He looked grim.
“There’s no other way, is there?” I said, and I hated how it sounded like surrender.
André shook his head once.
“No.”
My pride bucked. My stomach turned.
But I had been built on hard choices and brutal sacrifices.
I didn’t retreat.
Not ever.
“Fine,” I said at last, voice turning flat. “We do it.”
André exhaled—relief, and something like sympathy.
“I’ll start prepping the board and the investors,” he said immediately. “And PR. We’ll frame it as reconciliation. Stability. A commitment to the community.”
I barely heard him.
Because my mind was already on one thing:
Valentina.
I grabbed my phone and dialed the number I would’ve paid anything to never dial again.
It rang.
Once.
Twice.
Then her voice came through—tight, irritated, guarded.
“What do you want, Enrico? Haven’t you done enough damage?”
I swallowed the bitterness at the back of my throat and forced my voice into something cold and decisive.
“We need to meet. Now.”
A pause.
Then suspicion.
“For what?”
“I’m proposing a definitive solution to this crisis,” I said. “And you’re going to want to hear it, Valentina.”
Silence, tight as wire.
Then, finally—
“Fine,” she said, controlled, distrust dripping from every syllable. “I’m waiting.”
I ended the call and stared at the screen for a second too long.
