Divorcing the Ruthless Billionaire のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 11 - チャプター 20

POV RACHELLEThe morning sun over Milan was cold and clinical, stripped of its usual golden warmth. It shone through the shattered remains of my penthouse window, illuminating the dust motes dancing over the bloodstains on the hardwood floor. The sirens had faded into a distant, rhythmic hum of the city recovering from a nightmare, but the air still tasted of ozone and copper.I sat on the edge of the master bed, my hands finally clean of red, clutching a cup of black coffee that had long since gone cold. I was draped in a silk robe, but I felt naked without the weight of the ivory blazer I’d worn to war."The police have moved Silvio and your father to the high-security ward at San Vittore," Sofia’s voice came from the doorway. She looked exhausted, her hair messy for the first time in the five years I’d known her. "The board of Santoro Global has declared bankruptcy to shield themselves from the lawsuits, but Veronesi International is holding steady. The markets are calling you the

POV RACHELLEThe smell of gunpowder and expensive cologne. It was a combination I had hoped to never encounter again, yet here I was, pressed against Nikolai’s chest in the darkened ruins of my own triumph. The applause of the Parisian elite was still ringing in the hallway, but inside this room, the only sound was the frantic thrumming of two hearts that refused to beat in sync."He’s out?" I whispered, my voice hitching. "My father is out?""Not officially," Nikolai rasped. His arm was a solid bar of heat across my waist, pulling me away from the line of sight of the door. "But a man like Matteo Veronesi doesn't need a front door to leave a prison. He needs a bribe and a distraction. Ambrose’s body was the distraction."I felt a cold, jagged anger slice through my fear. I pushed against Nikolai’s chest, forcing him to let me go. I didn't care that he was bleeding or that he had just saved me again."You lied to me," I hissed, gesturing to the darkness of the room. "You told me you w

POV RACHELLEThe echo of the steel shutters slamming shut was the sound of a trap snapping into place. The air in the warehouse was stagnant, thick with the smell of rusted iron and the ozone of Dorian’s overheating servers."Mindy, look at me," I said, my voice steady despite the red laser dots dancing across my ivory silk blazer. "Look at the men standing behind you. Do they look like family? Or do they look like the men who held our mother in a cage?"Mindy’s hand shook, the gold-plated pistol wavering. "Father said... he said you were the one who betrayed us. He said you stole the company to buy Nikolai’s love back.""Is that what he told you?" Nikolai stepped forward, his body shielding mine and Dorian's. He looked lethal, a dark predator in a tailored suit. "Your father didn't buy my love, Mindy. He sold your sister's soul to pay for his own failures. And he’s ready to do the same to you."Suddenly, a rhythmic clapping drifted from the catwalks above us. A shadow moved near the

POV RACHELLEThe iron gates of the Prato textile factory loomed like the entrance to a medieval fortress. This place was the heart of the Veronesi empire, a sprawling complex of brick and steel where my grandfather had spun the first threads of our fortune. Somewhere in the basement of the central archive sat the physical drive—the "Master Key"—that contained the raw data of every illegal transaction my father had ever made."Dorian, get the override ready," I said, stepping out of the car. My heels clicked sharply on the gravel. "Once we’re in the server room, I need you to bypass the biometric lock. My father probably removed my access an hour ago.""I'm on it, Rach," Dorian muttered, his fingers flying across the tablet. He looked up at the perimeter cameras. "Wait. That’s strange.""What?""The security feed... it isn't encrypted. It’s open. It’s like they’re inviting us in."I felt a prickle of unease at the back of my neck. I reached into my bag for my corporate phone to call So

POV RACHELLEThe red digital numbers on the bedside clock flipped with a mechanical finality: 05:45 AM.Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse, Milan was still shrouded in a bruised, pre-dawn purple. The city was quiet, but inside these walls, the air was vibrating with the hum of a looming execution. In fifteen minutes, a court-appointed observer—likely a shark in a civil servant’s suit—would knock on that door to verify if Nikolai Santoro and I were truly "reconciling" or if our marriage was the corporate fiction everyone suspected it to be.I stood in the center of the master bedroom, my hands trembling as I smoothed out the silk of my nightgown. It was a pale, champagne-colored slip—elegant, expensive, and utterly transparent in its purpose. I looked at the bed.Nikolai lay in the center of the vast mattress, his torso wrapped in heavy white bandages that stood out starkly against his tanned skin. He was still sedated, his breathing deep and rhythmic, his face smoot