Mr. De Rossi gave Dante his back after a few seconds of sharp, charged eye contact and walked briskly upstairs.
He didn’t look back. He didn’t dare.
Though his expression was stoic, his mind churned with unease. He was the one behind the attack on Jai Lorenzo. It had been nothing more than a warning, a reminder of what happened to those who refused to back down when told. But his thoughts were no longer on Jai.
They were on his son.
Even though Dante’s hands were no longer clamped around his throat, he could still feel the ghost of them. His collar pressed uncomfortably against his neck where his son had nearly strangled him in public, before dozens of witnesses.
The sha he could endure.
But the fear?
That was different.
For the first ti in a very long ti, Mr. De Rossi had felt genuine fear. Of his own blood. His own son.
He shook his head, forcing the weakness out of his chest as he approached the top floor. He would not allow this event to rattle him. He was Mr. De Rossi—respected, feared, untouchable. And if his son had lost his way, then it was simply another problem to be corrected.
When he reached the office, a man was already waiting for him.
"Did you get what I asked you to get?" he demanded as he closed the door behind him.
The man, his personal assistant Jas—stood imdiately, as if the chair had burned him. Though in his early forties, his hairline was already receding, giving him a constant look of weariness.
Jas bowed quickly in respect before answering. "Sir, I wasn’t able to find as much as I hoped. The incident happened more than two decades ago. Records are scattered. Most people don’t even rember it."
Mr. De Rossi’s eyes narrowed. "Then what did you find, Jas?"
The assistant reached into his suitcase and retrieved a neat stack of docunts. "This is everything I managed to dig up on Evangeline Montclair."
Mr. De Rossi’s lips twitched faintly. He already knew who she was. The mont he had seen Alisha stalking him that night at the bar, pretending to be casual but failing, he knew there was more to her than she let on. He had always trusted his instincts, and they rarely failed him.
Still, curiosity lingered. What was her ga? Why was she following him? What did she want?
He took the papers and skimd through them.
Jas cleared his throat nervously. "As you know, she was adopted by the Montclair family. That part is public. But I attempted to trace her lineage back to her biological parents."
"And?"
Jas swallowed. "Nothing. No nas, no history. It was as though the record had been scrubbed clean. But I did find one thing."
Mr. De Rossi looked up sharply. "Go on."
"She had an older sister who was adopted first. According to the orphanage records, the elder sister had a deep scar on her face. A married couple took her in."
Mr. De Rossi closed the docunt with a sharp snap and set it down on the desk.
"Elder sister..." he repeated slowly, tasting the words.
Jas shifted uncomfortably. "I understand it isn’t what you asked for, sir, but it was all I could uncover. Soone is deliberately blocking access to her history. Every lead went cold."
The older man’s eyes narrowed. His mind imdiately leapt to Dante. If Dante was covering for her, if he was protecting her identity...
"In that case," Mr. De Rossi said coldly, "Find the elder sister. I don’t care if she’s dead, alive, or hiding under a different na. Find sothing. Anything."
Jas nodded so quickly it was almost desperate. "Yes, sir."
Once the assistant left, the office was quiet again. Mr. De Rossi leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers.
Downstairs, chaos would still be simring. Guests whispering, security scrambling, rumors about who had dared attempt an assassination in such a public place. His reputation might take a small bruise from this, but that didn’t matter. Jai Lorenzo had received his warning—that was enough for now.
Everything was moving, shifting, aligning. And as always, he would be the one to control the pieces.
anwhile...
Alisha arrived at the BestKream building with a deep scowl fixed on her face.
The announcent of her ambassadorship had already made its way online, and the backlash had been as harsh as she’d expected. Fans had flooded her with curses, calling her a sellout for signing with a brand notorious for harmful products.
Her phone hadn’t stopped buzzing since morning. Each notification cut her deeper than she cared to admit.
By the ti she reached the shooting room for the comrcial, her mood was already dark.
But the glares from the staff only fueled her anger further.
She shot them a glare of her own, unflinching. If they thought she would shrink away, they were wrong.
"I thought they were going to bring in a top model for this," one staff mber whispered to another, not even bothering to lower his voice enough.
"They brought a rookie instead? This is going to be a disaster."
"Exactly. Just because she signed with Nix doesn’t an she deserves this. It’s probably because of her connection to Dante De Rossi. What else could it be?"
Alisha clenched her fists until her nails bit into her palm.
She wanted to whirl on them, to snap, to remind them that she had worked hard to get here. That she hadn’t begged for this opportunity—it had been handed to her, whether she wanted it or not.
But she didn’t. She bit her tongue, forcing her silence.
Beside her, however, Maxine wasn’t so composed. The woman’s eyes blazed as she stepped forward.
"Please," Maxine spat, "Co down from your high horse. You think we need you more than you need us? If you spent half the energy you waste gossiping to actually improve your products, maybe your brand wouldn’t be a global embarrassnt."
The staff froze, their faces twisting with thinly-veiled rage.
The director, uninterested in defending Alisha, cut in sharply. "Enough. Let’s begin."
Alisha said nothing. She knew where she stood. In their eyes, she was nothing more than a pawn—an easy scapegoat.
But if they thought she’d crumble under their sabotage, they were wrong.
The shoot began.
What should have been straightforward quickly spiraled into a nightmare. Every shot was not good enough. Every line had to be repeated, sotis over the most trivial mistakes. The photographer nitpicked, the staff whispered loudly enough for her to hear, and the director gave her nothing but cold indifference.
It was deliberate. She knew it.
By the ti she was given a break, her throat was raw from repeating lines, her patience stretched to its breaking point.
She leaned close to Maxine, her voice low. "Dig deeper into BestKream. I don’t trust them. If they’re planning to use this against , I want to know."
Maxine smirked confidently. "Already ahead of you. This isn’t my first job, Alisha. I’ve been digging since the contract ca in."
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