You’re Wrong
Dante
Without releasing Valeria’s hands, I go over every detail of her attack in my head.
I know I’ll remember for the rest of my life the way her voice faltered when she described the exact moment she realized Bianca wasn’t going to help her.
Bianca, who led Valeria into that room… then stood there watching another man hurt her without doing anything.
My stomach turns.
I let her into my life.
Worse—I let her take Valeria’s place.
A cold, visceral hatred unfurls inside me, and with it comes certainty.
She will pay for her complicity.
For her cowardice.
And yet… she still isn’t the person I hate most.
It’s me.
For letting her get close. For failing to protect my wife.
How could I have been so blind? How did I not see any of it? But I wasn’t the only one deceived. Valeria believed Bianca was sincere too. Are we na?ve… or simply incapable of believing that people so close to us could betray us so completely?
“Tell me what happened after that.”
She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then opens them again to stare at our intertwined fingers.
“I woke up a few weeks later. Skull fracture. Brain trauma.”
Despite her calm tone, every word still carries traces of what she endured.
I suddenly realize I’m gripping her fingers too tightly.
I immediately loosen my hold, and she frees one hand to brush a strand of hair aside.
Behind her ear, there’s a thin, discreet scar. Unbearable.
I brush it gently with trembling knuckles.
“When I woke up… my memories were confused. I couldn’t clearly remember the attack, just this constant feeling of danger.
The first few months were… dark. Light hurt.
Noise made me feel like my skull was splitting open.
I had panic attacks without understanding why.
I was exhausted all the time. And above all, I constantly felt unsafe.
The worst part was knowing someone had tried to kill me… but not knowing who.”
She speaks calmly, but her dilated pupils betray her.
Part of her is still there.
Only now do I fully understand what she went through.
“Hugo and his family supported me. They were patient, present… unwavering. Eventually, I understood why. I reminded them of Hugo’s sister, Carole, who died from an aggressive cancer.”
Without thinking, I lift her fingers to my lips.
I need this comfort just as much as she does.
“Even so, I tried to reach you…”
She tried to contact me?
When?
“I left messages, but you never called back. And my letter went unanswered. I know now that you never received them… but at the time, I thought you’d moved on. Even then, I still came back to our home seven months later, once my health allowed it. And that’s when…”
I stop breathing.
“…I saw you walking into our home with her. You’d rebuilt your life without me…”
Her voice breaks.
And before I can stop myself, I cup her face gently in my hands.
“No. You’re wrong. It’s not what you think. Bianca had rented the apartment below ours.”
Her eyes shine with tears.
She keeps talking as if she never heard me.
“And three months ago… I saw the announcement. I wasn’t your wife anymore. I’d been declared dead. Our marriage had been dissolved. And you… engaged to Bianca. That’s when the exact memory of that night came back to me.”
The ground disappears beneath my feet.
Out of every possible moment… it had to be my engagement to Bianca that triggered the return of her memories from the worst night of her life.
Fuck.
Without realizing it, she rubs the hollow of her shoulder like she’s trying to erase phantom pain.
My voice catches.
I retrace the path of my life—every moment, every decision... until I reach my first night with Bianca six months ago.
Everything takes on a different meaning now.
I wasn’t moving on.
I was betraying her.
Silence crushes us.
“Look at me.”
My voice scrapes raw against my throat.
“No one replaced you. Who I was without you... that wasn’t me. Just a broken, incomplete version of myself. Someone trying to survive.”
I rest my forehead against hers.
“Tell me you don’t despise me. Tell me you don’t hate me.”
The thought that she could hate me for what happened with Bianca terrifies me.
She turns toward the window before answering without looking at me.
“I don’t hate you. I never could. But...” Her breathing falters. “I resent you so much.”
I absorb the blow.
“I resent myself too. If I could go back, I’d erase those two years without you without a second thought.”
Her breathing grows uneven.
She’s struggling to steady herself.
“The thought of leaving you in her hands was unbearable. But I had nothing. No proof. Nothing except my word against hers.”
I understand her helplessness.
Her guilt.
“Would you even have believed me?” she whispers. “A woman returning from nowhere... accusing the woman you were about to marry?”
I close my eyes briefly.
She truly believes I could’ve doubted her.
The thought makes me sick.
“Then I heard about the fundraising round and the license transfer.”
She locks eyes with me.
“That’s when I understood. If I did nothing, they were going to win. And without realizing it, they made their first mistake.”
She holds my gaze.
“They gave me a way to fight back.”
I nod slowly.
“And you did. You stopped the fundraising deal and everything that would’ve come with it.”
A flicker of pride crosses her expression.
Fuck, what a woman.
But even while admiring her, I don’t overlook the rest of what she revealed.
“You still get migraines?”
“They’re less frequent now than at the beginning... At first, I had several a week. Now it’s once or twice a month.”
“And your memory?”
“I recovered most of it. But sometimes more still come back in flashes, without warning. Sometimes it’s a word or a smell that triggers them. Sometimes it’s an emotional reaction.”
My thumb strokes her palm.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for believing you were dead. I’m sorry I didn’t search harder for you.”
“You did what you could. Don’t carry that guilt. None of what happened to me was your fault.”
A deep sadness settles over her features.
“And if I’m being honest, your relationship with Bianca wasn’t any different. I was the first to be fooled. I’m the one who brought her into our lives, the one who insisted we bring her into the company. I understand... but...”
She doesn’t finish the sentence.
But I understand.
To me, I was trying to rebuild my life.
To her...
It was betrayal.
“You replaced me...”
The words carve straight through me.
“Never.”
She shakes her head faintly.
“Maybe not in your heart... but in your life. You were going to build something with her. Maybe even a family. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forget that.”
Her voice fractures on the last words.
I press my forehead against hers.
“I clung to her because she made your absence a little easier to survive,” I admit. “I didn’t even realize I was staying with her for the wrong reasons.”
Her eyes search mine uncertainly.
I fight the urge to touch her.
“I’m not going to ask you to forgive me today. And I’m not going to ask you to take my word for it.”
My throat tightens.
“I’m only going to tell you the truth.”
I gently squeeze her hand.
“You came back after going through hell. You’d lost everything. You were alone. Hurt. Terrified.
And instead of taking you in my arms...”
I close my eyes for a second.
“I accused you.”
The words tear through me as they leave my lips.
“I should have listened to you. I should have believed you. No matter how impossible your return seemed. No matter what I thought I knew.”
My voice breaks.
“I should have been the first person you could come back to. Not another ordeal you had to survive.”
Silence stretches between us.
“I don’t know how to fix this.”
It might be the most honest thing I’ve said since she came back.
“I don’t even know if it can be fixed.”
Valeria looks away.
“I don’t know either.”
Her voice trembles slightly.
“I know you believed I was dead. I know you were suffering too.”
She draws a shaky breath.
“But that doesn’t change how I felt when I saw you with her.”
Every word lands exactly where it hurts.
“It doesn’t change how I felt when I found out about your engagement.”
I lower my head.
Because she’s right.
No explanation will ever erase that pain.
“I know.”
My voice comes out rough.
“And I’m not going to ask you to pretend otherwise.”
A long silence settles between us.
Neither of us tries to break it.
My phone rings.
I silence it without looking.
Then there’s a knock at the door.
Sandrine steps inside, visibly pale.
“I’m sorry, sir. It’s urgent. The CTO just called. We’re under another wave of cyberattacks. They breached our defenses and copied files from the R&D servers.”