Chapter 111 Dominoes
❦ Rosalind ❦
My skin was clammy under the warm covers, my head splitting with a migraine that throbbed behind my eyes.
My tears had long slowed, dried to tracks on my cheeks, and for a little while I’d drifted, half-asleep, floating in that heavy exhaustive haze that comes after too much crying.
Then… A knock.
My whole body jolted.
My eyes shot open, though I didn’t move, didn’t uncover myself. I just stayed hidden under the duvet like a coward.
“Rosa?” Came his voice. Muffled through the wood. Deep and steady. “Are you alright?”
My chest ached at the sound. I pressed my hand against my mouth and tried to keep the fresh sobs back, but they slipped anyway, hot tears sliding down into the pillow.
I lost the hotel.
I actually lost it.
I‘d wanted to sell it, yes. That had been the plan. My way of standing my ground and showing Viktor and the world that I couldn't be subdued or controlled.
But I didn’t anticipate this feeling.
This feeling of the ground being pulled out from under me, and the weight of not even knowing who had snatched it up.
Now I’d have to face him. Look him in the eye and admit what I’d done. Not that I owed him the truth, not really.
But it wasn’t just about me anymore. It was about the syndicate, the surveillance, the leverage, everything.
And I had thrown it into someone else’s hands.
Oh, I fucked up.
God, I fucked it up so badly.
My pulse hammered.
My thoughts wouldn’t sit still, churning in circles until I didn’t know what I was feeling anymore out of shame, rage, grief. All of it. None of it.
The room went quiet again. Then my phone started ringing from somewhere on the floor, the buzz cutting through the quiet.
I didn’t move. I already knew who it was. Dante, maybe. Or Viktor. Both waiting for answers I couldn’t give.
I wasn’t ready to face my mistake.
So I stayed where I was, curled under the covers, letting it ring and ring.
I slipped back into another nap without meaning to. One of those restless, shallow ones where you’re half-aware of the light shifting in the room.
When I finally dragged myself awake again, my whole body ached like I’d hauled a mountain up the stairs.
My neck, my back, even my fingers felt stiff. I groaned, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead.
The memories of the previous hours came back in a rush, all tangled up with the growl of hunger twisting in my stomach.
I pushed the covers off and sat up, right in the middle of the bed. For a long moment I just stared at the wreckage around me.
The food Viktor had brought me earlier was still on the floor, sauce dried and half the dishes broken.
The table was on its side, one leg bent at a weird angle.
My laptop lay dangerously close to the soggy mess in the middle of it all. One more inch and it would’ve drowned.
At least there wasn’t a rug. Whoever had to clean this would already hate me enough.
I slid off the bed and reached for my phone which was blinking with missed calls.
As expected, calls from Viktor and Dante. I opened one of Dante’s messages… he was saying he’d try to track down the buyer and strike a deal.
I snorted.
A deal? With who?
Whoever had thrown down eight-hundred-and-seventy million wasn’t going to be bartered with like a street vendor.
What could I possibly offer that they didn’t already have?
The truth was simple. I’d sold off the only real thing I had left. My father’s legacy. The jewel of my assets.
All because I wanted to prove something to Viktor and to myself.
Well it was proven now. I was a foolish girl.
And now? Now I had nothing but a headache and an empty stomach.
I laughed, a delirious sound that sounded strange to even my own ears.
Because what else could I do? I was sure once Viktor found out, he’d throw me out without a fight.
He’d probably even hand me the divorce papers with a smile. His precious coveted hotel in someone else’s hands? Perfect excuse to finally wash his own of me.
I wanted him too much, and now I had nothing left to bargain with. Nothing to make him stay.
It was better to run first than to sit here waiting to be thrown out. Better to cut myself loose before he did it, before I had to watch him turn cold.
And the irony? The only reason he hadn’t pressed me for it these past weeks was because of that damned memory loss. A small mercy, if you could call it that.
But Adrian wouldn’t let him forget. He’d drag him back to whatever mission they’d been planning for the archives hidden in that hotel.
Sooner or later, it would all catch up to me.
I tiptoed through the mess, careful not to step on glass, and scooped up the laptop.
I carried it back to the bed even though I wanted to throw it out the window.
I set it down, and clenched my fists tightly on my lap.
What’s done is done.
I made a mistake. I tried to fix it. I failed.
I wasn’t the first to fail. Goddammit.
Even my father had failed.
He failed when he… sold me.
I shut my eyes immediately as if to banish the thought. Biting my lip, I whispered an apology into the room.
“I didn’t mean it, Papà. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect you.”
He hadn’t deserved that. He hadn’t deserved the weight of my blame. He tried. He did what he thought he had to do.
Even if I ended up as collateral damage.
My eyes prickled again with the threat of tears as a darker thought slipped in.
What if… what if I’d just damned more people? What if the buyer wasn’t a faceless billionaire or bored investor, but one of the monsters Viktor had been hunting?
If the syndicate had gotten their claws in the hotel now, then I’d just handed them back their playground.
And God only knew how many more women or children or desperate men would be dragged through their doors, never to walk out again.
I sucked in a deep breath, held it until it hurt, then let it out slowly.
At least I’d tried. I had to keep repeating that. At least I’d tried. And Viktor… if he was so hell-bent on tearing the syndicate down, he’d find another way. He always found another way.
I rose and stood in the middle of the room like I was about to face a firing squad.
I had two missions.
And maybe I’d already failed the first, but I wasn’t about to let the second slip through my fingers too.
My father’s secret. The one that had doomed him and me alongside him.
I had to know.
I had to get close enough to Viktor’s laptop. Plug in the flash drive. And learn whatever was buried there before he could stop me.
But doubt crept in once more.
What if by plugging it in, I opened the wrong door and made things worse?
God knows what Gianni’s full plan really was.
And what if he was the one who’d bought it?
I didn’t know him or how deep his pockets went. He’d dropped hints about participating in the auction but… hints weren’t answers.
I shook my head hard and forced the thoughts away.
Enough. No more spiraling.
I was going to do the one thing I should’ve done from the start.
Before Viktor Marino had touched me, changed my last name,and infected my brain with desires that burned instead of healed.
I was going to learn my father’s secret.
And then I was going to get the hell out of New York before every wrong choice I’d made lined up and came crashing down on me like dominoes.
I unlocked the door, twisted the knob, and stepped out.