Chapter 77 Ex files
Chapter 77 Ex files
Bianca
The summons came just after dawn, a sharp knock on the bedroom door jolting me from a thin, troubled sleep. The space beside me was cold and untouched. Alessandro had not come to bed.
Salvatore stood in the hallway, his face an impassive mask.
“Your father called. A car is waiting.”
The predawn world was a study in monochrome. I dressed mechanically, my movements slow, limbs heavy with a dread that had become my constant companion. I did not see Alessandro as I left. The suite was silent except for the echo of my own heels on the marble.
The ride to my father’s office was swift in the empty morning streets. His building, a spear of black glass, seemed to absorb the weak light. The elevator ride to the penthouse was a silent ascent.
He was at his desk, backlit by the grim sky. A pot of coffee steamed between us, its rich scent doing nothing to cut the chill.
“Bianca.” No greeting. “Coffee?”
“No, thank you.” I grabbed a bottle of grape juice.
He poured a cup for himself.
“Alessandro’s priorities are misplaced. A man who chases his is a liability. I will not have that liability endanger my grandson’s legacy. I saw the video.”
My blood ran cold. “What are you talking about?”
A slow, knowing smile. He slid a single document across the polished wood. “As of 4 a.m., I acquired a controlling sixty-two percent stake in Desanti Maritime Holdings. The crown jewel of his Mediterranean interests. The foundation of what he would pass to his son.”
The words swam. Hostile takeover. Majority shareholder. Voting control.
“He doesn’t know yet,” my father continued. “He will and he will understand. Your husband’s inheritance for your child is now mine to bestow. It ensures his focus returns to the living to you, to his heir and away from the woman who faked her death and abandoned him. Or it illustrates the consequence of his continued… distraction.”
The cruelty was so calculated it stole my breath. He wasn’t just punishing Alessandro’s silence; he was punishing him for Jennifer. For the secret I’d clawed out of him weeks ago, the truth he’d confessed in a moment of shattered pride: his first love, Jennifer, wasn’t dead. She’d vanished, a staged death to escape his world, and her recent, shadowy reappearance had unraveled him. My father had weaponized that old wound, using my pain as the Sicily was
“You had no right,” I whispered, the betrayal a double-edged blade.
“I have every right,” he corrected. “I am protecting my bloodline from a man who would rather chase a ghost than protect the family he has.”
Rage, bright and scalding, erupted. It was for my father’s machinations, but it was forged in the white-hot fire of Alessandro’s deceit. His distance, his ice—it wasn’t just pride. It was a heart divided, still tethered to a ghost who walked. She was the silence between us.
I left without another word. The dawn was bleeding into morning. In the back of the car, I fumbled for my phone. My thumb hovered over his name. I pressed call.
It rang. Once. Twice. Then, a click. Dead silence.
He had hung up.
The finality of it was a physical blow. The last thread snapped. I opened a voice memo, my thumb pressing record.
“Your secrets have a price tag now,” I said, my voice low and shaking with a fury that felt like clarity. “My father owns Desanti Maritime. He bought your son’s birthright this morning because he knows you’re distracted. Because you’re still so in love with the woman who came back from the dead that you have nothing left for the girl who is actually here.”
I swallowed hard, the truth bitter on my tongue.
“You told me she was alive. You told me you had to find her, to understand, then you built this fortress of ice and left me locked outside. Maxwell talks to me. You? You just vanish, chasing a memory with a heartbeat. So if you want her, if you need to finish what she started, just say it. It’s okay. I’ll return the ring. I’ll leave. You can have your silence, and your search, and you can watch my father dismantle the empire you’re too preoccupied to protect.”
I ended the message and sent it into the void. I waited, staring at the screen until it went dark. No response. No indication he’d heard.
Slowly, I twisted the colossal sapphire on my finger. It felt like a shackle, a beautiful lie. I pulled it off. The pale band of skin it revealed looked vulnerable, naked. I closed my fist around the cold stone. I thought that he had taken care of his ex in Milan,he didn't do it at all...