Semua Bab The Ceo’s Unwanted Claim: Bab 1 - Bab 10

The silence in the waiting room of Valenti Capital was not empty; it was heavy, a pressurized weight that pressed against the eardrums and settled deep in the lungs. It smelled of ozone, chilled air, and money, vast, untouchable, quiet money. Evelina Thorne sat on the edge of a black leather sofa that looked more like a piece of brutalist sculpture than furniture. The leather was cold enough to bite through the thin, worn fabric of her skirt, sending a shiver racing up her spine that had nothing to do with the temperature. She sat with her spine rigid, her knees pressed together, her hands white-knuckled around the strap of her handbag. She had been waiting for forty-five minutes. Every minute was a calculated insult. Every tick of the silent, minimalist clock on the marble wall was a reminder that her time meant nothing, while his time cost thousands of dollars a second. Evelina closed her eyes for a brief moment, trying to steady the nausea rolling in her empty stomach. She hadn’

Waking up was not a slow, peaceful drift into consciousness. It was a sudden, jarring return to a reality Evelina prayed had been a nightmare. She gasped, sitting bolt upright in the massive bed, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. For a second, she didn’t know where she was. The air was too cold. The sheets were too smooth. The silence was too heavy. Then, the smell hit her, sandalwood, expensive cleaning agents, and the distinct lack of dust. Dante. She fell back against the pillows, the crushing weight of the previous day settling onto her chest like a concrete slab. She was in the tower. She was the property of the man upstairs. Evelina threw off the heavy duvet, the charcoal silk pooling around her waist. She looked at the digital clock on the bedside table. 06:00. She had slept in the clothes she arrived in, her worn cotton shirt and skirt. They were wrinkled now, smelling of yesterday’s sweat and fear, but they were the only things in this room that felt

The elevator ride down to the private events wing took less than thirty seconds, but to Evelina, it felt like a descent into the underworld. The mirrored walls of the elevator box reflected her infinite shame. She saw herself multiplied a dozen times, a woman in a green silk dress that clung to her skin like a second layer of guilt, standing beside a man who looked like he owned the very air she was struggling to breathe. Dante didn’t look at her. He stood with his hands in his pockets, watching the floor numbers tick down. 5… 4… 3… “Do not fidget,” he commanded, his voice low, addressing her reflection in the steel doors. “You are nervous. It makes you look weak. And by extension, it makes me look weak. Stop it.” Evelina froze her hands, which had been picking at the side of her clutch. “I’m not nervous,” she whispered, though her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. “I’m nauseous. There is a difference.” “Swallow it,” Dante said. The doors slid open. The n

The morning did not bring light; it brought a gray, suffocating heaviness that pressed against the glass walls of the penthouse. Evelina woke up on the rug in the living room, her body stiff, her neck aching. The secure laptop sat on the floor beside her like a dormant landmine. The screen was black, but the image of her own face lying to Count Sforza was burned into her retinas. She wasn’t just a prisoner anymore. She was leveraged against herself. She dragged herself up, her joints popping. She felt hollowed out, scraped clean of hope. She walked to the kitchen, intending to drink water, but the elevator chime shattered the silence. It wasn’t the soft, polite chime of a guest arrival. It was a low, industrial buzzer from the service lift. The heavy steel doors at the far end of the suite, doors she hadn’t even noticed before, slid open with a grinding metal shriek. Two men walked in. They were massive, wearing gray coveralls stained with grease and dust. They pushed a heavy

Time didn’t pass in the dark; it stagnated. Evelina didn’t know if she had been sitting on the cold marble floor for three hours or thirteen. The blackout shutters sealed the room in a tomb like void. There was no hum of the refrigerator, no street noise, no light. Just the sound of her own shallow breathing and the terrifying, amplifying echo of her own thoughts. She had tried to walk the perimeter of the room, guiding herself with her hands against the wall, counting steps to keep her mind sharp. Forty steps to the kitchen. Twenty to the hallway. But the darkness disoriented her. She tripped over the ottoman, bruising her shin, and retreated to the corner of the rug, curling into a tight ball. This was sensory deprivation. It was torture. But the physical darkness was nothing compared to the darkness in her mind. Dante’s words replayed on a loop: You triggered a trace… You risked my empire. She had tried to be smart. She had tried to be a hero. And she had failed. The sudden cl