The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 297

Chapter 261: The Sovereign Hand

Sebastian pov

Claim

The leather interior of the Bentley smelled of expensive tobacco and cedar, a familiar bubble of total control that stopped the moment I stepped outside. I watched the grey facade of the hospital disappear into the London drizzle through the tinted glass.

My daughter was sitting in a sterile room, her body broken by an early labor that should never have happened. My grandson was breathing through tubes twenty feet away from her. All because a cheap corporate opportunist thought she could play a game of leverage with the Marchetti bloodline.

I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my phone. I didn’t scroll. I pressed a single speed dial.

“Sir,” Jean-Luc answered on the first ring, his voice flat, professional, and entirely awake despite the hour in

Paris.

“Are you at the office?” I asked, my voice dangerously low.

“I am in the private study, sir. Olivier and Enzo just touched down at the airfield. They are heading back to their respective quarters.”

“Good. Leave them out of this,” I commanded, leaning back against the leather headrest. “My sons have many talents, Jean-Luc, but patience is not one of them. Enzo wanted to break Caleb’s jaw in the middle of the intensive care unit. If I let my sons handle this, it becomes a public brawl. I want a a deadly blow.”

“Understood, sir. What are your directives regarding Nadina?”

I looked out the window at the blurred city lights. The anger wasn’t hot anymore. It had cooled into the hard, heavy stone that had kept the Marchetti name untouchable for years.

“I want her dismantled,” I said, each word perfectly spaced. “Completely. I want a full, exhaustive investigation into her background, her finances, her family, and her associates. Every contract she has signed in the last five years, every NDA, every digital footprint. I want to know who paid her, because a girl like that doesn’t risk a career at Black Enterprises for a simple hotel kiss unless she has a safety net waiting somewhere else.”

“I will have the forensic accountants on it within the hour,” Jean-Luc replied, the scratching of a fountain pen audible over the line. “And her current professional standing?”

“Strip her of everything,” I said, my voice dropping an octave. “She thinks she is a clever corporate strategist. Let us see how clever she is when the floor is taken out from under her feet. Contact every major consultancy firm from London to Tokyo. Let them know, discreetly, that any entity that places her on a payroll, offers her a contract, or even allows her past their reception desk will find their credit lines frozen and their Marchetti partnerships terminated permanently.”

“A blacklisting of that scale will render her entirely unemployable in Western Europe, sir.”

“Western Europe?” I let out a cold, humorless breath. “You underestimate my anger, Jean-Luc. I want her blacklisted globally. She does not get to work anywhere. Not in New York, not in Singapore, not in a basement office in Dubai. If she tries to consult for a local boutique firm, I want that firm bought out and liquidated. No one tries to hurt my daughter, causes her to bleed in a hospital bed, and walks away

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Chapte 262 The Sovereign Hand

seot free. No one.”

“Understood, Mr. Marchetti. I will draft the notices immediately.”

“What about her assets?” continued. “The apartment in Paris. The corporate car.”

Clam

“The apartment is leased through a subsidiary that handles Black Enterprises’ executive housing,” Jean-Luc explained. “Technically, since Caleb terminated her employment on the spot, she has a thirty-day grace period before eviction.”

“Change the locks tomorrow morning,” I ordered flatly. “Throw her belongings into the street if you must, but she does not spend another night under a roof that is connected to my family’s circle. If she has corporate credit cards, freeze them. If she has bonuses pending, file a legal injunction charging her with corporate espionage or breach of fiduciary duty to tie those funds up in court for the next ten years. I want her bank accounts dry before the weekend.”

“It will be done, sir. I will coordinate with our legal department in Milan to ensure the injunctions are un-bypassable.”

“Keep me updated every three hours,” I said. “I want the initial report on my desk by morning.”

“Yes, sir. Goodnight.”

I ended the call and tossed the phone onto the leather seat beside me. I rubbed my temples, the exhaustion of the last forty-eight hours finally catching up to my bones.

Caleb was an idiot. I had told him that in the hospital room, and I would tell him again when he returned. He had grown soft in his success, trusting people simply because they were competent at making him money. He had forgotten that the world is full of vipers waiting for a man of his stature to blink. But Caleb was Isabella’s choice, and he was the father of my three grandchildren. He would learn his lesson through the sheer terror of almost losing her.

Nadina, however, was a stranger. And strangers who touched my family did not get lessons. They got

consequences.

The Bentley slowed down, pulling up to the grand entrance of the hotel on Meridian. The doorman hurried forward, opening the car door and holding a large umbrella over my head as I stepped out into the damp night air.

“Welcome back, Mr. Marchetti,” the doorman murmured respectfully.

I didn’t answer. I walked straight through the opulent lobby, my long cashmere coat swirling around my ankles. The hotel was quiet, the marble floors reflecting the soft amber chandelier light.

It was the same hotel where Caleb was currently sitting in the dark, sweating through his own guilt.

I took the private elevator to the penthouse suite. When the doors slid open, the lights were low, and the quiet luxury of the room felt completely hollow. I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking back in the direction of the hospital.

My mind went back to Isabella’s face when I had sat by her bedside earlier that afternoon. She had looked so small against those white hospital pillows, her amber eyes swimming with a pain that had nothing to do with her physical recovery. She had built a life with Caleb, a real, fragile life outside of the Marchetti

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