Page 3 of The Rival’s Obsession (The Black Ledger Billionaires #3)

I t’s eight ten a.m., and Dante still hasn’t shown.

I shouldn’t be surprised. In fact, I’d be more shocked if he had walked in on time, freshly pressed and pretending not to be the human disaster currently burning a hole through the company’s reputation.

I’ve been pacing the hallway outside for the past twenty minutes, waiting for the inevitable—trying to keep my breathing steady while my phone does its best to destroy me.

The trending hashtag—#DeadWeightVegas—is a car crash I can’t stop watching.

Every time I scroll, there’s a new video. A different angle. A different slow-motion replay of the exact moment everything imploded.

Dante’s fist. My jaw.

The mic still hot as the crowd gasped, every eye in that cavernous convention center turning on us.

We were supposed to be the keynote—the headliners for the biggest architecture convention in the country. Months of planning, of PR, of perfectly controlled messaging—wiped out in twelve seconds of live humiliation.

I don’t even remember saying it.

The words were meant for one person, offstage, off record. But somehow, the sound team caught it, crystal clear:

“Dante’s nothing but dead weight. Has been for years.”

The punch came less than thirty seconds later.

Now it’s everywhere.

I tap a video—a TikTok this time. Someone slowed it down, added dramatic music, bold font that reads Corporate Breakup of the Year?

Christ.

I lower the phone and press my fingers to the bridge of my nose, trying to stave off the headache clawing at the back of my skull.

The board’s waiting. No one’s said it out loud, but we all know this is a reckoning.

And I already know how it ends.

What I don’t know is how the hell I’m supposed to tell my father.

My phone buzzes again, a text lighting up the screen.

CORRINE: Deep breath. You’ve survived worse.

She nods at me from her seat at the table—subtle, supportive—like she’s been my entire life, even when I didn’t deserve it. None of that changed when she took the CFO position at the firm.

If anything, she’s been more of a rock than ever before.

I nod once. She catches it, and her eyes meet mine for a beat—calm and steady—before leaving me alone with my thoughts and the slow churn of anxiety rising in my chest.

This isn’t how the legacy was supposed to unfold.

Marchesi & Harrow was never just a firm. It was a dynasty.

Built by our fathers in the late eighties, it grew from a shared vision—sketched on bar napkins and blueprints—into the most respected architecture firm in Manhattan. Award-winning. Influential. A name that opened doors.

We were raised inside it.

Dante Marchesi and I were expected to inherit the empire.

The sons of visionaries.

The next generation.

When we were sixteen, everything shifted.

Dante’s parents sent him to the UK—a boarding school outside London, followed by Cambridge.

I stayed in New York, immersed in the bones and breath of this city. Interned early. Shadowed my father. I knew every corridor of this firm before I was old enough to legally sign a contract.

When Dante came back, it was like someone had dropped a lion into a room of well-mannered wolves.

The boy I’d once known—my childhood best friend—had grown into something sharp-edged and impossible to predict.

He returned with charm that could dismantle a room, an ego that didn’t ask for permission, and a disdain for authority that grated against everything I’d spent years learning to navigate.

But none of that mattered because the plan was already in motion.

We were hired straight out of college—two golden boys stepping into their fathers’ shoes. Equal partners.

On paper, it should have worked.

But it’s been chaos since day one.

Clashing visions. Competing egos. Personal history weaponized in every argument.

There’s a reason the board installed a clause when we took over. They saw the fault lines even before we did.

Five years. That was the deal.

Five years of shared leadership. Of oversight.

Until then, the company’s controlling shares—one-third me, one-third Dante, and one-third the board—would hold each of us in check.

At the end of that term, the final controlling shares—held in escrow since the transition—would be released to us jointly.

We’d be untouchable.

And we almost fucking made it.

Five years is up in two weeks.

Fourteen days, and the board would have had no power left to stop us.

But now?

Now they have video footage of a meltdown at the largest architecture convention in the country.

A hot mic and my voice calling Dante dead weight.

Let’s not forget the perfectly captured moment when he punched me onstage in front of hundreds of witnesses—and every major press outlet we invited.

Now they have cause.

And if they want to push us out—both of us—they can.

I exhale slowly, then rub my jaw out of habit. Not because it hurts—he didn’t hit that hard.

But because this morning, the weight of it is starting to feel permanent.

If Dante doesn’t show up soon, I’ll be walking into that room alone.

And I’ll be the one explaining to the board how everything we’ve worked for—everything our fathers built—came undone over one mic, a fist, and five years of slow, silent sabotage.

