Chapter 5 - The Cost of a Throne
The morning headlines detonated across the city like a cluster bomb.
FOSTER CAPITAL COLLAPSES: BILLIONAIRE ARRESTED IN MASSIVE PORT FRAUD.
FEDERAL TASK FORCE UNDER INTERNAL INVESTIGATION FOR HARBOR MISCONDUCT.
BENNETT HOSPITALITY ANNOUNCES TOTAL SEPARATION FROM ROMANO HOLDINGS.
Dante sat in his boardroom on the fortieth floor of the Romano Tower, the newspapers scattered across the glass table. Across from him sat his legal team, looking exhausted and bewildered. Every single legitimate asset Dante owned had been cleanly untangled from Foster’s toxic network overnight. The family was safe from federal prosecution. The empire was intact. Vincent Moretti had retreated back to the North Side, humbled by the legal juggernaut that had outflanked both the mob and the feds.
Yet Dante felt entirely ruined.
""Boss,"" his chief corporate counsel said, sliding a thick blue folder across the glass. ""These documents were hand-delivered to our legal department an hour ago by Clare’s personal attorneys.""
Dante didn't open it. He knew what it was. ""Divorce.""
""No, sir,"" the lawyer replied, surprising him. ""It's an asset division and post-nuptial separation agreement. Mrs. Romano has resigned from the board of directors for all joint commercial entities. She has transferred all her shares in the real estate holdings back to you for the nominal fee of one dollar. She took nothing. No alimony, no settlement, no maintenance.""
Dante slammed his fist onto the table, shattering a crystal water glass. ""Why? Why wouldn't she take half? She earned half of everything we built!""
""Because,"" Marco said quietly from the corner of the room, dismissing the lawyers with a nod so they could speak privately, ""taking your money means she still needs you for something, Dante. By walking away with nothing, she leaves you with zero leverage. She owes you nothing, and you have no way to reach her.""
""Where is she, Marco?"" Dante stood up, his towering figure trembling with a raw, desperate fury that had nothing to do with power or violence. ""I don't care if you have to turn over every borough in this city. Where is my wife?""
""She isn't in New York, boss,"" Marco answered solemnly. ""Her private flight left Teterboro at dawn. She flew to her grandmother's coastal cottage in Maine. Bennett’s Cove.""
Dante stood frozen. Bennett’s Cove was the place Clare had taken him seven years ago, right after he had taken three bullets during the Brooklyn turf wars. She had cleaned his wounds with her own hands in that small seaside cottage, feeding him broth, holding him while he shivered through the fever, promising him that no matter how dark his world became, she would always be the light guiding him home.
And now, she had returned there to extinguish the light completely.
""Cancel all my meetings for the week,"" Dante ordered, grabbing his coat.
May you like
""Boss, the families are expecting you to sit at the commission table on Thursday to finalize the harbor rights,"" Marco warned. ""If you disappear now, they’ll think you're vulnerable.""
Dante turned to his oldest friend, his eyes burning with an intensity Marco had never seen in fifteen years of service. ""Let them take the harbor, Marco. Let them take the towers, the ships, and every dollar in the vaults. If I lose Clare, there is no empire worth defending.""
