Rebecca
No one sat in the chairs beside me.
They wouldn't dare.
Fear held them in its iron grip, a suffocating silence that lingered like smoke in the room.
Rumors whispered through the halls, painting me as some kind of monster.
A devourer of men.
A predator.
They were wrong.
Humans didn't fascinate me, they repelled me.
We were gathered in the head office. The voting was complete, the results being tallied. But the outcome was already decided. There was no suspense, no uncertainty.
This moment had been preordained. My ascension was inevitable, carved into the very foundation of Sforza Enterprises long before today.
"I congratulate Ms. Rebecca Wolf on behalf of this corporation," Salvatore Sforza declared, his voice carrying a weight that silenced the room. "And I assure everyone here, there is no one more qualified for this position. No one more deserving."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the room, subdued and cautious.
"She has built alliances where others failed," Salvatore continued, his sharp gaze sweeping over the assembly, daring anyone to refute him. "And she has crushed enemies with a precision we could only dream of. What she's achieved in eight years, most of us couldn't manage in eighteen."
A chuckle escaped his lips, low and reverent, as he gestured with his hands, trying to encapsulate something far too vast for words. "She was this little—" His hands shaped the air in a mock imitation of a child. The room shifted, discomfort thick in the air.
Here we go.
"—when I told her after the incident, Mia figlia, sei fortunata ad avere un'altra vita, and you know what she said to me?" His voice cracked with emotion, the sound teetering between a laugh and a sob.
"...she said, Life is fortunate because I live it."
His words hung in the air like a challenge, a reminder of the force I'd become.
The room held its collective breath as he continued, his gaze locking on mine.
"I knew then," he said, his voice softer now, almost reverent. "I knew she would become relentless."
His eyes never left mine, brimming with unspoken conviction.
And in that moment, everything shifted.
Rebecca Wolf. The new CEO of Sforza Enterprises.
A force to be reckoned with.
***
My shoulders snapped upright as something else suddenly lingered in the air, subtle yet suffocating.
It wasn't reverence.
It wasn't respect.
It was... different.
It crawled along my skin, seeping into my senses.
Something ineffable. Something inviting.
And then I felt it. The weight of someone settling into the chair beside me.
Every muscle in my body tensed. My pulse thundered in my ears, each beat sharper than the last.
Rage unfurled inside me like a coiled serpent, cold and deadly.
Who dared?
Slowly, I turned my head, my movements deliberate, my fury palpable.
And there he was.
A man, draped in darkness, his presence like a whisper of chaos against the carefully constructed order of the room.
His audacity was breathtaking, his gaze piercing as it locked onto mine with a familiarity I couldn't place.
A ghost from a life I'd forgotten.
The faintest smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, as though he knew every thought racing through my mind.
"Dolcezza," he murmured, his voice low, smooth, and edged with danger.
The way he addressed me sent a shiver down my spine—a mixture of dread and something far more dangerous.
And just like that, the air in the room shifted again, the power balance tilting in a way I couldn't control.
He didn't belong here.
Yet, somehow, it felt like he always had.