Chapter 6 - Decoding the Crimson Ledger
The following morning, sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Dante's private study.
Alex sat at a massive mahogany desk, surrounded by stacks of encrypted financial ledgers, auction catalogs, and high-resolution scans of the Roman antiquities Preston had smuggled. She wore an oversized cashmere sweater Dante’s housekeeper had provided and a pair of dark slacks, her hair tied back in a messy bun.
Her expertise was shining. For six hours straight, she had been cross-referencing Sabbes' internal database with the offshore wire transfers Dante's cyber team had intercepted.
"Here," Alex said suddenly, tapping the screen of her laptop.
Dante, who had been reviewing security reports on the leather couch across the room, rose immediately and walked behind her chair. He rested one hand on the back of her seat, leaning down so close that his breath brushed the sensitive skin behind her ear. Alex felt a shiver run down her spine, her focus momentarily shattering.
"What did you find, tesoro?" he asked, his voice low and gravelly.
She cleared her throat, forcing her mind back to the numbers. "Preston didn't just forge my signature on the Roman relics. He created a double-blind provenance. Look at lot 409—a second-century marble bust of Marcus Aurelius. He logged it as a private collection from Geneva, but the actual artifact was looted from an unexcavated site in Southern Italy three months ago."
Dante’s eyes darkened with cold fury. "Looted from the Moretti territory in Calabria. That's why he needed Sabbes. He needed an appraiser of unimpeachable standing to clean the blood off the stone."
"If I had signed off on this blindly, I would have been guilty of international antiquities trafficking under the Hague Convention," Alex whispered, the sheer cruelty of Preston's plot making her stomach churn. "He was going to give me twenty years in federal prison just so he could buy a penthouse with Sabrina."
Dante leaned lower, his hand sliding to rest on the edge of the desk, effectively trapping her within his broad frame.
"He will never get that penthouse," Dante promised, his voice vibrating with lethal certainty. "And you will never see the inside of a courtroom as a defendant. I swear it on my life."
Alex turned her head, finding his face only inches from hers. The intensity in his dark eyes was suffocating. There was danger in him, yes, but there was also an unyielding loyalty she had never experienced in her life.
For a breathless second, neither of them moved. Dante’s gaze dropped to her parted lips. The air between them crackled with an undeniable, magnetic heat that had been building since the elevator at the Pierre.
"Dante..." she breathed.
Before he could answer, the heavy study doors burst open. Marco, Dante’s second-in-command, stepped into the room, looking grim.
"Boss," Marco said urgently. "Preston Vance and Kensington’s legal team just filed an emergency injunction. They're staging an emergency charity auction at the Metropolitan Museum tomorrow night to offload the disputed inventory before the freeze takes effect."
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Dante slowly straightened up, his cold, calculating persona snapping back into place.
"They're getting desperate," Dante said with a deadly smile. "They want a public auction to validate the sale. Let's give them an audience they'll never forget."
