Chapter 2 - The East Wing AuditMidnight in the De Santis estate usually sounded like luxury—the distant splash of the courtyard fountains, the soft chime of antique clocks, and the rustle of silk sheets. Tonight, for Massimo, it sounded like a ticking time bomb.
He didn't go to his penthouse in central Rome. Instead, driven by a mixture of incandescent rage and desperate curiosity, he marched down the dimly lit corridors of the estate’s oldest section, his leather shoes echoing against the ancient stone floors.
He stopped in front of the heavy oak doors of the east wing library—a restricted archive where Carlo had kept his most sensitive physical ledgers.
The door was unlocked.
Massimo pushed it open and stopped dead in his tracks.
The sprawling library, once a dusty mausoleum of forgotten history, had been transformed into a high-tech command center. Three massive monitors sat on Carlo’s heavy mahogany desk, glowing with complex algorithms, financial graphs, and international wire transfer logs written in code.
And sitting at the center of it all was Livia.
She had removed the severe hair knot; a cascade of thick, dark chestnut hair fell past her shoulders. Her oversized gray sweater was discarded over a chair, revealing a surprisingly slender, elegant frame beneath a fitted black silk blouse. She was typing with blinding speed, a silver fountain pen tucked behind her ear.
She didn't look up when the door slammed against the wall.
“You’re trespassing,” Massimo snarled, closing the heavy doors behind him with a thunderous bang.
Livia finally stopped typing. She slowly turned her chair around, resting her hands on the armrests. Without her thick glasses—which now sat casually on the desk beside a half-empty cup of espresso—her amber-brown eyes were striking, luminous, and terrifyingly clear.
“This is my library, Massimo,” she said, her voice completely devoid of the meekness she had worn downstairs. “Carlo left me the deed to this wing three years ago. Didn't you read the addendum?”
“I read a will that tries to treat me like a child!” Massimo advanced across the room, stopping right at the edge of her desk, towering over her. “You think you’ve won something, don't you? You think by trapping me into this absurd marriage, you’re going to play lady of the manor?”
Livia tilted her head, a faint, sardonic smile touching the corners of her lips. It was a smile Massimo had never seen before—sharp, confident, and utterly dismissive.
“Play lady of the manor?” Livia echoed softly. She stood up, walking over to a secure wall safe behind the desk, spinning the dial with practiced precision. “Massimo, you are an idiot if you think this marriage is about social status.”
She pulled a thick, leather-bound portfolio from the safe and dropped it heavily onto the desk right in front of him.
“What is this?” Massimo demanded, though his hands automatically reached out to flip it open.
“That,” Livia said, leaning against the desk and crossing her arms, “is a forensic audit of the De Santis shipping empire over the past eighteen months. Specifically, the accounts managed by your beloved cousin Enzo.”
Massimo’s eyes scanned the pages. As he read, the blood rushed from his face, leaving his skin stark white.
“This... this is impossible,” Massimo muttered, his voice shaking. “These accounts... they’re bleeding millions. Port authorities in Marseille and Genoa... they’re leveraged to a shell company in the Cayman Islands.”
“Not just a shell company,” Livia corrected smoothly. “Enzo has been quietly liquidating our core assets behind your back, siphoning capital to build a rival syndicate with the Moretti family. Within ninety days, if you hadn't inherited control—and if someone hadn't caught the bleeding—the entire De Santis fortune would have evaporated into thin air. You would have inherited an empty shell of debt, and Enzo would have walked away the king.”
Massimo looked up from the portfolio, staring at her as if she were a ghost. The arrogance that had defined his entire life suddenly felt like lead armor sinking him to the bottom of the sea.
“How... how long have you known about this?”
“Since your uncle discovered the first discrepancy eighteen months ago,” Livia said calmly. “Carlo knew he was dying. He knew Enzo was circling like a shark. He also knew that you were too busy racing sports cars and gracing gossip columns to notice your own house burning down.”
She stepped closer, closing the distance between them until he could smell the faint scent of vanilla and old paper.
“Carlo didn't leave you a wife as a joke, Massimo,” she whispered, her amber eyes burning into his soul. “He left you a keeper. Because without me, Enzo would have chewed you up, spat you out, and left you face down in the Tiber by the end of the month.”
Massimo’s jaw tightened. Every instinct of his spoiled, dominant ego screamed at him to deny it, to shatter the portfolio, to storm out. But the numbers on the page didn't lie.
He grabbed the edges of the desk, leaning down until their faces were inches apart.
“If you knew all of this,” Massimo rasped, his voice rough, “why didn't you just tell Carlo to give the empire to someone competent?”
May you like
Livia didn't blink. She reached out, her cool fingers lightly brushing against the lapel of his expensive suit jacket, right over his racing heart.
“Because,” she murmured, her voice dropping into a register that sent a shiver straight down his spine, “your uncle believed the De Santis name needed fire. And I happen to like playing with fire.”
