Page 27 of Marrying His Son’s Ex (Forbidden Kings #3)

KASI

The law office called this morning, asking for Dante’s personal papers. Something about finalizing the last details of the estate transfer, ensuring all assets are properly documented.

“Just his personal files,” the lawyer explained over the phone. “Anything that might contain business contracts, property deeds, or financial records we haven’t catalogued yet.”

The lawyers need the files from Dante’s house. His study has been locked since his death, and nobody’s touched his personal belongings. The room sits like a shrine to a monster.

I stand outside the heavy oak door, key in my hand, steeling myself for whatever’s inside. Alaric offered to do this himself, but I refused. Some ghosts you have to face alone.

The lock turns with a soft click.

The study looks exactly as Dante left it.

Mahogany desk polished to a mirror shine.

Leather-bound books arranged by height. Crystal paperweights catching afternoon light.

Everything in its designated place, because Dante couldn’t tolerate chaos in his environment, even if he created it everywhere else.

His scent still lingers in the air—expensive cologne and the faint metallic tang that I now recognize as the smell of violence.

I walk to his desk and start with the obvious places. The top drawers contain business cards, expensive pens, and a Rolex he never wore. Nothing the lawyers would need.

The filing cabinet beside his desk is locked. I search through the desk drawers until I find a small key taped to the underside of the center drawer. Typical Dante—paranoid but predictable.

The first filing cabinet drawer contains business records. Contracts with shipping companies, invoices for merchandise I don’t recognize, correspondence with names I don’t know. I pull out folders to set aside for the lawyers.

The second drawer is lighter. Personal correspondence, tax documents, insurance policies. More folders for the legal team.

The third drawer sticks when I try to open it.

I pull harder, and it slides open with a screech of metal on metal. Inside are three manila folders, each one thick with papers. Unlike the business files above, these are labeled with women’s names written in Dante’s precise handwriting.

Sarah C.

Claire R.

Jennifer M.

My hands freeze on the folder tabs. Why would Dante have files on women? Business associates, maybe? But the way the names are written, so personal and careful, makes my stomach clench with unease.

I pull out the first folder—Sarah M.—and open it on his desk.

Photographs spill across the polished surface.

Pictures of a blonde woman in her twenties. Walking out of a coffee shop. Getting into her car. Sitting in what looks like her living room, unaware she’s being photographed through a window. Page after page of surveillance photos, each one time-stamped and dated.

My hands shake as I pick up one of the images. The woman is beautiful, with kind eyes and an easy smile. In this particular photo, she’s laughing at something off-camera, completely unguarded and happy.

Below the photos are documents. Copies of her driver’s license, credit reports, employment records, and even medical files. Her full name is Sarah Michelle Carson. She’s twenty-one, works as a teacher, and lives alone in a studio apartment in Brooklyn.

At the bottom of the folder is a manila envelope marked “Personal.” Inside are more photos, but these are different. Intimate. Sarah is in her apartment, getting dressed, showering, sleeping. The pictures were taken through windows with a telephoto lens.

Someone was stalking her with no regard for her privacy or safety.

The final document in the folder makes my blood turn to ice. It’s a typewritten letter on expensive stationary, signed in Dante’s handwriting:

My dearest Sarah,

I’ve been watching you for months now, and I find myself completely enchanted. You have no idea how beautiful you are when you think no one is looking. The way you hum while you make coffee in the morning. The way you bite your lip when you’re concentrating on lesson plans.

I know everything about you. Your favorite restaurant (Thai Palace on 5th Street). Your best friend’s name (Amanda). The book you’re reading (Pride and Prejudice, for the third time). Your greatest fear (being alone forever).

Don’t worry about that last one. You’ll never be alone again.

Soon, we’ll meet properly. I have plans for us. Beautiful plans.

With all my love, D

I drop the letter like it’s on fire. The stationary flutters to the floor, but I can’t bring myself to pick it up.

Dante was stalking this woman. This teacher, who had no idea a monster was watching her every move, learning her habits, planning…what?

With trembling hands, I open the second folder. Claire R.

More photos. More surveillance. More violations of privacy. This woman is brunette, maybe thirty, with the kind of face that belongs in Renaissance paintings. The pattern is identical—weeks or months of stalking documented in meticulous detail.

The letter to Claire is even worse:

I’ve decided you’re perfect for me. Your ex-boyfriend was clearly too stupid to appreciate what he had, but I won’t make that mistake. I know you cry sometimes when you think about him. I know you check your phone, hoping he’ll call.

Forget him. He’s not worthy of your tears.

I am.

The third folder—Jennifer M.—contains the same horrifying pattern, but with a difference. At the bottom of the stack is a newspaper clipping dated two years ago.

LOCAL WOMAN MISSING

Jennifer Lynn Martinez, 28, was reported missing by her roommate after failing to return home from work Tuesday evening. Martinez, an accountant at Morrison & Associates, was last seen leaving her downtown office building at approximately 6:15 PM.

