Chapter 6 The Pact

The chopper waited on the private landing pad as the last rays of dusk bled across the sky. The soft whir of its blades was the only sound that pierced the tension in the air.

Valeria stood at the edge of the helipad, her coat whipping in the wind, eyes fixed on the horizon. The silence between her and Dario stretched, heavy with unspoken truths.

"You said nothing," she said finally, her voice sharp with months of buried fury. "Nothing when I woke up in a strange bed, in a country I didn't choose, under a name I didn't agree to take. You let them marry me off like a contract."

Dario stood a few paces behind her, hands in the pockets of his tailored coat, his expression unreadable.

"I didn't let them," he said calmly. "I stopped it from becoming something worse."

She turned to face him, eyes blazing. "You think that makes you noble? You were part of it."

"I was given a choice," he replied. "Refuse the arrangement, and your company would fall into hostile hands foreign board members with quiet ties to the Levanis competitors. Or agree to the marriage under sealed terms that gave you protection, and buy us both time."

Valeria blinked. "Protection? You call this protection?"

"I call it power you don't yet realize you have."

He stepped closer now, the wind catching in his dark hair. "They thought they were using you. Ivana, your stepsister, my uncle they crafted this as a merger. A silent takeover. But I signed the marriage contract under different terms. Terms your father secretly helped draft before his death."

Valeria stiffened.

"My father...?"

Dario nodded. "Angelo knew the vultures were circling. He knew Casa Moretti wouldn't survive without someone who could play by older, more ruthless rules. He reached out to my family behind the scenes. He arranged a safety net for you a legal structure that would keep you as CEO and majority heir under one condition."

Her breath caught. "What condition?"

"That you were married into a family powerful enough to shield you, but tied to you in ways that couldn't be broken easily." Dario's voice softened. "A union of legacy. Not just blood, but strategy. You are no longer just Valeria Moretti. You are Valeria Levanis, and that name gives you more reach than you realize."

She turned her face from him, struggling to breathe past the wall of betrayal and disbelief.

"So that's it? You get to play my husband on paper while I pretend I'm not losing everything?"

Dario's gaze darkened. "No. I don't play anything. We are married. And that bond, whether either of us likes it or not, is legally binding in more than one country. That means if anyone tries to remove you from your company now, they have to come through both of us."

Valeria's silence was louder than her words.

He stepped forward again, this time gently placing something in her palm.

A silver key.

"What's this?" she asked warily.

"To your office. The original. The one your father never let anyone else enter after he passed. Ivana had it sealed and told the staff it was being renovated. But I had it unlocked yesterday."

She stared at the key. Cold. Heavy. Familiar.

"Why are you helping me now?" she whispered. "Why not before?"

He hesitated for only a second. "Because I needed you to stop trusting them first. As long as you believed Ivana could be reasoned with, you were vulnerable. Now you're angry. Now you're dangerous. That's the version of you your father believed in. And so do I."

Valeria looked up at him, startled by the sincerity in his voice.

"And what do you want in return?"

Dario met her gaze steadily. "Your word. That when we walk into that boardroom tomorrow, you stand beside me not behind me. Not in front of me. Beside. Equal in power, and unshakable in presence."

Her grip on the key tightened.

"That's all?"

He smiled, just faintly. "For now."

She turned her face toward the helicopter. "And after tomorrow?"

Dario tilted his head. "After tomorrow, you get your company back. Then we decide what kind of marriage this will be. One of convenience... or something else."

Valeria raised an eyebrow. "You're surprisingly honest for a man whose family keeps secrets under marble floors."

He chuckled, stepping past her to the chopper. "It's not honesty. It's survival. And right now, I know one thing with absolute certainty."

She followed him in, her heart pounding with purpose.

"What's that?" she asked.

He looked at her, his tone low, deliberate.

"That the woman I just handed that key to? She's not going to let anyone steal her empire."

As the blades roared to life, Valeria buckled herself in, a fire igniting behind her sternum. It wasn't just about revenge anymore. It was about reclaiming what was hers, name by name, room by room.

The jet black sky above Milan waited. So did the wolves.

But this time, she wouldn't be running.

This time, she was coming home.