THE BULLY WHO WANTS MY HEART AND MY RUIN

(Sloane POV)

I arrived at the office at 5:47 AM, three hours before my presentation. Sleep had been impossible,every time I closed my eyes, I saw corrupted security footage and altered files and Dante's face when he'd said mine.

The executive conference room was empty, pristine. Floor-to-ceiling windows showcased Manhattan waking up, the city transitioning from amber streetlights to the cold gray of pre-dawn. I connected my laptop to the presentation system, running through slides I'd rebuilt three times to ensure perfection.

Twenty-seven slides covering Communications' current initiatives, strategic priorities, stakeholder relationships, and proposed integration with Operations. Every number is triple-checked. Every claim sourced. Every visual polished until it gleamed.

This presentation would prove I belonged here. That I'd earned this position through competence, not luck or coincidence or whatever people whispered about the young director who'd risen too fast.

I ran through the deck twice, timing my transitions, refining my talking points. By 7:30, I was as prepared as I'd ever be.

That's when my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number:

Break a leg today. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Though literal breaking would solve certain problems. -A friend

Ice slid down my spine. I screenshotted the message immediately, forwarded it to Maya with instructions to save it, then blocked the number.

A threat? A warning? Someone's idea of a joke?

The conference room door opened. Dante entered carrying two coffee cups, looking unfairly alert and attractive for 7:30 AM.

"You're here early," he observed, setting one cup on the table in front of me.

"Couldn't sleep." I eyed the coffee suspiciously. "Is this going to become a daily thing?"

"Only until you tell me to stop." He took the seat next to mine rather than across from me-close enough that I caught cedar and the subtle scent of his cologne. "How are you feeling about the presentation?"

"Confidence. Prepared. Mildly terrified that someone will sabotage it mid-presentation."

"That's why I'm here early." He pulled out his own laptop. "I'm going to monitor the network while you present. If anyone tries to access your files or the presentation system, I'll know immediately."

I blinked. "You know how to do that?"

"I spent two years working with our cybersecurity division in London." He opened what looked like a network monitoring program. "Corporate espionage is a fascinating field. You'd be surprised how many hostile acquisitions start with compromised presentations."

"That's... surprisingly helpful. Thank you."

"Don't sound so shocked. I can occasionally be useful." He glanced at me, something softer in his expression. "You're going to be brilliant today, Sloane. These people need to see what I've known since you were sixteen-that you're smarter, sharper, and more strategic than most executives twice your age."

The compliment landed like a physical touch, warming places I'd tried to keep cold and protected. "You didn't know that when I was sixteen. You thought I was a pathetic kid with a crush."

"I thought you were terrifying," he corrected quietly. "You had this way of looking at the world like you could see straight through bullshit to truth. Like you knew exactly who people were underneath their performances. And when you looked at me..." He paused. "You saw potential I didn't know I had. Saw someone worth caring about underneath all the fucked-up rebellion. It scared the hell out of me."

"So you destroyed me instead."

"So I tried to make you stop seeing me that way," he said. "Because I knew what my father would do if he noticed his nineteen-year-old son was obsessed with the sixteen-year-old neighbor girl. And I knew what I might do if you kept looking at me like I was someone worth saving."

"What would you have done?"

His eyes met mine, dark and honest. "Something that would have ruined us both. Because I wouldn't have been gentle or patient or appropriate. I would have consumed you, Sloane. Taken everything you were willing to give and demanded more. And you deserved better than a fucked-up kid who didn't know the difference between protection and possession."

My breath caught. The rawness in his voice, the self-awareness,this wasn't manipulation. This was truth, ugly and complicated.

"And now?" I whispered.

"Now I'm trying very hard to be better than that kid," he said. "To earn the right to be in your life rather than forcing my way in. But I need you to know-the obsession didn't go away, Sloane. It just taught me patience."

Before I could respond, the conference room door opened again. Marcus Chen entered, followed by Sarah from Legal and David Kozlov. The intimate moment shattered like glass.

"Early start," Marcus observed, his sharp gaze moving between Dante and me with obvious calculation. "Burning midnight oil on the presentation, Rivera?"

"Just ensuring everything is perfect," I said smoothly, standing and moving away from Dante's proximity. "Can I get anyone coffee before we begin?"

"We're not starting for another hour and a half," Sarah pointed out. "It seems excessive to be here this early."

"Preparation is never excessive," Dante said mildly, but there was steel underneath. "Ms. Rivera is setting the standard for what I expect from all departments. I appreciate her dedication."