My mind is stewing over every possible scenario, trying to craft a plan for each and file them away so that no matter what the board says, I can be ready.

But I can’t stop fucking seeing his face when he heard the words come out of my mouth.

He lashed out with his fist—but it was pain I saw there.

A part of me knows I should apologize. The other part is satisfied he finally showed some fucking emotion toward this firm.

He walks in fifteen minutes late like time’s a suggestion and this meeting is some minor inconvenience. Just that usual air of detached arrogance—like he’s operating on a schedule no one else has access to.

Same suit from yesterday. Wrinkled. Charcoal gray. Still perfect on him.

He probably came straight from Vegas. Probably spent the flight getting his dick sucked by one of his favorite rotations, thinking he’d stroll in, flash a grin, and spin the whole thing into a joke.

I don’t bother hiding my irritation. “Nice of you to join us.”

He doesn’t even look at me.

Just shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over the back of his chair. Then he starts rolling up his sleeves, slow and unbothered.

His forearms are tan, dusted with dark hair, the muscle taut and easy to notice.

But it’s the ink that draws my eye—because it always does.

Ti aspetterò.

XXI·VI·MMIX

I only know the date—June 21, 2009—was the day he was sent to boarding school.

I remember it because it was the day after my mother’s accident.

That day still lives in my bones.

The curve of her legs at a wrong angle. The way her neck looked broken before I could even make sense of it. Those eyes—bright blue—wide, stunned, staring up at me, ready to tell my secret.

That image is burned into me so deep I still dream about it.

Even now, all these years later, it takes everything in me not to flinch.

I blink a little too long and force the memory away.

Dante sits, forearms now bare, posture loose and arrogant.

He doesn’t seem rattled. He never does.

Corrine gives him the briefest nod, and he ignores her—as always.

I follow her lead, settling in beside him like I haven’t spent the last twelve hours preparing for this exact moment.

One of the board members leans forward, expression lined with something between disappointment and finality.

“We’ve reviewed the footage from yesterday’s incident,” he begins, “as well as the ongoing record of internal conflict over the past five years.”

My stomach knots.

I don’t have to hear the rest to know where it’s going.

“We believe it’s time to explore a transition in leadership.”

Silence.

“The firm will begin evaluating external candidates to assume the roles of co-CEOs.”

It lands with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball.

There’s no shouting. No protest. Not yet.

But the floor just dropped beneath us.

And we both know it.

I clear my throat and lean forward slightly, the practiced calm in my voice doing everything my pulse refuses to.

“If the board feels strongly about a leadership transition,” I begin carefully, “then perhaps the solution isn’t replacement but revision. We could extend the escrow period—another quarter, even six months. Give the firm time to stabilize and allow us to rebuild your confidence.”

A few of the board members glance toward each other—thoughtful, but unreadable.

Before anyone can respond, Dante moves.

He stands, grabs his jacket from the chair, and slings it over his shoulder like we’ve just finished lunch and not been handed our professional execution.

“Transition in leadership.” He mutters. “That’s cute.”

I turn toward him, already tense. “Dante?—”

He ignores me. His gaze is fixed on the board now, posture loose but loaded.

“You have anyone in mind?” he asks, voice smooth but sharp.

There’s a beat of silence. A few board members exchange a glance—irritated, clearly—but no one answers.

“Didn’t think so,” Dante says, already half-turned toward the door.

I lower my voice, trying to cut him off at the knees before he does more damage. “Dante, don’t?—”

But he doesn’t care. He never fucking does.

“Why waste our time if you don’t have someone set?” he goes on, louder now. “And good fucking luck finding someone who can run this place better than we have.”

It isn’t bravado. Not exactly.

It’s conviction. That quiet, reckless certainty that’s always made him dangerous.

He starts toward the exit.

The room stiffens.

“We’re assessing options,” one of the board members calls after him.

He doesn’t stop walking.

And that—that silence—says everything.

They don’t have someone. Not yet.

Which means this isn’t done. Not completely.

But then the board member keeps going:

“Regardless of that outcome, the board will not be transferring the controlling shares in two weeks’ time.”

A direct blow, but Dante doesn’t even flinch.

He reaches the door, one hand already on the handle.

“Then we have two weeks,” he says without turning around.

And just like that, he’s gone.

No rebuttal. No negotiation. Just a declaration.

Two weeks.

It’s a line in the sand, and it’s exactly what I feared.

Because if we couldn’t figure out how to run this firm together in five years, there’s no fucking way we’ll do it in fourteen days.

Hell, at this rate?

Two weeks may as well be two minutes.

It still won’t be enough.