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Chapter 20
Chapter 20
In the past, Dante would have responded to a blow with merciless retaliation.
But now, he simply wiped the blood from his lip, swallowing his pride as he looked at Alistair. “I’m
done fighting with you, Lima. Whatever business deals you want, whatever properties you’ve been after–they’re yours. Just… help me get Rosalie back.”
Alistair’s expression shifted from anger to incredulous disbelief. “Rosie, this was your boyfriend?” A flash of something more personal than business rivalry crossed his face. “Dante fucking Wolf?”
Rosalie’s face drained of color.
Dante kept his focus on Alistair, continuing his unprecedented surrender. “Name your price. I mean
it–anything. The Manhattan waterfront project? It’s yours. The Singapore hotels? Take them. Just let
me be with her.”
The Dante Wolf who had built an empire through ruthless negotiation was now bargaining with
everything he owned for a single chance at redemption.
Alistair’s expression hardened further. Without warning, he slammed his fist into Dante’s face again.
And again. Dante made no move to defend himself, accepting each blow as penance.
With each punch, Alistair seemed to be releasing years of pent–up hatred–not just professional
rivalry, but the personal rage of a man who had discovered his enemy had been hurting someone he
loved.
“You son of a bitch,” he snarled between blows. “Three years. You had her for three years.”
Finally, Marcus and Tyler intervened. “Jesus Christ, enough! You’re going to kill him!”
Alistair stepped back, breathing hard. “That would be doing the world a favor.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and tossed an envelope that landed with impossible weight on
Dante’s chest.
With trembling fingers, Dante opened it. Inside was an elegantly designed invitation: “Rosalie and Alistair Lima request the honor of your presence at their wedding.”
The words seemed to swim before his eyes, refusing to make sense. Each letter was a knife sliding
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between his ribs, piercing what remained of his heart.
He staggered to his feet, blood dripping from his split lip, his voice barely audible. “What is this?”
Alistair regarded him with cold satisfaction. “It’s exactly what it looks like. I’m not Rosalie’s biological brother–I was adopted into the Lima family. I’ve loved her for years while watching you manipulate and hurt her. After she finally escaped you, I showed her what real love looks like. And
she chose me.”
Each word landed like a physical blow. The pain in Dante’s chest was so severe he had to fight to remain standing.
“No,” he whispered, more to himself than anyone else. He turned to Rosalie, desperation edging his
voice toward hysteria. “Rosie, tell me this isn’t true. Tell me he’s lying.”
Please God, tell me this is some twisted joke. Some payback scheme. Anything but the truth.
Rosalie met his gaze directly, her eyes clear and resolute. “It’s true, Dante. All of it.”
“I’ve fallen in love with Alistair,” she continued, each word precise and devastating. “Your greatest enemy. The perfect irony, isn’t it? You used me to hurt him, and now I love him instead of you.”
With that final twist of the knife, she took Alistair’s hand and turned to leave.
Watching them walk away with their fingers intertwined, Dante stood frozen, the world collapsing
around him.
Behind him, his friends stared in shock. “What the actual fuck just happened?” Jason muttered. “Did she just say she’s marrying Lima? Her brother?”
Their expressions reflected the surreal nightmare unfolding before them–witnessing the untouchable Dante Wolf destroyed not by financial ruin or business failure, but by a broken heart.
Inside Dante, jealousy blazed with such intensity it threatened to consume him. The woman who had once looked at him with adoration now gave those same loving glances to the man he hated most in the world. The ultimate poetic justice–he’d used her to hurt Lima, and now Lima had truly
won her heart.
Before he could fully process what was happening, Rosalie and Alistair were already at their car, preparing to drive away.
Something snapped in Dante. He bolted forward, his fingers grabbing the edge of the window,
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knuckles white with desperation. His perfectly composed façade had completely shattered, revealing the raw, wounded man beneath.
“Rosie, you loved me,” he rasped, his voice unrecognizable. “I know you did. How could you–how could you fall for him? Just tell me why! Give me that much at least!”
Rosalie looked up at him, her expression disturbingly calm. “What right do you have to demand explanations from me?”
Her voice began evenly but gained intensity with each accusation. “You recorded our most intimate
moments to use as weapons. You orchestrated situations where I could have been seriously hurt.
You spent three years lying to my face while laughing about it with your friends.”
Her voice broke slightly before Alistair squeezed her hand, steadying her. “What part of that
deserves another chance?”
Each accusation made it harder for Dante to breathe, the weight of his actions crushing him
completely.
“Please,” he begged, a word that had perhaps never before crossed his lips sincerely. “Rosie, baby, I was wrong. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Don’t go with him. Don’t–don’t love
him.”
His fingers clung to the window as if it were his final connection to her, to sanity, to life itself.
“Dante,” she said softly, her voice almost kind, “what we had was never real to begin with. Let me
go.”
Something in Dante’s mind shattered completely at those words.
In that moment of total devastation, the car suddenly accelerated, forcing him to release his grip.
He stood motionless in the middle of the street, watching the taillights disappear into the distance, feeling as though every drop of blood was draining from his body.
Then, as if possessed, he began to run after the car.
Dante Wolf–who had once walked away from a hundred–million–dollar deal because someone had kept him waiting five minutes–was now running desperately after a woman who had clearly chosen someone else, heedless of the traffic, the stares, the total abandonment of everything that
had once defined him.
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Like the sun chasing the moon across the sky, destined never to catch up, he ran until his lungs
inned and his legs gave out, watching the distance between them grow until she disappeared from
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