Chapter 8 - The Heir to the Empire
The ballroom went completely, suffocatingly quiet.
I stared up at Dante, my heart skipping a beat. "What did you just say?" I whispered.
"I never filed them, Mia," Dante murmured, his dark eyes locking onto mine with a fierce, unapologetic devotion. "I signed them because you asked me to. Because you were suffocating. But I never handed them to the judge. You are my wife. Before God, the law, and every person in this room."
Khloe’s triumphant smile faltered, her face draining of color. "That’s impossible. My lawyers checked the county records."
"Your lawyers checked the public records," Dante corrected, turning his cold gaze back to his stepmother. "I had a federal judge seal the documents. Mia Moretti is the legal, sole beneficiary of the legitimate trusts you just forced me to sign over."
Khloe looked at the manila envelope in her hands. The transfer deeds she had just extorted from him didn't transfer the companies to her. They transferred them entirely to me. And as his legal wife, I was untouchable by syndicate laws.
"You played me," Khloe hissed, her hand tightening convulsively around the velvet clutch holding the detonator.
"I protected my family," Dante said, stepping slightly in front of me, shielding my body with his own. "You tried to humiliate my wife. You tried to call my child a bastard. My child is the sole, undisputed heir to the Moretti empire."
The high-society guests were murmuring frantically, scandalized and captivated by the drama unfolding before them.
Khloe’s eyes darted around the room, realizing she had lost the narrative. The public humiliation had backfired spectacularly, solidifying my position rather than destroying it.
"The warehouse is still rigged, Dante," Khloe whispered venomously, stepping closer so only we could hear. "I will press this button and burn two million dollars of your cash and your precious ledger to ash."
"Press it," Dante invited softly, a terrifying, predatory smirk touching his lips.
Khloe hesitated, confused by his calm.
"You think I would bring my pregnant wife to a hostage exchange without sweeping the location first?" Dante asked, leaning in. "My men deactivated the C4 thirty minutes before you even arrived at the warehouse, Khloe. The detonator in your purse is a useless piece of plastic."
Khloe’s breath hitched. She frantically pressed the button inside her clutch.
Nothing happened.
No distant explosion. No tremor. Nothing.
"You're completely exposed, Khloe," I said, finding my own voice, stepping out from behind Dante. I wasn't the terrified girl who had run away six months ago. I was the woman holding the keys to the empire. "You have no leverage. You have no money. And you just confessed to extortion in front of a room full of witnesses."
Khloe’s face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated hatred. She realized she had lost everything.
"I poisoned his mother," Khloe spat, aiming her venom entirely at Dante, wanting to inflict one last wound. "Your father didn't know, but I slipped the arsenic into her tea for months. That’s how I took the throne. And I will take it back, even if I have to burn this city to the ground to do it."
She turned on her heel, preparing to march out of the ballroom.
"Stop her!" Dante roared to his men stationed at the doors.
But Khloe was fast. She grabbed a champagne flute from a passing waiter, shattered it against a pillar, and held the jagged stem to the throat of a terrified socialite standing nearby.
"Nobody moves!" Khloe shrieked, backing toward the private VIP rooms adjacent to the ballroom. "I’ll kill her!"
The crowd erupted in screams, scattering like frightened birds. Dante’s men drew their weapons but couldn't fire without risking the hostage.
Khloe dragged the sobbing woman into the heavy, soundproof oak doors of the VIP suite, slamming and locking them behind her.
"Vinnie! Get the breaching charges!" Dante barked at his capo, rushing toward the doors.
He pounded a massive fist against the wood. "Khloe! Let her go! There’s nowhere to run!"
"I don't plan on running, Dante!" Khloe’s muffled voice echoed through the heavy wood. "If I can't have the empire, neither can you!"
A sudden, sharp hissing sound emanated from beneath the doors of the VIP suite.
Dante froze, his eyes widening in sheer terror. He recognized the sound instantly.
"Get everyone out of the ballroom!" Dante roared, turning to me and grabbing my arm with bone-crushing force. "Mia, we have to go! Now!"
"What is it?" I panicked, stumbling as he practically carried me toward the exit.
"She triggered the Halon fire suppression system in the VIP room," Dante shouted over the screaming crowd. "But she disabled the ventilation. It’s flooding the room with inert gas. She’s suffocating herself and the hostage."
We burst through the ballroom doors into the hallway, the chaotic stampede of guests fleeing the hotel entirely.
"We have to help that woman!" I cried, pulling against his grip.
"My men are breaching the door, but it’s reinforced steel," Dante said, his face pale with dread. "The gas displaces oxygen in seconds. By the time they get in..."
May you like
He didn't finish the sentence.
He pulled me into a secure stairwell, wrapping his arms around me tightly, burying his face in my neck as the muffled sound of a heavy explosive charge breached the VIP doors down the hall.
