Chapter 3 - The DeSantis Citadel
The downtown headquarters of DeSantis Logistics rose like a monolith of glass and dark steel against the gray Chicago skyline. When I stepped out of the elevator on the top floor, wearing a sharp charcoal pantsuit that concealed my bruises and commanded absolute authority, I was escorted immediately into Matteo DeSantis’s private office.
The room was vast, minimalist, and dominated by floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Michigan. Matteo stood by the glass, holding a crystal tumbler of scotch. He turned as the heavy oak door clicked shut behind me.
His dark eyes swept over me, lingering for a fraction of a second on the faint swelling of my lower lip. A shadow crossed his sharply carved features, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
"Who did it?" Matteo asked, his voice low, controlled, and intensely dangerous.
"My soon-to-be ex-husband," I answered steadily, meeting his intense gaze without flinching. "Chase Whitaker."
Matteo set his glass down on the mahogany desk and walked slowly toward me. There was an arresting, magnetic power to his presence—a lethal elegance that made ordinary men look like boys. "The racing driver whose career you resurrected," he stated, not as a question, but as a known fact.
"The very same," I replied, pulling the black leather journals and my digital audit from my bag and placing them neatly on his desk. "And as of last night, he has officially terminated our marriage by throwing me out into the rain. Which means I am no longer bound by confidentiality agreements regarding his team's financial irregularities or his medical vulnerabilities."
Matteo looked down at the documents, then back up at me. A slow, appreciative smile touched the corners of his mouth. "You didn't come here to weep, Vivian. You came for total annihilation."
"Chase wanted to prove he didn't need me," I said, my voice cutting cleanly through the quiet room. "I want to show him what happens when he loses the only person holding his world together. I want his sponsorship pulled, his team audited, and his racing license challenged on medical and financial grounds."
May you like
Matteo walked around his desk, picked up the file, and closed it with a soft thud. He stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from him.
"Consider it done," Matteo murmured softly, his gaze locking onto mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. "But destroying him is only phase one, Vivian. If you want true vengeance, you don't just break his empire. You let him watch you step into a kingdom he could never even touch."
