Sienna
I never liked glass walls.
They're too honest. Too exposed. You can't hide anything—your movements, your reflections, your fear. And living in Dominic Russo's penthouse was like living in a glass cage with the lion just out of reach… watching.
It was day three of being Mrs. Russo. The title still made my skin crawl.
I hadn't seen Dominic since the night he came home late from his meeting and offered a clipped goodnight before disappearing into the master bedroom. He hadn't come out the next morning. Not for coffee. Not for breakfast. Not even to gloat.
Good.
I needed the silence. It gave me time to think.
To plan.
To look again.
I was back in his private study—a room too sterile to feel lived-in, yet too carefully arranged not to hide something. A digital fireplace flickered soundlessly across one wall. Books arranged by color. Not topic. Not author. Just… aesthetics.
Perfect. Like everything in his life.
Too perfect.
The file my father once mentioned—the one he said could bury Dominic—had to be real. I knew my father's paranoia well enough to trust it. The question was, where would he hide something so powerful?
Not here. Not in Russo's territory.
But maybe he'd left a clue. Something small. Something easy to overlook.
I pulled open the desk drawer again. There was a stack of old press clippings, a sleek fountain pen, and an engraved watch in its box. Expensive, obviously. But the brand... it wasn't something Dominic would wear. I tilted the box and found a folded note tucked beneath.
My pulse ticked faster.
"To Richard – For protecting what mattered. – A.R."
A.R.
Not Dominic.
Not his.
I stared at the watch again. Why was something addressed to my father in this apartment?
Unless…
Unless Dominic had taken more than just the company.
Unless he'd taken my father's secrets too.
Dominic
She'd found the watch.
I saw it the moment I stepped into the study. It was slightly off its usual angle. Not something most people would notice. But she wasn't most people.
Sienna Hart was unraveling me in ways no one had before. Not because she was aggressive. Not because she fought.
Because she watched.
Measured.
Listened more than she spoke.
It made her dangerous.
It also made her irresistible.
She was wearing her hair up today, exposing the curve of her neck as she leaned over the desk. The silk of her blouse clung to her spine, and I hated how much I noticed that.
This wasn't supposed to be about desire. It was supposed to be about control.
"Looking for something?" I asked casually.
She didn't startle. She just closed the drawer with slow precision.
"A pen," she said. "To sign the catering invoice."
"There's a dozen pens in the other drawer."
She turned and met my gaze. Calm. Defiant.
"So you check which drawer I use now?"
I gave a half-smile. "I check everything."
Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Noted."
Sienna
He saw it.
He knew I'd seen something.
But if he expected me to back down now, he'd clearly never watched me fight in a boardroom.
I moved past him, slow and unbothered, brushing his shoulder with mine as I walked to the kitchen. He didn't follow. But I felt his eyes on my back the entire time.
Later that night, I sat curled on the edge of the guest room bed, laptop open, fingers trembling over the keyboard.
I'd spent the day smiling through meetings and pretending to be the loyal wife of the man who'd stolen my life.
Now I was searching the one name I didn't recognize.
A.R.
I tried combinations.
Avery Russo? No. Dominic didn't have siblings.
Alan Reeds?
Nothing credible.
Then I typed in something different. A combination of my father's name and Russo's from a decade ago.
Richard Hart + Russo Holdings + anonymous investor.
Bingo.
A series of archived articles surfaced. One in particular stood out:
"Anonymous backer saves Hart Industries from collapse after tech crash—insiders say move was strategic."
I read it three times.
Ten years ago, my father had nearly lost everything in a market dip. He never told me. Not once.
But someone helped him.
And that someone might have had a name with the initials A.R.
I clicked through old financial blogs, then found an article buried in a defunct newsletter.
"Augusto Rinaldi — The Ghost Financier Behind Manhattan's Silent Empires."
My blood ran cold.
I'd heard the name before. Years ago, whispered in elite circles. He was the one investors turned to when they were desperate—and willing to sell more than equity.
He didn't just fund companies.
He took them.
And Dominic Russo had worked for him.
Briefly. Quietly. Before he exploded onto the scene with enough capital to scare the sharks.
Dominic had always claimed he built his empire from nothing.
But what if he inherited a bloodied throne?
Dominic
She was too quiet that night.
Didn't eat much at dinner. Didn't ask about the new portfolio I'd handed her. Didn't complain about the wedding photos making headlines.
She was thinking. Processing.
And plotting.
I liked that.
But it meant I had to move faster.
The longer she had time to dig, the closer she'd come to truths I wasn't ready for her to hold.
Truths about Augusto Rinaldi.
Truths about what happened to her father's company long before the fraud charges.
She didn't know yet that the game began long before I ever walked into her office.
That by the time she took the CEO title, the board had already been bought.
That every move I made—from the debt claims to the marriage contract—was just the final act.
She was the last piece of the puzzle.
And I couldn't afford to let her slip out of place.
Sienna
At midnight, I heard footsteps in the hallway.
I stepped out of the guest room quietly, just in time to see Dominic leaving his study with a manila folder tucked under his arm.
He didn't see me.
But I saw the label on the folder.
HART – CLOSED FILES
My breath caught.
I waited ten seconds, then followed at a distance.
He went into the master bedroom and closed the door behind him. Locked.
Of course.
I stood there in the hallway, barefoot and furious, heart pounding like it wanted out of my chest.
So there was a file.
He had it.
And he'd lied.
He always lied.
I walked back to my room on shaky legs. My fingers ached to tear into something. Instead, I opened my laptop again and typed a new search.
Augusto Rinaldi + Hart Industries + Richard Hart.
One result.
A death certificate.
No obituary.
No press.
Just a line in legal archives.
Augusto Rinaldi – deceased.
Died six months ago. Cause of death: undisclosed.
Something didn't feel right.
If Augusto was dead, and Dominic inherited everything… what had my father gotten himself into?
And more importantly—
What had I married into?