Chapter 6 - The Panic in the Stone HouseDante Moretti returned home at 7:00 PM that evening, exhausted from a grueling day of arbitrating dockworker strikes and reviewing the Cross Shipping merger with Vivien.
He strode into the stone house, expecting the quiet, warm welcome he had taken for granted for over a decade.
"Isabella?" he called out, loosening his tie as he walked through the cavernous foyer.
Silence greeted him.
He frowned, walking into the kitchen. The marble counters were spotless. No coffee brewing. No dinner warming in the oven.
Instead, his eye caught the single white envelope resting beside the coffee maker.
Dante walked over, his heart suddenly picking up an erratic, uncomfortable beat. He picked up the envelope, pulled out the heavy cream stationery, and read the single sentence.
I left the ivory scarf in the glove box where it belonged; you can keep the empire, but you lost the only real thing you ever had.
Dante stared at the words, the blood draining entirely from his face.
"No," he whispered, tossing the note aside as he bolted up the stairs toward the master bedroom.
He threw open the walk-in closet doors.
Her side was completely empty. The custom hangers hung in neat, agonizing rows like a row of rib bones. Her shoes were gone. Her perfumes were gone. Even the small silver dish where she kept her everyday rings sat completely bare.
He ran back downstairs, whipped out his phone, and dialed her number.
The subscriber you have dialed is not in service, or has been permanently disconnected.
"Damn it!" Dante roared, throwing his phone against the stone fireplace, shattering the glass screen into a thousand pieces.
He rushed to his study, ripped open his desk drawer, and pulled out his encrypted satellite phone, dialing Marcus Vance’s direct line.
"Marcus!" Dante shouted the moment the line connected. "Get the tracking teams on this now! My wife has left the house! Find her car, find her credit cards, find out where she went!"
There was a heavy, chilling pause on the other end of the line.
"Mr. Moretti," Marcus’s voice came back, cold, flat, and dripping with undisguised contempt. "I checked the private aviation manifests an hour ago. Mrs. Moretti boarded a first-class flight to London under her maiden name at 10:30 AM this morning. Her personal trust accounts were closed out three weeks ago. Her passport is stamped, and she has legally filed for divorce through an international family law firm in Zurich."
Dante froze. The phone slipped slightly in his sweating palm.
"Divorce? She can't divorce me without my sign-off! I am Dante Moretti!"
"You were Dante Moretti, boss," Marcus said quietly. "You thought you were playing chess with Vivien Cross, while Mrs. Moretti quietly packed up the board and walked out of the room."
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The line clicked dead.
Dante stood alone in the dark, silent study of his seventeen-room stone house. For the first time in his life, the mighty syndicate boss realized that all his money, all his power, and all his ruthless control couldn't buy back the one woman who had truly loved him—and whom he had carelessly traded away for a ghost.
