My Mafia Husband Regretted Everything But I Left Chapter 07
Three days after the license terminated, Cor Nova was forced to disable its core assessment feature.
Users could still answer the questions, but when they finished, only one message appeared:
THIS FEATURE HAS BEEN SUSPENDED DUE TO AN INTELLECTUAL-PROPERTY DISPUTE.
Shares in several of the Marchettis’ publicly traded legitimate businesses fell for two straight days.
Sienna went live and announced that she had “independently developed” the model herself.
“Some people go through a failed relationship and suddenly decide copyright is a weapon they can use against an ex.”
“But knowledge does not belong to one mother and daughter.”
I didn’t respond.
Ezra carried a box of my mother’s files into the conference room.
Inside were twenty-four mediation notebooks, handwritten drafts of the earliest assessment scales, and intellectual-property records dating back seven years.
Every question in Cor Nova’s core database could be traced to my mother’s original notes.
That afternoon, the Marchetti-owned company called an emergency board meeting.
I attended as a joint copyright holder.
Dante looked thinner than the last time I had seen him.
A cup of ginger tea sat untouched in front of him, already cold.
His stomach had always been sensitive. My mother used to bring him one whenever we had long meetings.
Now it was stone cold.
One of the directors looked at me.
“Miss Sinclair, would you consider postponing termination of the license?”
“No.”
“The company is prepared to triple the licensing fee.”
“No license.”
Dante finally raised his eyes.
“What do you want?”
“A public apology. Permanent removal of every real-life case. Compensation for every person your company exposed.”
Sienna immediately objected.
“The real-life cases are the most important part of the entire course.”
I looked at her.
“Including my mother’s death?”
The room went silent.
Dante spoke in a low voice.
“Do what she says.”
Sienna stared at him.
“Dante, if we remove everything, the company loses at least eight hundred million.”
“Then that’s the price we pay.”
“Oh, please. Don’t start pretending you’re devoted now.”
She laughed suddenly.
“You were the one who ordered her accounts restricted.”
“You were the one who sent me the emergency recording.”
“You were the one who tipped me a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Now her mother is dead, and you want to dump all of this on me?”
The veins stood out across the back of Dante’s hand.
“I never said I was innocent.”
“Then what gives you the right to order me around?”
Sienna slapped a contract onto the table.
“You signed every livestream proposal Cor Nova ever approved.”
“If there are damages, every Marchetti-owned business is paying its share.”
She turned toward the door.
Two platform compliance investigators blocked her path.
Ezra placed another file on the table.
“Miss Ross, you are being investigated for publishing private medical information without authorization and monetizing real mediation cases without consent.”
“You’ll need to cooperate.”
Sienna whirled around.
“Selene reported me?”
“Not just her.”
Across the conference room, seven former subjects of Sienna’s livestreams stood at the same time.
Dante looked at me.
For the first time, he understood.
I wasn’t waiting for him to come back to me.
I had only come to reclaim what belonged to my mother—and to everyone else they had used.