Chapter 14 - The Counter-Strike
The threat hung in the air between us like a physical weight, suffocating and absolute. For a long, agonizing moment, neither Anton nor I spoke. Victoria sat back against the velvet cushions, crossing her legs with supreme confidence, thoroughly enjoying her role as the puppet master.
"What do you want?" Anton asked, his voice dead, flat, and stripped of all emotion. The billionaire heir was gone; in his place stood a man ready to burn down the world to protect his wife.
Victoria’s smile faded into a look of cold, calculating business. "Simple. I don't want you in prison, Anton. You're blood, after all—even if you did marry a low-born nobody who corrupted everything my aunt built. I want what should have been mine all along."
She slid a second document across the table—a thick stack of legal papers bound with a black binder clip.
"Sign over your entire stake in Vance Global holdings, along with full ownership rights to your new design firm in Como, and transfer fifty million euros into an offshore account of my choosing," Victoria listed off, as casually as if she were ordering a cup of coffee. "Do that within forty-eight hours, and the original drive containing this video gets destroyed in front of your eyes. You walk away free, wealthy enough to start over somewhere else. Refuse... and my lawyer hits send."
I looked down at the contract, then up at Victoria’s smug, triumphant face. Something inside me snapped. The fear that had paralyzed me for the past twenty-four hours evaporated instantly, replaced by a cold, burning rage.
She thought she had us cornered. She thought we were still the panicked, reactive couple running away from ghosts. She didn't realize who she was dealing with.
I reached out and slowly pulled the contract toward me. Anton shot me a panicked, warning glance, but I ignored him, keeping my eyes locked on Victoria.
"Fifty million euros," I murmured, flipping through the first few pages. "And full control of our life's work. You're very ambitious, Victoria. I'll give you that."
"I'm practical," she corrected, raising an eyebrow. "And I know leverage when I see it. You don't have a choice, Clara. Your little chess game ended the moment I found this drive."
"You think this is a checkmate?" I asked softly. A slow, dangerous smile crept onto my lips.
Victoria frowned, her confidence wavering just a fraction. "What are you talking about?"
Instead of answering, I reached into my own designer handbag—the exact same brand and model I had carried on my wedding day—and pulled out my own tablet. I placed it right beside hers on the table and tapped the screen.
A video started playing.
It showed a dimly lit office in Milan—specifically, the private administrative offices of the rehabilitation clinic where Doña Carmela was currently staying. On the screen, a woman matching Victoria's exact description could be seen handing a heavy stack of cash to one of the clinic's corrupt head nurses in exchange for confidential medical files and restricted security logs.
Victoria’s face went sheet white. The smug arrogance vanished in a microsecond, replaced by genuine, unadulterated panic.
"Where... where did you get this?" she stammered, leaning forward and staring at the screen in disbelief.
"You really think we've been sitting on our hands in Lake Como for a year, drinking wine and painting landscapes?" I asked, my voice dripping with lethal sweetness. "When you live with a monster like Carmela for as long as Anton did, you learn to anticipate her moves before she even makes them. The moment we received that restricted call yesterday, our private security team didn't just check our perimeter—they ran a full digital trace. It didn't take long to find your IP address, your bank records, and your little financial transactions with the clinic staff."
I leaned across the table, closing the distance between us until my eyes were locked onto hers with terrifying intensity.
May you like
"Bribery of medical personnel, unauthorized acquisition of restricted medical records, and extortion," I whispered coldly. "That’s a felony in Italy, Victoria. Minimum five years in a federal penitentiary. And unlike your little edited video—which wouldn't hold up in an Italian court anyway, given that it conveniently cuts out Carmela brandishing the poison vial herself—our evidence against you is airtight, current, and already sitting in the inbox of the Milan Chief Prosecutor."
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