CHAPTER Eight

Dominics POV

I stared at the stack of files on my desk, the silence in my office a jarring contrast to the chaos of the previous few days. Plans were not going well, not with the firm, and certainly not with Liana. It was as if everything was slipping through my fingers. I had asked my guys to keep an eye on her and her movement but I was yet to hear anything. 

My phone rang, pulling me from my distraction. I glanced at the screen. Russel. This better be good news.

I answered the call, pinning the phone between my ear and shoulder.

"Dominic," Russel's voice slashed through, tight and strained. "We've heard word about Liana's movement."

I sat up straight, tension slicing through my veins like a knife forged of ice water. "Tell me about it," I drawled, trying to sound as uninterested as possible, even though every nerve in my body was on fire.

"She's attending the Blackstone Summit today." Russel said to me. "Private business retreat for tech CEOs. Invitation-only. No press, nothing leaks out. But we heard her name was on the list."

My blood ran cold. Blackstone Summit. The kind of thing where the real deals were done behind closed doors, where alliances were forged over scotch and thin smiles. It was elite, exclusive and the perfect place for Liana to make her next move. I should have realized she wouldn't have stopped at pilfering a few clients or causing a scene in the papers. She was aiming for the top. My top.

"And how do you know this?" I asked, my voice taut with suspicion, even as I attempted to be casual.

"An acquaintance of mine," Russel said quickly. "He does security. Her name is definitely on the list. She's starting some new project of hers, something personal and off the books."

My hand tightened on the phone so that my knuckles cracked. There was a storm brewing inside of me, fierce and merciless.

"I need in," I said, my voice low, cutting through the air like a blade honed in rage.

"Dominic, that's risky," Russel warned. "She'll have top security. And the Summit is invite only…"

"Get me in," I bit out. "I don't care how. Call in favors, bribe someone or better still use our connections. I want a seat at that table, and I want it now."

There was a heavy pause, then Russel's reluctant compliance, "Understood, sir."

I hung up, my fist still clenched around the phone, already racing ahead in my mind. 

Liana believed she could try something this huge and I'd never find out? She was playing with fire, and it was time somebody reminded her who she was really dealing with.

The Blackstone Summit was everything I expected and everything I despised.

The air reeked of privilege and wealth, the marble floors gleaming beneath the soft golden lighting. Influential men and women mingled through the grand ballroom, their conversations low but intense, deals being made with a smile and a handshake. Waiters in impeccable attire slid by with trays of champagne and rare delicacies.

It was a world built on appearances, on whoever could hold their cool longest while plotting behind the back of everyone. Precisely the kind of place Liana would thrive in now-  confident, poised, and untouchable.

Thanks to Serena's connections, I had managed to skirt the exclusive guest list. I made the cut by title and reputation alone, but tonight, I wasn't here to network. Tonight, I was hunting.

I stood by the entrance for a while, blending into the background, letting my eyes scan the crowd. Where are you, Liana? My heart thudded with a low, persistent beat.

And then I saw her.

She was at the other side of the room, near the open bar, standing in a small cluster of industry moguls. She was laughing at something, her posture relaxed, her smile shiny but cold. She was wearing a black dress that hugged her body, her hair tied up chicly, a few loose strands sweeping her sharp jawline.

Something about her was different — a new kind of authority in her gait, a glint of steel behind her dark eyes. She wasn't the woman who used to walk two steps behind me, deferring to my precedence. No, this Liana was lethal.

I felt a barbaric satisfaction coil in my belly. She believed she had won. She believed she could weave circles around me.

Not tonight.

I began to thread my way through the crowd, my gaze locked on her, the laughter and conversation around me breaking down into a shapeless hum. I walked softly, stalking. I didn't call out to her, not yet. I waited until she made her way towards a less populated hallway, splitting off from the business of the main event. Perfect.

I followed after her, my shadow followimg behind me in the dim light.

When I was close enough that she could feel me there, I called her name, my voice rough and deliberate.

"Liana."

She stopped dead in her tracks. For a moment, she didn't stir. Then, slowly, she turned to me.

Believe me when I say her face was a masterpiece of control; calm, impassive, not so much as a flicker of surprise in her dark eyes. She looked like she had been expecting me. 

"Dominic," she said, her tone even, though I caught the subtle set of her jaw. "You have no business being here."

"Neither do you," I snapped, bridging the distance between us in two strides. I could feel the tension crackling between us, knife-edged.

"This little game of yours," I spat, "how far do you think it'll get you? You're using the knowledge you got when we were still married, aren't you? Do you think you can get the better of me?"

Her lips curled into a half-smile, icy and razor-edged. "You think I used you?" she whispered, her voice cutting through the space between us like a blade. "You think that's what this was about?"

The fury bubbling inside me burned even more intensely. "You used to do anything I told you. Anything. Then one day you disappeared and returned with your own little kingdom and now you're going to stand there and tell me you didn't take advantage of me?"

I could taste the bitterness leaking through my words. I despised how vulnerable I sounded.

Liana tilted her head to one side, studying me as she would some strange and lethal creature. "I didn't use you, Dominic. And in all honestly, you actually used me. You wanted someone beautiful on your arm. Someone to smile nicely at your functions , you barely even paid attention to my ideas and when you did, I had to keep shut while you presented my ideas as your own."

The words hit harder than I had expected. I reeled as if she had stripped away all the lies that I had ever told myself about what we had been.

"I treated you like an equal," I said in a raspy voice, but the words sounded like a lie even to my own ears.

She let out a short, humorless laugh. "No, Dominic. You used me as a trinket. A trophy wife. I was never your partner. I was your decoration." 

My fists were tight at my sides. I wanted to protest. I wanted to shout that she was wrong.

But I couldn't.

Because she wasn't.

"I learned from you," she continued, her voice low and yet feral. "You taught me to keep my mouth shut until the moment was right. To build myself in silence. And when the moment was right, I struck. You thought I was passive. Why do you have an issue with me playing your own game?”

My heart pounded in my chest with a painful thud. I stepped closer, the air between us tense and sparking like a live wire. "What's your plan, Liana?" I questioned, my voice rough and desperate. “So what? You're just rewriting history, trying to make yourself the hero?"

She shook her head, icy anger blazing hotter in her eyes. "No," she said, each word calculated. "I'm not rewriting history. I'm making my own."

The words left me breathless.

Neither of us moved for a moment. We just stood there, two storms waiting to collide.

"You should be careful," I said finally, my voice low. "You don't know who you're up against."

"I know exactly who I'm up against," she retorted, her eyes never leaving mine. "A man who's afraid to lose everything because for once, he's not in control."

I looked at her, something inside of me unraveling. I'd thought she was the same woman who'd once needed me to protect her, to lead her. She wasn't.

She'd become something else. Something stronger. Something terrifying.

"What's your endgame?" I asked, more curious than I wanted to admit.

Her smile spread, slow and cruel. "No need for me to say it honey," she breathed. "You'll see it. Your life's gonna play out like a movie, Dominic and trust me, it's gonna be a horror show."

She touched my shoulder once, mockingly, then turned and walked away with a confidence and grace that made me feel sick

I simply stood there in the empty hallway, my hands shaking with anger and something colder — fear. 

Liana was no longer a thorn in my flesh. 

She was my worst nightmare. 

And that frightened me.