The subtle emphasis on Ms. Rivera-formal, professional-was clearly intentional. Establishing distance in front of others even as he'd been devastatingly personal moments before.

God, he was good at this. Corporate performance art, every gesture calculated.

"Of course," Marcus said, but something flickered in his expression. Suspicion? Resentment? "We're all eager to see what Communications has been working on."

The next ninety minutes were controlled torture. Executives filtered in, taking seats around the massive conference table. Giovanni arrived at exactly 8:55, commanding attention without saying a word. Elena Ricci followed, carrying her ever-present tablet and watching me with those assessing eyes.

At precisely 9:00, Marcus called the meeting to order.

"Thank you all for attending," he began. "As part of Dante's transition into the VP of Operations role, we're conducting strategic reviews of each department. Today, Communications Director Sloane Rivera will present an overview of her department's initiatives and proposed integration points with Operations. Sloane, the floor is yours."

I stood, clicked to the first slide, and began.

"Good morning. Over the past six months, Communications has focused on three strategic priorities: enhancing Moretti Holdings' public profile, supporting acquisition messaging, and building internal communication infrastructure..."

I was five slides in-detailing our media placement success rates-when my screen flickered.

Just for a second. Barely noticeable.

But Dante saw it. His fingers flew across his laptop keyboard, eyes narrowed.

I continued presenting, discussing our social media growth metrics, when the screen flickered again. This time, the slide changed on its own-jumping ahead three slides to financial projections.

"I apologize," I said smoothly, clicking back. "Technical glitch."

"Perhaps you should have tested the equipment more thoroughly," Sarah murmured, just loud enough to be heard.

I ignored her, returning to my planned progression. But two slides later, it happened again;the presentation jumped backward this time, showing a slide I'd already covered.

Murmurs rippled around the table. Giovanni frowned.

"Ms. Rivera, are you having difficulty with the technology?" Marcus asked, his tone suggesting incompetence rather than sabotage.

"Someone is remotely accessing the presentation system," Dante said flatly, his eyes still on his screen. "I'm tracking an unauthorized connection attempting to disrupt the slide progression."

All attention shifted to him.

"Can you stop it?" Giovanni demanded.

"Working on it." Dante's fingers moved faster. "Whoever is doing this is sophisticated. They're routing through multiple proxy servers-"

My screen went black.

Complete system failure. The presentation disappeared, replaced by an error message: FILE CORRUPTED. UNABLE TO RECOVER.

My stomach dropped. Hours of work, gone. In front of the entire executive team.

"I have a backup," I said quickly, reaching for my laptop. But when I opened the file, it was corrupted too. Just garbled code and broken images.

"This is unacceptable," Sarah said. "We've allocated ninety minutes for this presentation, and Communications can't even maintain basic file integrity?"

"This isn't file integrity-this is a targeted attack," Dante said coldly. He turned his laptop around, showing a screen full of code I couldn't decipher. "Someone inside this building is actively trying to sabotage Ms. Rivera's presentation. The attack originated from an internal IP address."

Silence filled the room.

"Can you trace it?" Giovanni asked.

"I can narrow it down." Dante's expression had gone predatory. "The IP address belongs to a workstation on the thirtieth floor. Executive suite access only."

Every executive in the room had offices on the thirtieth floor.

The implications hung in the air like smoke.

"Perhaps this meeting should be postponed," Marcus suggested. "Give Communications time to resolve their technical difficulties and reschedule-"

"No," I interrupted. I'd spent too many years being dismissed, overlooked, pushed aside. "I don't need slides to present my department's value."

I closed my laptop, stood, and faced the room with nothing but my voice and seven years of refusing to be silenced.

"Moretti Holdings' public profile has increased by forty-seven percent since I took over Communications. Media mentions are up sixty-three percent, with an eighty-two percent positive sentiment rating. We've successfully managed messaging for three major acquisitions, including the current Castellano merger,which despite yesterday's numerical error, is proceeding on schedule with strong client confidence."

I walked to the whiteboard, grabbing a marker, and began sketching our organizational structure from memory.

"Our team consists of eight full-time staff members plus contractors. We manage an annual budget of 2.3 million, consistently coming in under cost projections while exceeding performance targets. We maintain relationships with forty-seven journalists across major business publications, have secured speaking opportunities for Mr. Moretti at three industry conferences, and built a social media presence that reaches 280,000 professionals in our target demographics."