Chapter 4 - THE WHISPERS OF REVENGE
Three days after the disastrous wedding, Vivienne Hale sat in the opulent penthouse suite overlooking downtown Rochester. The penthouse was leased under a luxury corporate account belonging to Sterling Pharmaceuticals. From her velvet armchair, she sipped herbal tea, watching the morning news broadcast replay footage of Dominic Vescari leaving Bellmere House with his head held high.
Her phone buzzed on the glass coffee table. The caller ID flashed Arthur Sterling.
“Arthur,” Vivienne answered, smoothing the silk robe she wore.
“Did you see the news?” Arthur’s voice was tense, laced with a strange mixture of irritation and anxiety. “The man is acting like nothing happened! He’s doubling down on the state pharmaceutical contract. His legal team just filed a massive expansion request for our distribution routes, and his stock hasn't dropped a single fraction of a point.”
Vivienne frowned, a knot of unease tightening in her stomach. “That’s impossible. I left him the letter. I made it clear how humiliating it was. Dominic is proud; public abandonment should have destroyed him.”
“Pride is a disease, Vivienne, and Dominic Vescari is infected with it,” Arthur snapped over the line. “Listen to me. I need you to log back into his secondary server network using the administrative backdoor credentials you downloaded before you left. I need to see his final bid numbers for Tuesday’s auction before the sealed envelopes are submitted.”
Vivienne hesitated. A cold shiver ran down her spine. During the two years she had lived with Dominic, she had learned one terrifying truth: Dominic Vescari never forgave betrayal. His legitimate facade—the charities, the real estate, the clean corporate boards—was just armor. Beneath it lay the man who had taken over a ruthless family empire before his thirtieth thirtieth birthday.
“Arthur, I can’t just hack back into his network,” Vivienne said nervously. “His cybersecurity team is military-grade. If Gabriel Moretti catches even a trace of data pinging our old IP address—”
“You’re getting two million dollars and a penthouse apartment in my name!” Arthur interrupted sharply, his voice dropping into a harsh whisper. “You wanted out of that gilded cage with a disabled man. You wanted financial security. Now you do what I pay you to do, or you can pack your bags and find somewhere else to live when my accountants audit your accounts.”
The call disconnected with a sharp click.
Vivienne dropped her phone onto the couch, her hands trembling. She walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out over the city. For months, she had convinced herself that leaving Dominic was an act of self-preservation—that she couldn't bear the constant hospital visits, the architectural limitations of their lifestyle, the quiet pity of society. But looking at the distant silhouette of Vescari Tower piercing the cloudy sky, a terrifying realization washed over her: she hadn't escaped a prison. She had walked out of a fortress just as the gates were closing, and now she was trapped outside in the cold, beholden to a man who viewed her as a disposable tool.
Meanwhile, miles away inside Vescari Tower, Dominic sat in his private study. On his dual monitors, a stream of encrypted data lines scrolled continuously in green text.
Gabriel stood beside the desk, watching a secondary tracking console. “Dom, you were right. Someone just attempted to ping our secondary server network using an administrative credential set that was assigned to Vivienne’s old tablet.”
Dominic didn't look surprised. He reached out and tapped a key on his keyboard. “Trace the IP address.”
“Already on it,” Gabriel smiled grimly. “It’s routing through a proxy server registered to a residential building downtown... leased by Sterling Pharmaceuticals.”
Dominic leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his chest. A cold, calculating light danced in his gray eyes.
“Don’t block the intrusion, Gabriel,” Dominic instructed quietly.
“Don’t block it?” Gabriel frowned. “You’re going to let her steal our data?”
“Not our real data,” Dominic corrected with a thin smile. “Feed her the decoy file. The one with inflated cost projections and flawed distribution schedules. Let Arthur Sterling base his entire state contract bid on my fake numbers.”
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Gabriel’s eyes widened, followed by a slow, appreciative grin. “If Arthur undercuts our decoy bid by two percent, his profit margins will evaporate into millions of dollars in losses. He’ll bankrupt Sterling Pharma within six months.”
“Greed is a fatal flaw,” Dominic said softly, turning his wheelchair to face the sprawling view of the city. “Let them take the bait. The trap is set.”
