She steps away from me, pacing in tight circles like a caged animal searching for an escape it knows doesn’t exist. Her hands go to her hair, destroying the immaculate bun she kept perfectly intact all day, dark strands falling around her face as she processes the impossible options I’m putting in front of her.
“You’ll destroy me,” she finally says—not as an accusation, but as a simple statement of fact. “If you make this public, if you take this to international courts, if you force this battle… you’ll destroy everything I built. My reputation as a serious executive. My position at De Rossi that I earned through years of brutal work. My credibility as a mother who deserves custody. It will all collapse.”
“I don’t want to destroy you,” I say, and it’s true, even if she probably doesn’t b
