The Cheating Wife's Worthless Husband Is the Apocalypse King

Chapter 5: The Professor

Valentina's voice on the phone had dripped with the kind of confidence that comes from knowing, or at least believing, that you hold all the cards.

"Come to Caffè Rinaldi at two o'clock. We need to sort out the property division today." A deliberate pause settled before her next words. "Don't be late like everything else you do."

Marco arrived at the café five minutes early. He spotted Valentina immediately, sitting straight backed at a corner table with a leather portfolio in front of her and a woman beside her that Marco recognized at once.

Bianca Morano. Valentina's closest friend from university, now apparently a divorce lawyer.

Bianca looked at Marco the way someone looks at a stain on an expensive tablecloth, her lips already curling before he had even pulled out his chair.

"So you actually showed up." Her voice was sharp and amused. "I half expected you to come crawling in here with your tail between your legs and beg Valentina to call the whole thing off."

Marco sat down without a word, his expression completely blank, his hands resting loosely on the table.

Bianca slid a document across the table, tapping it twice with a manicured finger.

"These are our terms. Read them carefully, if you can manage that." Her tone was thick with condescension. "Monthly alimony, ten thousand euros. Immediate transfer of the house into Valentina's name. And a settlement payment within thirty days."

Marco looked at the paper for a moment, then looked back up at Bianca.

"No." His voice came out flat and completely unbothered, like he was declining a second cup of coffee.

Bianca blinked. She clearly was not used to that word arriving so quickly.

"Excuse me?" Her eyes narrowed, a sharp little laugh escaping through her nose. "Do you understand what you're sitting in front of? These are legal demands, not suggestions."

"I understand exactly what they are." Marco leaned back in his chair, unhurried and calm. "They're the demands of someone who thinks I'm still too stupid and too scared to push back. Tell me, did it take you all night to come up with this garbage, or did you manage it before dinner?"

Valentina's jaw tightened, her fingers pressing flat against the table.

"You think this is funny?" Her voice climbed with barely contained fury, her eyes burning across the table. "You walked out of that house without a single lawyer on your side. You don't have the money, and you certainly don't have the brains to fight this."

Bianca leaned forward with a smirk that stretched too wide across her face.

"Honestly, Marco, just sign what we put in front of you." Her voice dripped with mock sympathy, like she was speaking to someone too simple to understand their own situation. "A dog that tries to fight its owner just ends up chained in the yard anyway. Save yourself the embarrassment."

Marco said nothing. He simply pulled out his phone and typed a brief message.

A minute passed. Then the café door opened.

The man who walked in wore a charcoal grey suit with the easy confidence of someone who had spent decades being the most important person in every room he entered. His silver hair was neatly combed, his posture impeccable, his eyes moving across the café with calm, unhurried authority.

He spotted Marco's table and walked straight toward it.

"Apologies for the slight delay, Mr. Ferretti." His voice was measured and professional as he settled into the seat beside Marco, setting a slim briefcase on the table without rushing. "Shall we begin?"

Valentina rolled her eyes and leaned toward Bianca, her voice dropping into a theatrical whisper that she made no real effort to keep quiet.

"See this? He scraped together some random old man to pretend to be his lawyer." A smile played at the corners of her mouth, sharp and dismissive. "Don't go easy on them, Bianca. Grind them into dust."

Bianca had not moved since the man sat down.

Every drop of color had drained out of her face. Her mouth was slightly open, and her hand had gone completely still against the leather portfolio, as if her entire body had stopped functioning at once.

"Professor?" The word came out in a trembling whisper, barely louder than a breath. "Professor Acerbi? Why are you... what are you doing here?"

The man, Professor Dante Acerbi, the most celebrated family law attorney in the region and the man who had shaped an entire generation of lawyers through thirty years of teaching, glanced across the table with mild, politely blank eyes.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" His voice carried no recognition whatsoever, his expression genuinely puzzled as he studied Bianca's pale face.

Bianca looked like she wanted the café floor to open up and swallow her whole, her shoulders caving inward, her eyes dropping to the table.

"I... I was in your third year family law class." Her voice came out small and strangled. "Bianca Morano."

Professor Acerbi studied her for a moment longer, then gave a polite, apologetic shake of his head.

"I'm afraid I don't recall." He turned his attention to the documents on the table, his reading glasses appearing from his breast pocket with smooth efficiency.

Valentina was staring at the exchange with her mouth slightly open, the smug confidence she had walked in with beginning to crumble at the edges like wet paper.

Professor Acerbi read through Bianca's proposed terms in complete silence. When he finished, he set the papers down and looked at Bianca with the measured, withering patience of a man who has seen everything and is no longer surprised by mediocrity.

"With this level of ability, you actually graduated from the law school where I teach?" His voice was polite and absolutely devastating. "Please do me a favor and do not mention my name when you introduce yourself to other lawyers. I have a reputation to maintain."

Bianca's face went from white to crimson, her lips pressing together so hard they disappeared.

Valentina slammed her hand against the table, her voice rising with desperation.

"How did you even afford him?" Her eyes shot to Marco, wide and furious and completely lost. "You don't have a single euro to your name. Every cent you ever made went into my account!"

Marco smiled slowly, the kind of smile that carries no warmth at all.

"Then you shouldn't have any trouble explaining that to the court." His voice dropped into something quiet and precise. "Because I'm asking for the return of every non marital expense you ran through my money. Personal shopping, hotel stays, dinners for two that I never attended. All of it."

Valentina's eyes turned cold and guarded.

"And on top of that," Marco continued, his tone steady as stone, "five hundred thousand euros in emotional damages. Infidelity tends to carry a price in this country."

Valentina shot to her feet, her chair scraping back hard against the tile.

"I never cheated on you!" Her voice cracked with fury, loud enough that two tables nearby went quiet. "You can't prove any of that!"

Marco tilted his head slightly, completely unbothered by her volume.

"The baby in your belly can prove it." His voice came out soft and certain, landing on the table between them like a blade. "A paternity test will do the rest."

Valentina's breath stopped. Her face collapsed into something raw and desperate, the fury draining out all at once and leaving something much closer to fear behind it.

Bianca sat completely still beside her, staring at the table with no expression at all, because there was nothing left for her to say.