Police are asking anyone with information about Martinez’s whereabouts to contact…

The article is brief and clinical. Just another missing person in a city full of disappearances. But I know the truth now. Jennifer didn’t just vanish. She was taken.

My legs give out, and I sink into Dante’s leather chair, folders scattered across the desk. The room spins around me as the full horror of what I’m seeing crashes over me.

I wasn’t his only victim. I was just the one he kept.

These women—Sarah, Claire, Jennifer—they were his practice runs. His experiments in obsession and control. And when he was done with them…

I grab the trash can and vomit until there’s nothing left.

When I can breathe again, I force myself to look through the rest of the files.

More letters, more photos, more evidence of systematic stalking.

Some of the documentation goes back years.

Dante didn’t just decide to become a monster when he met me.

He’d been perfecting his techniques for a long time.

At the very bottom of Jennifer’s folder is a small plastic bag containing something that makes my vision blur.

A lock of brown hair tied with a pink ribbon.

I stumble out of the study and lock the door behind me, the key slipping through my sweat-slick fingers. In the hallway, I lean against the wall and try to remember how to breathe.

Two years. Two years I thought I was special, that his obsession with me meant something twisted but unique. Two years I believed I was the only one who’d experienced his particular brand of psychological torture.

But I wasn’t special. I was just next in line.

And somewhere in New York, Sarah Carson is still going about her life, completely unaware that a dead man’s files contain months of surveillance photos and love letters written by a stalker.

The drive back to the estate with Lionel feels endless. I clutch the three folders against my chest in the back seat, watching familiar landmarks blur past. Twenty minutes that stretch like hours while I process what I’ve discovered.

Lionel keeps glancing at me in the rearview mirror, but doesn’t ask questions. Professional discretion, probably, though I can see the concern in his eyes.

When we finally reach the estate gates, I’m out of the car before he’s fully parked.

“Mrs. Moretti?” Lionel says, hurrying to catch up as I rush toward the front doors. “Are you alright?”

I look up to find him standing at the end of the hallway, concern written across his face.

“I need to see my husband,” I manage. “Right now.”

“Of course. He’s in his office.”

Within minutes, I’m standing in Alaric’s office doorway while he finishes a phone call. Tony Torrino is sprawled in one of the chairs, but I don’t care about interrupting their meeting.

“Kasimira?” Alaric takes one look at my face and ends his call immediately. “What happened?”

I’m holding the three folders, but my hands won’t stop shaking.

“I found something in Dante’s study. Something you need to see.”

“Tony, we’ll finish this later,” Alaric says without taking his eyes off me.

“Sure thing.” Tony stands and pauses beside me on his way out. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, sweetheart.”

If only it were that simple.

When we’re alone, Alaric crosses to me in three quick strides. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

I set the folders on his desk with hands that feel disconnected from my body.

“He didn’t just hurt me,” I whisper. “There were others. Are others.”

Alaric opens the first folder, and I watch his expression change as he takes in the surveillance photos, the stolen documents, the obsessive letters.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes.

“Jennifer Martinez disappeared two years ago. But Sarah Carson and Claire Rodriguez are still out there. We need to know they’re safe.”

He’s flipping through the files now, his face growing darker with each page. When he reaches the letter to Claire, his jaw clenches so hard I can hear his teeth grinding.

“How many more files are there?” he asks.

“Just these three. That I found.”

“That you found so far.”

The implication hangs between us. If Dante kept files on three women, how many others might there be?

“We have to find them,” I say. “Sarah and Claire. Make sure they’re safe.”

“We will, but first, we’re going to find out exactly how deep this goes.” He pulls out his phone and speed-dials a number.

“Benedetto? I need a complete search of Dante’s house. Every room, every file, every hidden compartment. We’re looking for surveillance equipment, documents, anything related to stalking or kidnapping… Yes, immediately… No, drop everything else.”

As he gives orders, I sink into the chair across from his desk and stare at the folders. Three women whose lives were violated by a monster who convinced me I was special.

The worst part isn’t the betrayal or the lies. The worst part is the relief.

Relief that I survived when Jennifer Martinez didn’t. Relief that for two years, while Dante was focused on me, other women were safe.

Relief that I’m not crazy for being afraid, because the danger was always real.

“Hey.” Alaric’s voice is gentle as he kneels beside my chair. “Look at me.”

I meet his eyes, and the concern I see there almost breaks me.

“This doesn’t change anything between us,” he says firmly. “You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“But he hurt others. And I never knew. For two years, I never even suspected…”

“Because you were surviving.” His hands frame my face. “You’re not responsible for his crimes.”

“Aren’t I? If I’d been braver, if I’d left sooner?—”

“Then you’d be dead, and these files would still be locked in his desk.” His thumb brushes away a tear I didn’t realize I’d shed. “You found them, Kasimira. You’re going to help us find the others.”

The ones who might still be alive.