Chapter 14 - Sins of the Sterling Dynasty
Three days later, the smell of smoke was replaced by the stale, pressurized air of a private hangar on the outskirts of Newark, New Jersey.
We were living in the belly of a beast. Dante had used emergency offshore channels and old, shadowy contacts from his early days to smuggle us across the border under false identities. We were now inside a fortified, bulletproof safehouse on the forty-fifth floor of an unfinished skyscraper overlooking the Manhattan skyline—a property Dante had secretly acquired years ago under an anonymous shell company named *Firefly Holdings*.
The babies were finally asleep in a makeshift crib padded with down jackets. I sat on a steel folding chair, wrapping a sterile bandage around Dante’s forearm, where a bullet had grazed his flesh during the escape down Devil’s Creek.
The alcohol stung, but he didn't even flinch. His jaw was set like granite.
"Why didn't you tell me about Marcus?" I asked softly, securing the medical tape with trembling fingers. "In five years of marriage, you mentioned your brother twice. You told me he was living in Europe, running an art foundation."
Dante let out a bitter, hollow chuckle. He looked out the floor-to-ceiling glass at the sparkling towers of Manhattan—the city he had conquered, and the city that was now hunting him like an animal.
"Marcus isn't an art dealer, Lena. He's a psychopath with an Ivy League pedigree," Dante said, his voice dripping with venom. "Our father died ten years ago. He left the empire to me because he knew Marcus would have driven it into illegal weapons trading and international money laundering within six months. Marcus never forgave me. He believed I stole his birthright."
"And that night?" I whispered, the wound in my heart still raw. "Our fifth anniversary. The hotel room. Julianna."
Dante turned to me. In the dim light of the safehouse, the agony on his face was naked and unvarnished.
"Julianna called me to that suite because she claimed she had proof Marcus was planning to leak the forged files to the FBI," Dante confessed, reaching out to touch my cheek with his uninjured hand. "When I got there, she trapped me. She threw herself at me, made sure the photographers Marcus hired were stationed on the terrace opposite the suite, and took that picture. The kiss... Lena, I pushed her away within two seconds, but the damage was done. Marcus sent the photos directly to your phone to destroy us from the inside out."
Tears pricked my eyes. The phantom scent of gardenia, the agony of seeing that photograph on my screen while holding a positive pregnancy test... it had all been orchestrated. A masterclass in psychological warfare designed to isolate Dante and break his spirit.
"He wanted you broken," I whispered.
"He wanted me to abandon the board. He knew that if I was shattered, if I ran after you, I would leave the company vulnerable," Dante said, leaning his forehead against mine. "And I did. I walked away from the throne because losing you was killing me. But by walking away, I handed Marcus the keys to the kingdom. And now, he's using our billions to buy judges, politicians, and hitmen."
Suddenly, the encrypted satellite phone on the steel table vibrated with a harsh, buzzing hum.
Dante picked it up, hitting speakerphone.
A smooth, cultured voice echoed through the concrete room—a voice that sounded chillingly similar to Dante's, but laced with theatrical cruelty.
May you like
"Hello, big brother," Marcus said. "I hear the Canadian weather was rather warm this week. Such a pity your lovely cabin burned down."
***
