---- Chapter 6 Dante POV: My first instinct was to burn the world down until | found her. My second was to call my lawyer. "Fix this," | commanded, my voice rough. "Dante," Leo, my lawyer and consigliere for ten years, said, his voice grave. "I've reviewed the decree. It's ironclad. She had you sign a voluntary petition with a marital settlement agreement. It waives all rights to contest. It's airtight. She's gone." The rage that erupted in me was a physical force. | slammed my fist into the wall, the plaster cracking under the impact. Pain shot up my arm, but | barely felt it. "I don't care what it says. Find a judge. Bribe him. Threaten him. Make it disappear." "This isn't about a judge," Leo said patiently. "This is about her. She played you, Dante. Perfectly. She knew you wouldn't look. She used your own power, your own dismissal of her, as the weapon." His words were true, and it only fueled my fury. She thought she could just leave. Disappear. No one leaves me. Ever. "| don't give a damn," | snarled. "I will not allow this." It was ---- not just about my pride anymore. The hollow ache in my chest was a cavern, a physical void where she used to be. | hung up on Leo and drove myself to the art gallery. | stormed in, my presence sucking all the air out of the room. A young assistant looked at me with wide, terrified eyes. "Where is Julian?" | demanded. Julian, the gallery owner, her friend, emerged from his office, his expression a mask of contempt. "Sovrano," he said, his voice dripping with disdain. "To what do we owe the displeasure?" "Where is she?" | asked, my voice low and dangerous. | took a step closer, using my size, my reputation, to intimidate him. It had always worked before. He didn't even flinch. He laughed. A bitter, sharp sound. "You're a special kind of bastard, you know that?" he said. "You show up here now, after you publicly humiliated her on the most important night of her life? | saw the news, Sovrano. Everyone did. You, protecting your new partner from the rain while your wife stood alone in a room full of strangers." "That was business," | bit out. "She wouldn't understand." "Wouldn't understand?" Julian's voice rose, his face flushing with anger. "She understood perfectly. She understood that she was nothing to you. A decoration. An asset. You know she ---- collapsed from exhaustion the day after the opening? She was running on fumes, stressed to the breaking point for months, all for a night you couldn't even be bothered to show up for." The image of Elara, pale and collapsing, sent a shard of ice through my gut. I'd noticed she was thinner, quieter. I'd dismissed it as her being overly dramatic, as always. "She was ill?" | asked, the words feeling foreign in my mouth. "She was more than ill, you selfish prick," Julian spat, his composure finally breaking. "She was carrying your child." The world stopped. The sounds of the gallery, the city outside, my own heartbeat -it all went silent. The air turned to cement in my lungs. | couldn't breathe. *Pregnant.* My mind reeled, desperately scrambling for purchase. A child. An heir. My child. Elara... pregnant. A memory surfaced, hazy and distant. That night, six weeks ago. It had been quick, impersonal. A duty. But it had happened. A sickening wave of realization washed over me. The exhaustion. The illness. It wasn't drama. It was real. "What?" The word was a choked whisper. "She was pregnant," Julian repeated, his voice laced with venom. "And she was so terrified of you, of what you would do, ---- of the cage you would build around her and that baby, that she ran. She ran to protect your child from you." | stumbled back, my hand hitting the wall to steady myself. The truth of his words was a physical blow, knocking the arrogance and rage right out of me, leaving nothing but a raw, gaping wound. | had not just lost a wife. | had lost my child. A child | never even knew existed. "Where is she?" | asked again, but my voice was different now. It was broken. Pleading. All the power, all the menace, was gone, replaced by a desperate, agonizing need. "Julian, please. | have to find them." He looked at me, his eyes cold and unforgiving. "No," he said, his voice final. "She is finally free of you. She is finally safe. You are the last person on earth who deserves to be a father to that child. You lost that right when you left her standing alone." He turned his back on me and walked into his office, closing the door with a soft, definitive click. It was the sound of my world ending. The divorce was a strategic loss. A blow to my ego. This... this was the amputation of my soul. | had lost everything. And | hadn't even known | had it. Title: A Princess? No! I'm the Female General! In "A Princess? No! I'm the Female General!" by CrushReel, Adela Taylor, a noble family's daughter, disguises herself as her brother to secure their Duke title by joining the army. 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