The press hall at the Vasconcelos Group headquarters had been designed to make powerful men look calm.
Dark wood. Soft lights. The company emblem behind the podium at the perfect height for photographs. Dante had stood there for acquisitions, crisis responses, strategic announcements, and controlled apologies that never truly apologized. He knew where to look. When to pause. How to turn silence into authority.
Tonight, none of that mattered.
Livia Andrade stood beside him.
Not behind. Not hidden. Not polished into a version society could digest. She wore a simple navy dress, her hair pulled back, her face pale but lifted. No diamonds. No borrowed wealth. No armor except dignity, the thing strangers were trying to strip from her one headline at a time.
Dante looked at the cameras and u
