Chapter 8
Gavin cracked when he learned Pierce was alive and talking.
Not because he cared about Claire.
Because his leverage disappeared.
I returned to the penthouse and found him sitting alone at the dining table under guard.
“Marco promised you my position.”
He smiled faintly.
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
“Operational control.”
I almost laughed.
“Under him.”
His face changed.
There.
He had not thought of the wording that way.
“What did you think operational control meant?”
“That I’d manage the organization while Marco handled the old families.”
“Meaning you work for him.”
“No.”
I leaned back.
“Gavin.”
He stared at the table.
I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
“You slept with my best friend, forged my signature, helped transfer my homes, and risked destroying my standing because a seventy-year-old man told you he’d finally treat you like a boss.”
His jaw tightened.
“You never did.”
There.
The marriage wound.
Not enough access.
Not enough importance.
“You married me.”
“And everybody still called me Serena Valenti’s husband.”
“That’s what you were.”
His face hardened.
“I had my own name.”
“Then you should have built something with it.”
Silence.
That landed.
Gavin had confused proximity to power with entitlement to power.
When marriage did not automatically make him equal inside Valenti leadership, resentment grew.
Marco fed it.
Claire fed his ego.
And the affair became less about desire than two people telling each other they deserved pieces of my life.
“Did you love her?”
Gavin looked toward the hallway.
Claire was not there.
He answered honestly.
“No.”
That was worse.
I nodded.
“Did you love me?”
Long pause.
“I loved what we were.”
Not me.
What we were.
The penthouse.
The invitations.
The access.
The way people watched when we entered rooms.
I understood.
Then he added:
“You weren’t supposed to come home today.”
That sentence mattered.
“You knew my schedule.”
“Yes.”
“Who changed it?”
He frowned.
“No one.”
I had come home two hours early because my meeting ended unexpectedly.
Pure chance.
Marco’s entire operation had failed because one meeting finished before lunch.
I almost laughed.
Then Gavin said:
“If you hadn’t come home, Claire would have signed the final page tonight.”
I stopped.
“What final page?”
His eyes shifted.
Another secret.
He had not told Claire everything either.
“The resignation.”
Silence.
Not property.
Leadership.
May you like
Someone had prepared a statement in my name saying I was withdrawing from Valenti command.
And apparently they intended to send it before morning.
