Revenge Is Mine

12: Adrenaline Crash

Chiara Moretti

The ride back to Alessandro's estate was totally quiet. I rested my head against the car window and just watched the city blur by.

Back in the office, I was fierce, untouchable, and I had all the power but the second I stepped through the front doors of the estate, all that energy just drained right out of me. The high of the fight wore off, leaving me feeling like I had run a marathon. I was just so tired.

I didn't go up to my bedroom. Instead, I walked down the long hallway and went straight into the library. It was my favorite room in the house. I took off my high heels and left them near the door. I walked over to the sofa sitting by the window, curled my legs up under me, and let out a long, heavy breath. I just sat there in the quiet, watching the sun start to set over the back gardens.

I finally had him, I had the man who ruined my life begging and panicking. I should have been jumping for joy, but I wasn't.

The door pushed open a few minutes later, and Alessandro walked into the room. He had taken off his suit jacket and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. He looked relaxed, completely different from the terrifying man I saw in the underground bunker the night before.

He was holding two large glasses of red wine. "I thought I might find you hiding in here," he said, his voice deep and easy.

He walked over and handed me one of the glasses, he sat down on the other end of the sofa, giving me plenty of space. "Rough day?" he asked, taking a sip of his wine.

I stared down at the dark red liquid in my glass. "It was a long day, Marco came to the office."

"I know," Alessandro said. He leaned back into the sofa, resting his arm along the back. "My guys were tracking his phone, they also caught something else this afternoon. I figured you would want to know."

I looked up at him. "What did they catch?"

Alessandro let out a short, amused sound. "Someone hired a really cheap private investigator to look into Viviana Marino. They tried to dig into your background, looking for old bank records, old addresses, anything they could use. My tech team flagged it immediately."

My heart did a quick, hard thump in my chest. "Did they find anything?"

"Chiara," Alessandro said, looking right at me with total confidence. "They found nothing, my tech guys actually laughed at them. They hit a firewall so thick they bounced right off. They got the exact fake history we built for Viviana and not a single drop more, nobody is getting past my walls. You are perfectly safe."

I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding. "Now, tell me about Marco. How much did he sweat?"

A small, genuine smile finally broke through on my face. "A lot. He looked awful, Alessandro. Like he hadn't slept for a week. He came in begging and apologizing for Alesia's behavior, I told him to cage his dog and that he was acting completely unprofessional."

Alessandro smirked, clearly loving the fact that I put Marco in his place. "And the money?"

"I dropped the bomb," I told him, taking a sip of my wine, "I told him my auditors found the overseas accounts. I told him I paused the fifty-million-euro investment until he could explain every single missing penny going to Blackwood Holdings."

"Good," Alessandro nodded. "That means his mafia bosses are going to start breathing down his neck very soon, he is trapped. What did he say when you asked about the accounts?"

My smile faded, the anger from the meeting came rushing right back, and I gripped my wine glass tighter. "He lied, of course," I said, my voice dropping. "He made up some garbage about secret international expansions and advanced tax strategies." I stopped for a second, feeling a hard lump in my throat. "But that wasn't the worst part."

"What did he do?"

"He blamed it on me," I said, "He sat right across my desk, looked me dead in the eye, and told me that his late wife was the one who made the messy accounts. He told me that she made bad choices before she died, and he has spent the last two years trying to clean up her mess."

Alessandro didn't say a word, but the air in the room suddenly felt heavier. His jaw locked tight, and his eyes went completely dark.

"He used my name to cover his dirty tracks," I whispered, shaking my head. "After everything he did to me. After he watched my car go up in flames, he still uses my memory as a shield. It made me feel sick to my stomach, I wanted to reach across the desk and choke him."

"We will," Alessandro promised quietly. "We will take everything from him, and when he has absolutely nothing left, he will know it was you who took it."

I looked at Alessandro. Sitting there, I couldn't help but compare the two men. Marco always tried so hard to look powerful. He wore the loudest watches, drove the fastest cars, and talked down to everyone around him just to make himself feel big. But underneath all of that, he was just a weak, pathetic coward who hid behind dead women and lied to save his own skin.

Then there was Alessandro. He didn't have to try to be powerful; he just was. He owned every room he walked into without saying a word. He made me feel safer than I had ever felt in my entire life.

It was crazy, but the most dangerous man in Italy was the only person I fully trusted. "How do you actually feel, Chiara?" Alessandro asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I blinked. "What do you mean? I just told you, I am angry."

"No," he said, shaking his head slowly. "I mean under the anger."

I opened my mouth to say I was fine, but the lie wouldn't come out. I looked down at my lap, and my walls slowly started to come down. "I thought it would feel good," I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. "I spent two years dreaming about this, dreaming about seeing Marco's face when he realized he was trapped. I thought revenge would feel like winning a prize. I thought it would make me happy."

I looked back up at Alessandro. My eyes burned a little, but I didn't cry. "But it doesn't make me happy," I told him honestly. "It just feels heavy. Seeing him sweat today didn't give me my old life back, it didn't bring my dad back. It just reminded me of how broken everything is."

"Revenge is never pretty," Alessandro said gently. He rested his elbows on his knees, leaning closer to me. "People who say revenge is sweet have never actually taken it. It is an ugly, dirty business. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. But sometimes, Chiara, it is the only way to clean the slate. You are cutting a rotten piece out of your life. It is going to hurt, and it is going to feel heavy but once he is gone, you can finally breathe again."

He understood... he actually understood the dark place my mind was in, and he didn't judge me for it. "I am just tired," I said softly.

"I know," he replied.

A quiet, comfortable silence fell between us. The sun finally dipped below the trees outside, casting long shadows across the library floor. We just sat there together. There was no pressure to talk, no pressure to plan our next move against Marco. For the first time all day, I just got to exist.

I finished the last sip of my wine and rested the empty glass on my knee. Alessandro reached over. "Let me take that."

As he took the glass from my hands, his knuckles gently brushed against the side of my hand. The touch was so light, barely there at all. But a sudden, warm spark shot up my arm.

I froze. I left my hand exactly where it was. I looked at his hand, taking the glass from me and setting it on the small table next to the sofa. He didn't make a big deal out of it. He just settled back into his spot, keeping me company in the quiet room.

I let out a slow, silent breath. My heart was beating a little faster.