable. "No, Max... please, no."

Forget the lies. Forget the billionaire status. Forget the bitterness. In that terrifying second, all she cared about was that the man who had held her in the rain, the man who had promised to fight for her, was dying across the sea.

She grabbed her purse, threw on her jacket, and ran out into the storm, desperate to get to the airport, to find a way to Tokyo, to see him.

But when she reached the main gates of the Monteverde medical headquarters in Manila to beg for information, she was met by a wall of private security. Standing at the top of the marble steps, flanked by lawyers, was Eleanor Monteverde.

The older woman looked pale, but her eyes were sharper and more vindictive than ever. She spotted Victoria standing in the rain among the crowd of reporters.

Eleanor walked down the steps, her security detail pushing the media back to create a private path. She stopped a foot away from Victoria, her voice dropping into a chilling, venomous whisper.

"Don't even think about it," Eleanor hissed. "My son is fighting for his life because he was distracted by a parasite like you. I have already barred your name from the hospital registry in Tokyo. You will never see him again."

"He asked me to wait for him," Victoria cried out, her voice breaking over the sound of the cameras clicking around them. "Please, let me know if he’s okay—"

"He is a Monteverde," Eleanor interrupted, her face twisting with an ugly, absolute hatred. "And if he survives this, I will make sure the first thing he remembers is that you took my money and abandoned him when he needed you most. Go back to the gutter, Miss Valenzuela. You are officially erased."