Chapter 7
Dante's Perspective
As my armored SUV pulled into the estate, I squinted, seeing unmarked vans speeding away from the service entrance.
Peripheral security guards stood by nervously, stammering that my wife had ordered a mass removal of her belongings.
An icy spear pierced my chest.
I bypassed the elevator, taking the stairs two at a time.
I stepped into the silent penthouse and froze.
The dozens of heavy boxes I'd seen the maids packing in the foyer were gone. All of them.
The giant gilded portrait that had hung on our wedding day wall was defaced, the canvas ripped to shreds.
Shards of glass like glittering ice covered the carpet.
A killing rage ignited within me, a heat spreading from my chest through my limbs.
"Who! Who did this!" I roared at the empty room, my voice rattling the walls.
A terrified maid crept from the shadows of the kitchen corridor.
Hands trembling, she held out a small, unremarkable wooden box.
"Your wife... she left this, sir."
I snatched the box from her shaking hands and tore off the lid.
In an instant, my burning fury dissolved into cold, paralyzing dread.
I stared at the explicit photos of Lucia and me, taken right here in my own home.
The physical evidence of my betrayal lay before my eyes, mocking my arrogance.
The lie of my meticulously crafted double life shattered completely.
I dug under the photos and found the handwritten note Lucia had sent to Sienna.
I read the taunting words, my vision blurring with a mixture of guilt and rage.
The veins in my neck bulged against my collar.
"Cazzo!"
The wooden box hit the plaster wall, exploding into countless sharp fragments.
"Lucia! Puttana! You're dead!"
I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed my underboss.
I issued a chilling command: total lockdown of the city.
"All flights are canceled," I ordered into the phone. "All trains, halted."
The omertà was in full effect.
My phone vibrated in my palm.
Lucia's name flashed on the screen.
I answered, listening to her syrupy-sweet voice, feeling nothing but my killing intent boiling over.
She demanded I come to her safe house, her tone arrogant.
Stupidly, she thought Sienna's departure meant she was finally about to be crowned.
I didn't say a word.
I wanted to skin her alive.
I hung up and dispatched the family's most brutal cleanup squad to her location.
I ordered them to kick that heavy door off its hinges.
My heart frozen, I ordered the bastard child removed.
My head enforcer later reported she'd screamed hysterically, threatening to have them face my wrath, clawing at the men.
She actually thought Sienna had sent them.
They gagged her and dragged her onto a surgical table.
Her pregnancy was brutally and completely terminated.
Simultaneously, her bank accounts were emptied to zero.
My protection was gone. She could rot in the sewer where she belonged.
But none of it could bring my wife back.
The taste of revenge was like ashes.
I tore the underworld apart searching for Sienna, turning over every shadow and hiding place.
When my men came back empty-handed, I punched the tempered glass table in my office. The surface cracked on impact, my knuckles grinding down to the bone.
Blood dripped onto the hardwood floor, the rhythmic tapping the only sound in my desolate kingdom.
Then, a desperate clarity pierced through my panic.
If the mob couldn't find her, she wasn't hiding in our world.
I ordered my men to find Sienna's former academic contact.
The brutal truth finally crushed me: I realized my wife had disappeared into that highly classified secret intelligence organization.
I immediately mobilized three fully armed突击队, trying to breach their known defenses, but the organization's security was impenetrable.
My men were neutralized silently, without firing a shot, and returned to my territory.
Even the head of the Falcone family couldn't wage open war on a ghost organization without risking his entire empire.
Realizing I couldn't break down the door and bring her back, I felt helpless.
But I wouldn't give up. Even if I had to burn the whole world down, I'd bring her back to me.
You may also like
