LOGINDante POV By the time we reached the waterfront, the fire had already eaten through the north wall. Four of my men were down before I'd even stepped out of the car. Two were still moving, while the other two lay motionless as the medics worked around them. Smoke rolled across the dock, glowing orange from beneath where the warehouse was still burning. "Status?" I asked, finding Luca near the command vehicle. He had a laptop open on the hood. "We held the east entrance. Lost the north and south for almost six minutes before reinforcements arrived." His expression was grim. "They came in knowing exactly where our blind spots were. Same as the previous breach. Someone is still feeding information out of this house." "How many attackers?" "We count at least twelve, possibly more. They were gone before our second team arrived, which means they knew their withdrawal window down to the minute." Luca's jaw tightened. "This wasn't a crew looking to steal product, Dante. Nothing's mi
Dante POV "If I could go back..." I hadn't felt that kind of helplessness in years, not since the pier, when I'd watched her dragged onto a boat with James's gun at her temple. I had built entire negotiations around reading the first half of a sentence and knowing exactly where it ended. This one I couldn't read at all, sitting across from the one person whose next words I actually needed to hear correctly. She could finish it a dozen ways, and every single one of them ended with me losing something I wasn't sure I'd survive losing twice. Elena held my eyes the entire time, not looking away or softening the moment before she finished it. "I would still choose you," she said. The words landed somewhere I didn't have words for, not right away. I sat there a second too long, not because I didn't believe her, but because some part of me had been so certain I was about to lose something that I hadn't prepared for the opposite. "Say that again," I said quietly. "I would still choose
Elena POV I told Dante about Dean that same night. We were in my room, sitting across from each other, and I decided it was better to tell him myself than wait for him to hear it from someone else. "You went to Luca before me," he said, when I finished. "I wanted facts before I brought you feelings. I didn't want to hand you a suspicion and watch you burn down another three buildings over it." "That's fair." He considered that for a moment. "You're sure it was Isabella?" "Dean's description matched her. He never got a name, but I'm certain." I folded my hands in my lap. "She's using him the same way she's used everyone else. Finding the weak spot and pressing until something gives." "Except it didn't give." "No," I said. "It didn't." Dante held my gaze. "You handled an entire operation against you without telling me until it was already under control." "Are you upset about that?"
Elena POV Dean texted me three times in one week, which hadn't happened since the harbor. The first message was nothing more than a question about how I was doing. The second asked, almost casually, whether Dante's business associates ever came to the house. The third was about trouble within the family, worded loosely enough that I could have answered it a dozen different ways. I didn't respond to any of them right away. Something about the sudden interest felt off, too deliberate for a man who had told me goodbye on a bench by the harbor and meant it. I decided to bring it to Luca before Dante. I wanted to know what was happening before I turned a suspicion into something bigger. I found Luca in the security office, looking through a report on his computer. "Can you look into something for me?" I asked. He glanced up. "What is it?" "Dean Alcott. He's been texting me strange questions this week. I want to know if anything has changed in his life recently. Money, contacts, any
Isabella POV I spent the morning going through what was left of my own accounts, the ones that hadn't been quietly choked in the last two weeks. The number was worse than I'd admitted to anyone, including Konstantin. Ricci called four times that afternoon. I let each call go to voicemail before finally answering the fifth. "You need to explain something to me," he said without greeting. "I don't explain myself to men who can't keep their own house in order, Ricci." "Vincenzo thinks I'm working against him. I think he's doing the same to me. Someone fed both of us the same poison, and I want to know if it was you." "Does it matter who fed it to you? You drank it either way. Perhaps you should ask yourself why two men who've known each other for a decade suddenly can't trust a word out of each other's mouths. That crack was already there, Ricci. Someone simply found it." He hung up without answering. I set my phone down and looked up to find Konstantin standing in the door
Elena POV The financial records Luca had pulled on Dario’s shell company contained another set of payments he’d initially dismissed as unrelated. “These don’t match the Dario pattern,” he said, spreading the printouts across my desk three days after the Counterattack. “Smaller amounts, different routing, same originating account. Someone’s been paying two other people out of Isabella’s money.” “Who?” “I’m still confirming the names, but both numbered accounts are tied to Board members.” I examined the printouts. “If she’s paying two Board members separately, she’s probably promised them different things.” “Why does that matter?” “Because men like Ricci and Vincenzo don’t share power well.” I tapped the page. “If Isabella has promised each of them a reward when she regains control, neither will be happy to discover the other has received the same promise.” Luca leaned back. “You think you can prove that?” “I don’t need to. I just need each of them to believe the other already
The room fell into an almost unbearable silence after my name was announced. Every eye turned toward me at once, and I could feel the weight of their attention pressing down like something physical. The lights above me felt hotter now, the air thicker. My chest tightened, my palms were slick with sw
The room smelled faintly of expensive perfume and polished leather, a mix that should have felt luxurious but only made my stomach twist tighter. My heels clicked painfully against the marble floor, each step echoing in the vast, high-ceilinged room. I tried to keep my head down, to disappear into m
"No! I won't go!" I shouted, my voice cracking. My hands flailed as I tried to push the men back, but their grips were iron. Fear surged through me like fire, every instinct screaming to run, to fight, to disappear. "Elena… please! Listen to me!" my father's voice broke through the storm in my che
The room felt suffocating as I followed Dante out of the auction hall. Every step I took made my chest tighten, every echo of my heels against the floor reminded me constantly that I had no real choice anymore. My mind was a mess of questions, panic, and a deep, heavy fear. Why me? Why him of all pe







