“Good afternoon, Ms. Lau.” Stacey, the receptionist for the Russo Group’s executive floor, greeted me with a bright smile.
“Hi, Stacey. I brought some lunch for Dante.” I held up the paper bags. “Is he in his office?”
It was my first time showing up unannounced at his workplace. He could’ve eaten lunch already, but knowing him, he hadn’t. If we didn’t eat together, he was likely to skip his afternoon meals altogether.
“Yes, but he’s in a meeting,” she said after a brief moment of hesitation. “I’m not sure when he’ll be out.”
“That’s all right. I can wait for him in the guest lounge.”
I could easily answer emails and check in with the wedding vendors on my phone while I waited. The Legacy Ball was my top priority for now, but once it was over, I needed to double down on wedding prep.
“Are you sure?” Stacey sounded doubtful.
When I reassured her I was okay with waiting, she relented.
The floor had emptied for lunch, and my flats fell softly on white marble as I made my way through the office.
The Russo Group’s corporate headquarters was a study in sleek modernity mixed with Old World elegance. Black lacquer and glass reflected ornate gold accents and gilt-framed paintings; lush flowers blossomed next to sculptural stoneware painted in varying neutral shades.
The guest lounge sat at the far end of the floor, but I only made it halfway when I heard a familiar voice—one that didn’t belong to Dante.
My stride broke a few feet outside Dante’s office. The tinted windows prevented me from seeing inside, but the tense conversation within bled through the door.
“You have no idea what you’ve done.” My father’s harsh timbre skated down my spine, leaving trails of ice in its wake.
If the rest of the floor hadn’t been so quiet, I wouldn’t have been able to hear him. As it stood, his words came through faint but clear.
My heart picked up pace. I’d planned to check on him later as Agnes had suggested, but I never would’ve guessed he would be here. Right now, in Dante’s office, without so much as a warning or notice.
My father rarely visited New York during the work week, and he never dropped in without telling me either before or right after he landed.
So what was he doing here on a random Monday afternoon?
“I know precisely what I’ve done,” Dante drawled. Low. Dark. Deadly. “The last time you showed up uninvited, you had the upper hand. You used my brother to get to me. I’ve simply evened the scales.”
His brother. Luca.
My stomach hollowed. What had my father done?
“No, you haven’t. You didn’t find all of them.” Despite his confident delivery, my father’s voice dipped toward the end. It was a nervous tic I’d picked up on when I was a teenager.
“If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here,” Dante said, sounding at once amused and indifferent. “You would’ve run to Romano with one of your backups. Yet you took the time out of your busy workday to fly to New York and see me. It doesn’t scream upper hand anymore, Francis. It screams pathetic.” A small rustle. “I suggest you return to Boston and deal with your company instead of embarrassing yourself further. I’ve heard it could use some help.”
A long silence followed, punctuated by the rapid thuds of my heart.
“You’re responsible for the fake reports.” Realization, fury, and a hint of panic rolled beneath my father’s accusation, threatening to split it apart at the seams.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dante’s tone maintained its indifference. “But it seems serious. All the more reason for you to leave and get a handle on things before the press catches wind of it. You know how…vicious they can get once they scent blood.”
“Fuck the press!” My father’s voice escalated into a shout. “What the fuck did you do to my company, Russo?”
“Nothing it didn’t deserve. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
The paper bags crumpled in my fist. Blood roared in my ears, making their conversation that much harder to hear, but I forced myself to strain and listen.
I had to know what they were talking about.
I had to confirm the horrible inkling in my stomach…even if it destroyed me.
“Vivian will never forgive you for this.” My father’s snarl was that of a wounded tiger. I’d never heard him so angry, not even when Agnes and I broke his favorite Ming vase while playing hide and seek as children.
A brief, loaded pause.
“You’re assuming I care what she thinks.” Dante’s voice was so cold it turned my blood to ice. “Might I remind you I was forced into this engagement? I never willingly chose her as my fiancée. You blackmailed me into it, Francis, and now, your leverage is gone. So don’t come into my fucking office and try to use your daughter to save yourself. It won’t work.”
“If you don’t care, then why haven’t you broken the engagement yet?” my father taunted. “Like you said, you were forced into it. The first thing you should’ve done after getting rid of the photos was get rid of her.”
A painful crack in my chest drowned out Dante’s reply. A burn ignited somewhere north of my heart and spread behind my eyes, so intense I feared it would leave nothing except ashes behind.
I was forced into this engagement…
I never willingly chose her…
You blackmailed me into it…
The words echoed in my head like a nightmare stuck on a broken loop.
Suddenly, it all made sense.
Why Dante agreed to marry me when he didn’t need my father’s business, money, or connections.
Why he’d been so cold toward me at the start of our engagement.
Why Luca had disliked me, and why my intuition had always questioned the reasoning Dante gave for the engagement. I’d overlooked the flimsiness of the market access excuse because it’d been the only plausible one at the time, but now…