All Chapters of She Died His Wife, She Returns His Enemy: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The private dining room at La Vetta gleamed in warm gold and cool glass — a modern cathedral to power. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed the skyline, while the long mahogany table gleamed beneath low crystal pendants. Everything was set. Cassian had curated the evening himself: strategic seating, vintage Bordeaux, guest profiles memorized.This wasn’t a social dinner.It was a quiet coronation.The Geneva consigliere was here — Matteo’s man. So was Fausto Gregori, the Sicilian financier whose “clean” maritime fleet moved goods Cassian preferred not to name. Two members of Italy’s lower chamber sat toward the end. And on Matteo’s right, the French logistics broker who controlled access through Lyon’s shipping corridor.No press. No wives.No Elise.Cassian had seen the seating chart and felt something shift. It wasn’t the scale of the meeting — he’d hosted larger — it was the composition. Every man here dealt in consolidation. Quiet favors. Long-term control. This was Matteo reinforcing

The Caro estate was cloaked in a heavy silence, the kind that settled after carefully orchestrated events. A quiet rain had begun, the sound gentle against marble and glass—a muted, persistent tapping like a secret knocking to be heard. Elise’s footsteps echoed softly against the polished floors as she navigated familiar corridors, each step a reminder of roles she’d once obediently played.She found Camila in the rose salon—a room that had once symbolized grace and poise. Now it felt like a stage set for confrontation. Camila stood by the window, her posture rigid, an untouched glass of wine trembling slightly in her fingers.“Elise,” Camila began, her voice measured yet edged with something Elise rarely heard—fear. “We need to talk.”Elise entered, her gaze steady, posture poised like a blade wrapped in velvet. “Then talk.”Camila turned, her eyes scanning her daughter with concern wrapped tightly in calculation. “Your behavior at the luncheon was... conspicuous.”“I was present.”“

It began with a glimpse.Outside the Caprice boardroom—a midday finance session Elise had scheduled under her Elena Cruz alias—she stepped onto the marbled mezzanine and felt the air shift before she saw him.Matteo.He stood near a sculpture alcove, posture immaculate, gloved hands folded in front of him, reading nothing in the newspaper he held. His presence transformed the bright space into something colder, the air sharpening as though gravity itself had altered. The scent of expensive leather and aged tobacco lingered faintly, an unspoken mark of territory and power. His black gloves gleamed softly beneath the glass skylight—elegant, deliberate, out of place in a room bathed in sunlit luxury.He didn’t speak. Didn’t move.But his gaze flicked up once—slow, certain—as she passed.Elise entered the elevator, pulse even, spine straightened by instinct rather than nerves. Only when the doors closed did she allow herself a quiet exhale—not from fear, but careful calculation.Why here

The Montclaire estate emptied in layers.Cars hummed quietly down the gravel loop, retreating beneath a twilight sky bruised purple and gray. Echoes of laughter drifted once from the south terrace—a polished afterthought of evening. Someone lit a cigarette near the wine cellar, embers glowing like secrets, security discreetly turning away.Elise waited until the last taillights disappeared past the east gate before she moved.She avoided the main staircase. She didn’t need to announce her presence, not tonight.The service corridor behind the formal library was rarely used, its walls narrow, lined with old ledgers and forgotten surveillance reels—a relic from days when power was tracked in ink, and memories were stored in dusty film canisters.She moved silently, the subtle hint of jasmine in her perfume lingering briefly, unfamiliar even to her. Not Cassian’s Elise. Not anymore.At the corridor’s far end, a door stood half-open—not the boardroom, not Matteo’s private office. Just a r

The door to Cassian’s office clicked open, breaking the heavy stillness like glass cracking under slow pressure.He paused on the threshold.His office was exactly as he'd left it—dimmed lights casting soft shadows, the lingering scent of cedar polish and worn leather familiar and unchanged. His jacket still hung casually over the chair, nothing moved, nothing disturbed—Except for one thing.A single sheet of paper, carefully centered on his desk.Not folded. Not hidden.Waiting.Cassian stepped inside deliberately, the muted click of the door closing behind him sealing the silence. He approached slowly, cautiously, as though the page were something living, poised to bite if provoked.He didn’t touch it immediately. Instead, his eyes moved across it—calculating, wary. The paper felt more dangerous than a weapon. It felt like truth.The room around him felt strangely charged—not empty, though no one else stood within it. It carried the faint trace of her presence, not the delicate lav