Chapter 45 Watching her play

Chapter 45 Watching her play
Dante’s POV
Marilyn stood at the far end of my living room, her back half-turned toward me, phone pressed to her ear.
She wasn’t pacing or filling the space with unnecessary movement. She leaned lightly against the wall like she belonged there, like this wasn’t unfamiliar ground to her. One leg bent, heel lifted slightly off the floor, her posture relaxed but intentional. Everything about her suggested control. Her voice stayed low, calm, and steady. It never rose, never sharpened, never rushed to fill silence.
I sat on the couch with one arm stretched along the backrest, watching her as if I had nothing better to do. As if this wasn’t the most interesting thing I had seen all week.
A grin pulled at my mouth before I bothered stopping it.
I couldn’t believe her.
Or maybe, more accurately, I couldn’t believe how wrong I had been about her.
When Marilyn first came into my orbit, I thought I understood her angle. I had seen variations of it before. Women hurt by men who underestimated them. Women who wanted revenge that burned fast and loud. The kind of revenge driven by emotion instead of planning. The kind that flared hot, caused a scene, and then burned itself out before it could do lasting damage.
Make the boyfriend pay.
Make the fiancé jealous.
Get under someone bigger and more powerful and call it closure.
That kind of thing.
I assumed she would want something messy and temporary. Something that bruised Tom’s ego without threatening the structure of his life. A moment that would sting but pass.
I was wrong.
So wrong it almost amused me.
Because Marilyn wasn’t aiming for humiliation.
She was aiming for erasure.
She wanted to dismantle him in a way that couldn’t be undone. She wanted to collapse the image he had built piece by piece, strip away the trust people placed in him, and leave nothing solid behind. Not his reputation. Not his credibility. Not the version of himself others believed in.
And she was doing it quietly.
Carefully.
With intelligence.
This was the kind of revenge that didn’t announce itself. The kind that didn’t look like revenge until it was already finished.
I shifted slightly on the couch, continuing to watch her. I paid attention to the way her fingers moved when she spoke, slow and deliberate, never restless. I noticed how she listened more than she talked, how she nodded once or twice in response to something said on the other end of the line. She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t rush to assert control. She allowed the other person to speak themselves into place.
That alone told me more than most people ever revealed.
Most people talked too much when they were nervous. They filled silence because it made them uncomfortable. Marilyn didn’t do that. She absorbed information. She processed it. She chose her responses carefully, offering only what was necessary and nothing more.
And the fact that I found that attractive irritated me more than it should have.
I had been curious about her before. Curious about how she carried herself through rooms without asking permission. Curious about the way she commanded attention without demanding it. Curious about how she balanced confidence with restraint in a way that never tipped into arrogance.
But now my curiosity had shifted into something sharper.
Now I wanted answers.
Because this wasn’t a woman acting on impulse or emotion.
This was a woman executing a plan.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
I glanced down at the screen, already knowing who it would be before the name appeared.
Elias.
I answered without looking away from Marilyn.
“I’m listening.”
She turned slightly at the sound of my voice. Her gaze flicked toward me for a brief second, just long enough for her lips to curve into a small, knowing smile. Then she turned back to her call, her attention already elsewhere.
On the other end of the line, Elias spoke.
“It’s me. I just got off the call with Vanessa, boss. I completed what she asked.”
Good.
“Good,” I said aloud. “Give me updates if she asks you to do anything else. And Elias.”
“Yes?”
“I want a thorough check on her. Everything you can find. Background, connections, finances. I want to know who she really is.”
There was a pause. Not hesitation. Consideration.
“Okay, boss.”
The line went dead.
I lowered the phone and leaned back into the couch, my attention returning fully to Marilyn.
Quite frankly, impressed didn’t cover it.
Stunned came closer.
Because Marilyn hadn’t just managed to get close to a manager inside my company.
She had managed to reach Elias.
And Elias didn’t work for just anyone.
He existed on the black side of things. Off record. Off grid. His name didn’t circulate openly, and people who believed they knew him rarely did. His work stayed buried unless someone like me needed it surfaced.
People thought they understood how access worked.
They didn’t.
And yet Marilyn had found him.
Not only found him, but paid him.
That detail mattered.
This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision fueled by emotion. This wasn’t heartbreak scrambling logic or desperation forcing shortcuts.
This was preparation.
This was intent.
Which raised a question I hadn’t expected to care about.
Who was Marilyn before she ever crossed paths with Tom?
What kind of life shaped a woman who moved with this level of precision? A woman who knew how to access people most didn’t even know existed? A woman who could play composed and unassuming in one room while quietly orchestrating ruin in another?
She ended her call and slid the phone into her pocket, then finally turned fully toward me.
Our eyes met.
She walked closer at an unhurried pace, each step measured and deliberate, until she stopped a few feet away. The light caught in her hair, softened the lines of her face, outlined her cheekbones in a way that drew my attention without effort.
I reached for the glass on the table and poured myself a drink, tequila this time. I took a slow sip without breaking eye contact.
“Sorry about the interruption. Was handling business.”
Business, huh.
“That’s okay.”
She reached for a glass of her own, mirroring my movement as she poured herself a drink.
“Now… where were we?” she asked.