I Won’t Lose You Again
Valeria
The way Dante says Bianca’s name worries me. I decide to get ahead of him.
I tell them everything: the complaint I filed, the investigation being opened, Bianca’s communications now under surveillance. They listen without interrupting me.
When I’m done, Dante moves on to the next question.
“And Wald?”
“Not enough evidence. For now, I only have suspicions. And he wasn’t on the boat the night I was attacked—the man with Bianca and my attacker wasn’t him.”
“There may be a second mole,” Dante realizes.
An idea crosses my mind.
“What if we pinned everything on me?”
“What do you mean?” Dante asks, his tone turning wary.
“The trackers. The missing AZN-889 file. That way they’ll keep believing you’re not involved—that I acted alone. You keep your position. You can keep playing the game.”
Everyone silently weighs the pros and cons.
Andrea is the one who finally breaks the silence.
“It’s tempting. It would allow Dante to act as though he knows nothing—and even use Bianca as a Trojan horse.”
“No,” Dante says immediately. “Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s even more dangerous if we can’t corner them.”
His gaze locks onto mine. I can see the battle raging inside him—the fear for my life on one side, the need to neutralize our enemies on the other.
He knows I’m right.
That’s exactly why he’s resisting.
“You don’t get to ask me that.”
His words are barely above a whisper, but I hear them clearly.
“I’m not defenseless. I have a team protecting me.”
His gaze shifts to Stephen, then Andrea, before returning to me.
“How many people are handling your security?”
“Hugo put together a team. Stephen is part of it.”
He nods slowly, as though reaching a decision.
“Fine. From now on, I’m hiring them and paying them.”
“Dante—”
He cuts me off.
“No discussion. You’re my wife. It’s my job to protect you.”
“I survived two years without you.”
His jaw tightens.
“Don’t remind me of that. But that was before.”
I roll my eyes.
“Stop with your obsession with controlling everything. They won’t report directly to you—it’s my team, not yours.”
I pause.
“And I’ll pay them myself as soon as I recover access to a bank account in my own name.”
He exhales—that short, frustrated breath I know far too well. The breath of a man who isn’t used to being challenged and still doesn’t know whether it irritates him or excites him.
Andrea and Stephen are visibly struggling not to laugh. All they’re missing is popcorn.
I see the exact moment Dante realizes he isn’t going to change my mind.
“Why aren’t you using the joint account?” he asks.
“What?”
I stare at him, thrown off balance.
He looks away briefly, almost uncomfortable.
“I never removed your name from the account.”
My heart skips a beat.
Valeria Ivanov.
It wasn’t an oversight.
“I could never bring myself to sign the paperwork.”
“Why?”
“Because part of me kept hoping you’d walk through that door one day. Because even though the authorities had declared you dead, even though our marriage had been dissolved, even though, on paper, you no longer existed... I couldn’t bring myself to erase the last traces of you.”
I don’t know what to say.
Part of me had always believed Dante had eventually forgotten me. That after two years, nothing remained of the woman I had once been to him.
But this small detail proved otherwise.
Small. Quiet. Almost invisible.
And yet undeniably real.
I meet his gaze.
The rest of the world fades away.
It doesn’t matter what we’ve been through.
It doesn’t matter what we’ve become.
This connection between us still exists.
And for the first time since my return, I find myself wondering if it ever truly stopped existing at all.
Someone clears their throat.
Reality crashes back instantly.
Dante immediately looks away, regaining control of himself before turning toward Andrea. His expression hardens into something glacial.
“I want Bianca under surveillance. Immediately.”
Silence falls.
I protest at once.
“Dante—”
“I know exactly what I’m proposing,” he cuts in. “It’s illegal. It could backfire on us, and none of the evidence would be admissible in court.”
His gaze shifts from me to Andrea, then Stephen.
“But Bianca is dangerous. Wald is dangerous. As long as they’re free, your life is at risk. And I refuse to stay passive this time.”
Then he turns back to his brother.
“Police surveillance will only cover part of her communications, and the inspector won’t share everything with us. I want our own surveillance in place. I want to know who she talks to, who she meets with. Whatever they’re planning, I want us one step ahead at all times.”
Watching him build a war strategy to bring down Bianca and Wald affects me more than I want to admit.
I always admired his ability to think several moves ahead.
Andrea holds his gaze.
“I can install spyware. Access her calls, messages, communications. And if she keeps her phone nearby, we might even catch some conversations. It’s not perfect. But it’s a start.”
My stomach tightens.
“You’re talking about illegal surveillance.”
“Yes,” Andrea answers bluntly.
Dante looks at me.
His expression is hard.
But in his eyes, I see something else.
Fear. Raw. Instinctive.
“I’d much rather do this legally,” he says quietly. “But two years ago, doing things the ’right’ way left you for dead. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
“Dante...”
“No, Valeria. Not this time.”
His voice lowers slightly.
“I won’t lose you again.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
I see the gala. The icy look in his eyes.
Then the way he looked at me at his parents’ house. Like I was a stranger. A threat.
Someone capable of destroying his life.
I should remind him that he already lost me once.
That he turned his back on me when I needed him most.
But the words refuse to leave my lips.
Because he doesn’t sound like a man trying to convince me.
He sounds like a man who finally understands what he stands to lose.