The quarterly reports on my desk screamed disaster, a level of calculated ruin that would impress even Sun Tzu. Every lost deal, every failed merger, every conveniently timed bad press—it all pointed to a corporate war so sneaky, it took me three years to even realize it was happening.
"Sir?" Jennifer, my assistant, stood in the doorway, wearing that expression that spells bad news. "That Romano Enterprises report you asked for? It's ready."
I'd been dreading this ever since Victoria Chen dropped her Bella bombshell a couple of hours ago. I'd hoped she was exaggerating and that my ex-wife just got a decent job with her family's business. Turns out, the truth was worse than I thought.
"Romano Enterprises," I read from the summary, "private company worth about sixty-eight billion euros. M
