The Supreme Heir

Chapter 2

Laughter followed Dante out of the dining room.

It wasn’t the polite kind either, the kind people used to save face. This was loud, careless, and proud, the kind that said the room had decided who mattered and who didn’t.

Damien Blackwood didn’t even hide his smile.

“You hear yourself, right?” someone said, and another voice jumped in quickly, “He’s still acting like he can book Sky Garden.”

Jasmine’s cousin, Nadia, tapped her glass with a spoon, like she was calling everyone to enjoy the show.

“Let him talk,” she said. “Talking is all he can afford.”

Jasmine’s jaw tightened. She looked at Dante, then at the faces around her, and she spoke like she was trying to stop a fire before it got out of control.

Then she said, softly, not daring to stare into anyone's eyes.

“There’s no need for big words, or making claims at the table. I’m satisfied with a simple wedding.”

Damien turned to her, soft and patient, like he was doing her a favor.

“Jasmine, a simple wedding is fine, but you don’t marry a simple man and call it love,” he said. “You marry someone who can carry you.”

Dante didn’t answer him.

That annoyed them more than shouting ever could.

Dorothy Hartwell finally set down her chopsticks. The whole table quieted, not because they respected Dante, but because they respected her.

“I have listened to this long enough,” Dorothy said, her voice calm, sharp, and tired all at once. “Dante, you’re done here.”

Nadia blinked, delighted. Someone laughed again, and it spread fast.

Dorothy didn’t even look at the others. She kept her eyes on Dante like she was looking at a stain she wanted removed.

“You’re embarrassing her,” she said. “You keep talking about Sky Garden like you belong there. You don’t. I don’t want you at this dinner anymore.”

Jasmine’s shoulders pulled back like she was about to argue.

Dorothy raised a hand.

“Don’t,” she said to Jasmine. “Not tonight.”

Dante stood up.

No pleading, no explanations, no trying to win them over. He picked up the small ring box from the table and slipped it into his pocket as if it was nothing.

Damien’s smile twitched.

He wanted Dante to look desperate, wanted him to beg, wanted him to snap. Dante didn’t give him any of it.

Dante turned to Jasmine.

She rose halfway from her chair, eyes searching his face, like she was asking a question without saying it.

He leaned closer so the whole room wouldn’t get the satisfaction of hearing it.

“You don’t have to leave your family because I’m leaving,” he said quietly. “If you want to stay, stay.”

Jasmine frowned. “Dante…”

He cut her off gently, not cold, just firm.

“I’m going to handle one thing first,” he said. “I’m going to do our pre-marriage registration.”

That sentence landed wrong in the room.

It wasn’t loud, but it was heavy.

A few people didn’t even understand what it meant, but Damien did.

Damien’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment the smooth rich-boy mask slipped, and something ugly flashed underneath.

Jasmine saw it too. Her mouth opened like she wanted to say something, but Dante was already turning away.

Behind him, Nadia scoffed, but her voice wasn’t as sure as before.

“Pre-marriage registration?” she repeated like it was a joke she didn’t fully get. “With what, his truck keys?”

Someone else laughed, but it sounded forced.

Dante walked out without looking back.

The hallway outside the private room was quieter, but the silence didn’t feel peaceful. Jasmine followed him for a few steps, stopping under the warm lights of the corridor.

“Dante,” she said, keeping her voice low. 

“Do you need me to come?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Not if you don’t want to,” he said. “You’ve spent your whole life trying to keep peace in that room. You should be with your family tonight. “

Jasmine stared at him, and the emotion in her eyes didn’t match the calm on her face.

Damien’s voice drifted from the doorway behind them.

“Register what?” Damien asked, smiling like he was amused, but the smile was tight. “You’re really doing this, Dante? Wasting the life of such a bright lady?”

Dante didn’t turn around.

“Goodnight,” he said to Jasmine, and he walked on.

Jasmine remained standing there, caught between the door and the man walking away from it.

Damien watched Dante go, and the anger in his eyes deepened, quiet and hot, like someone seeing a lock click into place.

Dante reached the parking lot.

His old truck sat where he left it, dull paint under the lights, nothing about it matching the world inside the restaurant. He walked to it, pulled the door open, and froze.

Someone was inside.

A masked man sat low in the passenger seat, like he’d been waiting the whole time.

Dante didn’t have time to step back.

The door slammed shut so hard the sound bounced off the concrete.

Cold metal pressed to the side of his head.

“Don’t move,” the man said, voice flat.

Dante’s hand hovered near the handle, then stopped. His breath stayed steady, but his heartbeat didn’t.

“Who sent you?” Dante asked.

The gun pushed harder.

“Don’t talk,” the man said. “Just sit.”

Dante’s eyes flicked toward the rearview mirror, toward the shadows behind the truck, trying to catch movement, trying to see if there was someone else.

The masked man shifted, and something sharp jabbed into Dante’s neck.

Pain flashed, then a spreading heaviness.

Dante’s fingers tightened once, then loosened.

The parking lot lights blurred.

The last thing he heard before the dark took him was the masked man speaking into something near his collar.

“It’s done,” the man said.

When sound returned, it came in pieces.

Voices first, rushed and tense, then the squeal of wheels, then the harsh bright hum of hospital lights.

Dante couldn’t open his eyes.

He couldn’t lift a finger.

But he could hear.

“Trauma bay,” someone said. “Move, move.”

Another voice argued, angry and breathless. “He needs treatment now.”

A calmer voice answered, bored, like this wasn’t even a debate.

“We’re not taking him,” the doctor said.

“What?” a medic snapped. “He’s barely breathing.”

The doctor didn’t lower his voice.

“It’s higher orders,” he said. “Take him somewhere else.”

“That’s illegal,” the medic said. “You can’t refuse emergency care.”

The doctor laughed, short and ugly.

“The law doesn’t cover peasants,” he said. “Not in this hospital.”

A pause followed, the kind that meant even the medics didn’t know what to say back.

Then footsteps approached, steady, unhurried, and different from the rushed panic around the bed.

A woman’s voice cut through the noise, clear and cold.

“Is that my brother you call a peasant?”