Chapter 23: The Gala Revelation.

Chapter 23: The Gala Revelation.
Tokyo's third and final business conference day cracked open beneath a brittle chill, but city streets hummed with subdued, frenetic energy below. Sherry felt eerily still air preceding some turbulent chaos.
Sherry stood before a mirror, slipping into a floor-length black satin gown that clung tightly to her curves like molten ink by nightfall as city lights shimmered faintly aglow in the penthouse suite.
Deep Vs plunged with daring elegance down her torso, and a side slit flashed leg flesh, leaving many mouths utterly dry. A diamond choker glimmered faintly around her neck, having been presented by Enzo as a hurriedly procured surprise gift.
He handed it silently over to her without uttering a single word. His gaze had tarried somewhat awkwardly on hers.
Embers smoldered quietly underneath thick ash.
She strolled into gala festivities beside him under sparkling crystal chandeliers, surrounded by Tokyo's upper crust swathed in champagne-hued luxury and silvery moon glow.
On the red carpet, paparazzi snapped furiously, and socialites gasped in utter shock, while nearby onlookers stared with morbid fascination.
Enzo looked sharp and devastating in a black tuxedo, but Sherry stole every gaze tonight with her stunning presence somehow.
Notably featuring Robert Gray, among others. He watched her quite intensely from across a grand ballroom with a smile laced with admiration and sly calculation.
Enzo was mobbed by a bevy of females who guffawed and grasped his arm ostensibly for snapping pics amidst great hullabaloo.
Sherry managed a stiff smile with a poised posture as sundry billionaires, Enzo's competitors, and unlikely allies surrounded her, offering extremely sweet wine and awkwardly too-personal conversation.
"So, Mrs. Blackwood," was uttered barely above a whisper. "How does it feel being the most beautiful distraction in Tokyo tonight?"
She laughed courteously under her breath. Enzo remained pointedly inert suddenly. She saw it again across a crowded room, a fleeting glimpse of wildness in his eyes that mirrored hers with unnerving intensity.
Quite possessively, she grasped his arm tightly under dark, flickering streetlights outside old downtown bars on frigid winter nights.
Morose feelings simmered beneath sullen gazes.
He turned back rather listlessly and leaned in keenly as one woman whispered ardently something salacious in his receptive ear.
Sherry's stomach twisted violently beneath her ribcage with a nauseating lurch that left her breathless and utterly disoriented suddenly.
Later, she felt a presence behind her rather suddenly on a marble balcony during a quiet nocturnal moment with a breeze cooling flushed cheeks.
Robert.
"You look... magnificent tonight," he murmured, stepping closer. "But you always were a storm wrapped in velvet."
She didn’t reply, only sipped her wine and waited.
He leaned in. His breath brushed her ear.
"Enzo didn’t save Margo to help you," he whispered. "He did it to crush your father. Thomas Hart once destroyed his father’s legacy deal. This is revenge. Not rescue."
Sherry froze.
The world stilled.
Her hand gripped the glass so tightly she thought it might shatter.
She turned to him, her face pale. "What did you say?"
But Robert only offered a half-smile and slipped a card into her hand.
"Ask him."
She didn't. She couldn't. Her legs carried her away from the gala before her thoughts could catch up. She didn’t stop until she was down the long back corridor, heels clicking like panic against the polished floor.
Then the lights flickered.
A shadow moved.
She didn’t scream until the hand covered her mouth.
Rough arms yanked her back into the darkness, her limbs thrashing. Two masked men held her against the wall, one of them pulling something sharp from his coat.
Sherry struggled, muffled cries slicing through the silence, her fingernails clawing, her mind a whirl of terror.
"ENOUGH."
The voice came like thunder.
Ethan.
Enzo's bodyguard appeared from the corridor like death in a black suit, and what followed was a blur of fists, grunts, and bodies hitting the wall.
One man fell with a groan.
The other guy attempted frantically to run away but got caught mid-stride and slammed hard onto the ground with considerable force.
Sherry lay on the floor with ragged breath and blood oozing slowly from her lip after silence fell again.
Ethan dropped down beside her, softly cradling her fragile shoulders in his hands very carefully.
"Mrs. Sherry, it's pretty okay. You're safe now.
She remained silent rather than uttering a reassuring phrase.
Her eyelids fluttered wildly beneath heavily mascaraed lashes.
She whispered, ”Enzo,” mere moments before everything suddenly went dark to black.
The early morning of the next day, on the private jet.
Silky blue hues of early morning crept eerily inside the cabin. Outside the windowpane, the sky remained a deep, almost blackish navy, and stars were fading slowly into the first hints of morning light.
But inside it was freezing, not just due to sleek air conditioning humming softly above them, or so it seemed anyway.
Sherry lay curled beneath a cashmere blanket on cream leather, reclining with her skin deathly pale against the fabric and her head resting limply sideways.
Faint bruising began blooming along her cheekbone, and a small gash marred the corner of her lip rather badly.
Blood had desiccated rapidly, but anguish still resonated deeply within her eerily mute stillness and physically too, with lingering agony.
She hadn't uttered a solitary syllable in ages since that fateful attack ravaged her terribly overnight, somehow.
Enzo sat rigidly beside her with fists clenched tightly on his thighs and a tense jawline. His posture had slumped badly into a raw, haunted state.
The hand of his silk shirt was folded up, and his watch lay forgotten on the tray table beside him.
He stretched out intermittently towards her, brushing strands of hair back from her forehead and adjusting a blanket around her chilled limbs.
She still regained full consciousness of herself. Her eyes stayed half-closed with lids fluttering sporadically, as if lost somewhere very far away in memory, deep sorrow, or betrayal.
Enzo exhaled slowly, with one hand raking through his tangled hair with jerky fingers very deliberately.
He had never felt so helpless. Not even during hostile takeovers or boardroom bloodbaths.
This was different. This was her. And she had nearly been taken from him.
And the worst part?
He wasn’t sure if she wanted to stay anymore.
The flight attendants moved quietly around them, sensing the tension, and the heaviness in the air. Even Ethan, seated farther back, remained unusually silent, his eyes watchful, guilt shadowing his face.
At one point, Enzo leaned in and whispered, “You’re safe now, Sherry.”
But she didn’t answer.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t move.
Her silence screamed louder than any accusation ever could.
And as the jet sped across the Pacific, hurtling toward New York, Enzo sat beside the woman he had married not with love, but with calculation and the realization that something irreversible had been set in motion.
Whether it was the betrayal Robert Gray planted, the attack, or everything in between, something had broken.
And when they landed… he wasn’t sure who she would be anymore.