Betrayal
Dante
Valeria is still on the floor when security arrives. I open the door and let them in.
“Get her out of my sight.”
The two men haul her to her feet and drag her away without ceremony. She doesn’t resist.
That detail hits me harder than I expect.
She could’ve fought back. Protested. Begged.
She does nothing.
Like someone who’s already lost everything.
I shove the thought away.
The second I’m alone again, I dial Andrea’s number while watching the progress bar on the screen.
37%.
“Come,” I say. “I need to know what she tried to steal.”
“Already?” he asks, stunned. “Seriously. I never would’ve believed she could do something like this. What the hell was she thinking?”
His confusion mirrors mine. To him, she’s like a sister.
She betrayed all of us.
After a brief pause, he adds:
“How are you holding up?”
I don’t bother hiding it.
“I’ll survive.”
“Don’t do anything irreversible. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Is he talking about the data?
Or my relationship with my ex-wife?
*
By the time he arrives, the progress bar has reached 83%.
Yasin comes with him — a white-hat hacker in his thirties, the same man who installed Valeria’s workstation the day before.
He sits down at the computer, types for a moment, then finally looks up.
“Nothing was stolen.”
I frown.
“What do you mean? I saw the progress bar.”
“Yeah. But it was encrypting the data. Not stealing it.”
“Encrypting.”
“Yes. The files become unreadable to anyone without the encryption key.”
She didn’t lie to me. Not this time.
My stomach twists.
What the fuck have I done?
Regret slams into me — brutal and immediate — as my own words come crashing back.
I regret ever loving you. I regret ever knowing you.
I said them to hurt her.
I succeeded.
Fuck.
“Where are you going?” Andrea asks.
“To see Valeria.”
I’m already walking out as I call security.
“What room?”
“Ground floor. Conference room.”
Andrea follows without a word. I gesture toward Yasin with a tilt of my head.
“Can we really trust him?”
Andrea snorts softly.
“I don’t mean to scare you, but if he wanted to hack your servers, he would’ve done it a long time ago. And if there’s anything hidden on that USB drive, he’ll find it.”
Reluctantly, I let it go.
The elevator ride down feels endless.
Since when does it take this fucking long?
The second the doors open, I storm out. The moment I enter the room, my eyes go straight to her.
Valeria sits at the end of the table, deathly pale and empty-eyed.
Lost in her thoughts, she doesn’t react to our arrival.
My chest tightens.
I approach cautiously when someone bumps past Andrea and rushes into the room.
“Oh, Dante!” Bianca cries as she hurries toward me. “I just heard what happened. There has to be some mistake. Valeria would never do something like this.”
Her eyes glisten with tears. Her voice trembles.
She’s defending Valeria.
And yet — I don’t know why — something about her reaction feels off.
Is it really? Or am I just looking for excuses? Am I trying to justify myself by making her suspicious too?
I gently move Bianca aside and turn to the guards.
“Leave us.”
They exit the room, leaving the four of us alone.
That’s when Valeria finally seems to notice Andrea.
“Andrea?”
Her voice. Just that single word — spoken with such naked vulnerability — cuts straight through me.
Her eyes fill with tears.
She isn’t pretending.
She’s shattered.
Completely.
“Valeria,” he says softly, though there’s caution in his tone.
She nods.
She understands he chose a side and she accepts it without resentment.
Maybe that’s what unsettles me most.
“Tell us what you did,” Andrea says. “And why.”
Her jaw tightens. Her eyes flick toward Bianca — wary, hostile.
She won’t speak. Not in front of her.
Why? What happened between them?
“Why were you trying to steal company data?” Bianca asks as she steps closer.
Valeria’s gaze hardens.
Cold. Glacial.
Not hatred.
Worse.
Contempt.
Bianca takes a step back, visibly shaken.
Andrea watches silently.
“Why... why are you looking at me like that?” Bianca asks, her voice suddenly trembling. “Is this about Dante and me? Are you angry because we love each other and we’re getting married? Because I comforted the man you abandoned?”
Valeria’s jaw flexes, but she says nothing.
She looks away and stares into space, as though none of us exist anymore.
Unease coils inside me. Something is slipping through my fingers. The tension between them goes beyond simple romantic rivalry. It’s deeper than that.
“Who were you planning to sell the data to?” Bianca presses gently, almost pleading. “Tell us, and we’ll be understanding.”
Valeria doesn’t even look at her, but the faintest curl twists across her lips.
Pity.
Dread creeps in.
Damn it… what am I missing?
“She wasn’t trying to steal the data,” I say. “She was encrypting it.”
Bianca blinks once, then twice, like her brain refuses to process it.
“What does that mean?” she finally asks.
“She was making the data impossible to read...”
For a second, all expression drains from Bianca’s face.
Her breathing catches.
“No…” she whispers.
Her gaze snaps from me to Valeria. Too fast. Too nervously.
And suddenly—
The slap cracks through the room before I can react.
The sound echoes. Sharp. Brutal.
Valeria’s head snaps sideways.
My blood freezes.
The fury that explodes through me is so violent I can barely contain it. Every ounce of control I have is needed not to slap Bianca back.
She dared to hit my wife.
I grab Bianca’s wrist.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
She stares at me in panic.
“I’m sorry... I’m sorry,” she sobs. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Her eyes plead with me. But I can’t calm down.
All I see is Valeria — eyes shut tight, brow knotted, body rigid, hands trembling as she presses them against her temples.
What’s happening to her?
Andrea has already rounded the table and dropped to his knees beside her.
“Hey. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
She doesn’t answer.
Instead, eyes still closed, she leans toward him and collapses against his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
A surge of pure, irrational jealousy tears through me.
It shouldn’t be him holding her. It should be me.
But I have no right to think that.
Bianca jerks free from my grip and spits venomously,
“Oh, stop the act. All this over one slap? You really know how to put on a performance. You deserve an Oscar.”
“Get her out of here, Dante,” Andrea says very calmly. “Or I swear to God, I’ll do it myself.”
“What?” Bianca protests.
I seize her arm.
“Come on.”
And I drag her out despite her protests.
But before I walk through the door, I look back.
Andrea has one arm wrapped around Valeria’s shoulders. She’s trembling against him.
And the last of my certainty breaks.
Not because of what I’m seeing.
But because of what I finally understand.
I should’ve been the one there.