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Chapter 15 - The Pawn's Counterattack

"Leave us, Viktor," I commanded softly, my voice devoid of any tremor or innocence. Viktor hesitated for a fraction of a second before bowing his head and melting into the Venetian shadows, leaving Dante and me alone in the damp, vaulted corridor.

Dante slowly lowered his gun, but his dark eyes burned with a mixture of profound betrayal, confusion, and raw, lethal rage. "Your wife stopped having a place in your life," Dante quoted, repeating the exact words I had spoken to him the night I walked out of his office. "That was the line you gave me. You wept, you fled, you made me feel like a monster who had destroyed the purest thing in my life."

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He took three slow, heavy steps toward me, closing the distance until I could feel the intense heat radiating from his chest. "You didn't leave because of Sofia," he rasped, his voice cracking with emotion. "You left because you needed me out of the way. You built a shadow empire using my resources, my connections, and my name while I was busy changing diapers and picking lemons in Tuscany!"

I didn't back away. I stood my ground, tilting my head up to meet his fierce glare. "I didn't destroy your empire to hurt you, Dante," I said coldly. "I destroyed it because you were terrible at protecting what mattered. You let snakes like Sofia and Carlo sit at your dinner table. You were blind. So I took the crown off your head before someone put a bullet through it."

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