The night pressed heavy over Milan, shadows pooling against the velvet curtains of Elena's study. She sat cross-legged on the Persian rug, her father's leather trunk open before her. Dust clung to the edges, the scent of cedar and old paper wafting up as though her father's memory had seeped into every crease.
Her hands trembled as she pulled out the yellowed folders, one by one. She had gone searching for supplier contracts, anything to buy Rossi more time. What she found instead stopped her breath.
Letters.
Typed, signed, sealed with her father's initials. Letters addressed to Dante Moretti.
She unfolded the first, eyes skimming the words.
Dante,
The market shifts faster than we can react. I believe Rossi's survival lies in aligning with you. Our visions may differ, but your strength shields what I cannot. Should something happen to me, look after my daughter. She is brilliant, but young, and this world is not merciful.
Elena's throat closed. Another letter echoed the same sentiment. And another, this one bolder.
Perhaps a merger. Perhaps not. But I trust you more than I trust my own board.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no."
Her father, the man who taught her to fight, who told her never to bow, had considered merging with the very man now circling her like a predator. Worse, he had trusted him.
The rug blurred beneath her gaze as tears welled, hot and angry. "You were supposed to protect me, Papa," she murmured. "Not hand me to him."
—----
Elena couldn't wait till morning, she stormed into Moretti Tower, fury blazing through every stride. Dante was working late, the receptionist had closed for the day. No one was available to announce her arrival.
She flung open the glass doors to his office.
Dante looked up, calm as ever, a predator interrupted mid-feast. His dark brows arched, but he did not rise.
"Elena," he drawled. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
She slapped the letters onto his desk, pages fanning like daggers. "You tell me."
He glanced at them, his expression unreadable.
"My father trusted you," she spat. "He wrote that you would protect me. That you were his shield. That he believed in you more than his own board!" Her voice cracked. "Did you manipulate him? Is that what you do, Moretti? Worm your way into dying men's confidences so you can gut their legacies when they are gone?"
For the first time, Dante's composure faltered. His gaze flickered, not with guilt, not with arrogance, but something softer, something she did not want to name.
She stepped closer, trembling with rage. "Tell me. Tell me the truth. Did you use my father?"
But Dante said nothing. Not a word.
The silence was unbearable. She wanted him to fight back, to deny it, to confirm it, anything. Instead, he simply watched her, his stillness more excruciating than an attack.
She slammed her palms against the desk. "You disgust me."
He did not move. He did not answer. And that, somehow, broke her more than if he had confessed.
—------
Back in her apartment, Elena paced the length of her living room, the letters crumpled in her hands.
He could have denied it. He could have laughed in my face. He could have explained. But silence? What does that mean?
Her chest heaved, thoughts spiraling.
He acts like a wolf, but what if Papa was right? What if beneath the teeth there's something else? What if... he was never my enemy at all?
She pressed her knuckles to her lips, shaking her head. "No. No, I can not think like that. He's dangerous. He's trying to control me. He always has."
And yet, even as she told herself that, the echo of her father's words gnawed at her. Look after my daughter.
—------
Two days later, her boardroom turned to ice. The head of finance laid out the numbers with brutal clarity.
"Signorina Rossi, our creditors have lost patience. Unless we restructure and show profitability within ninety days, they will initiate liquidation proceedings."
The words slammed into her like fists. Ninety days. That was no time at all.
She forced herself upright, her voice steel despite the panic clawing inside. "We will find a way. We will launch the new line early, renegotiate supplier contracts, increase exports..."
But the director cut her off. "These creditors are not inclined to patience. And the largest among them is Lucent Holdings."
Her stomach dropped. Lucent. She knew that name. Everyone in Milan did. A financial empire with a reputation for ruthless takeovers.
"And who leads Lucent now?" she demanded.
The director hesitated. "Alessia Romano."
The name hit like a slap. Alessia, her childhood friend turned enemy. The girl who once mocked Elena's dream of leading Rossi, who sneered at her for being "the spoiled princess with shoes too shiny to dirty."
Elena's pulse raced. Alessia, the creditor holding Rossi's leash.
And worse, Alessia, the woman the tabloids whispered was Dante's fiancée.
The board buzzed nervously, but Elena barely heard them. Her world tilted, the floor yawning beneath her.
Ninety days. Alessia Romano. Dante's silence.
It was too much.
—-----
That night, as Elena sat in her office long past midnight, head buried in her hands, her phone buzzed with an email notification.
Subject line: Lucent Holdings – Deadline Extension
Her breath caught as she read. The creditors had agreed to a temporary delay, ninety days stretched to one hundred twenty.
Relief hit her like oxygen after drowning. She sagged back in her chair, whispering, "Thank God."
But she did not know, could not know, that in a penthouse across the city, Dante Moretti had just ended a phone call with Alessia.
"Delay it," he had told her, his voice like iron. "Give her time."
Alessia's laugh had been sharp, cold. "Still protecting her, Dante? Even when she spits in your face?"
"Do it," he said, ending the call.
He stood by the window, staring out over Milan, his reflection fractured by glass. For once, the mask of ruthless composure slipped, and the weight of something unspoken flickered in his eyes.
—-------
In her study, Elena smoothed the letters again, tracing her father's handwriting. The extension gave her breathing room, but not enough to quiet the storm inside.
Her father's trust. Dante's silence. Alessia's shadow looming closer.
The clock was ticking, the board restless, the vultures circling.
And though she did not know it, the most dangerous predator was not Dante Moretti at all. It was the childhood rival turned creditor, the woman who held Rossi's fate in her manicured hands... and who would stop at nothing to see Elena fall.
She sighed and took a long breath.