My chief fixer’s message flashed on the screen of my phone, the white light illuminating the polished mahogany table of my family’s estate. Outside, beyond the two-mile winding driveway and the triple-reinforced security gates of the Vance compound, David was standing in the freezing rain, pounding his fists against the iron bars.
“Let him wait,” I instructed Liam calmly, taking a slow sip of hot chamomile tea. “Give him forty-five minutes in the cold. Let him contemplate the exact value of the ‘poor schoolteacher’ he left alone in a county hospital ward.”
My father smiled, a slow, predatory expression that had terrified Wall Street boardrooms for four decades. He adjusted the gold cufflink on his sleeve and reached into the black steel safe, pulling out a second, sleek tablet.
“Your former mother-in-law, Beatrice, tried to use her corporate black card at the country club twenty minutes ago,” my father noted, turning the screen toward me. “It was declined in front of forty high-society women. When she called the bank to demand an explanation, the manager personally informed her that her son’s primary guarantor had pulled all credit backing. She is currently hysterically packing her bags, believing the bank made a technical error.”
A cold, quiet laughter bubbled up from my chest. For three years, Beatrice had forced me to scrub her marble floors with cheap vinegar, telling me that a girl from the outskirts should be grateful to breathe the air in her suburban home. She had sneered at my handmade clothes, completely unaware that the very roof over her head was mortgaged through a subsidiary bank owned by my family’s private trust.
“And Chloe?” I asked, referencing David’s twenty-four-year-old mistress—the woman he had taken to a three-star Michelin restaurant while I was screaming through contractions during an emergency C-section.
“Chloe is currently at the flagship Cartier store in Manhattan,” my father replied, his voice dropping into an icy register. “She tried to purchase a hundred-thousand-dollar diamond necklace using David’s primary corporate card. The transaction failed, and the store manager—following our explicit instructions—confiscated the luxury watches David had purchased for her last week as collateral for his bounced checks.”
My phone buzzed again. This time, it was a direct call from David.
I let it ring until the very last second before sliding my thumb across the glass. I didn’t say a word.
“Elena! Elena, answer me!” David’s voice came through the speaker, breathless, panicked, and entirely stripped of the arrogant, booming tone he used when telling me I was a burden to his career. “Where are you?! Why aren’t you at the apartment? Why are the security codes changed? Elena, something insane is happening! The bank blocked my accounts! My company’s lines of credit just evaporated!”
“Hello, David,” I said softly, my voice completely level. “How was your dinner with Chloe?”
To see David realize who Elena’s father really is, continue reading below for Part 2.…
