They had no idea that I didn’t just manage their empire.
I owned it.
Before the heavy oak doors could completely shut, Damian’s furious footsteps echoed behind me. He couldn’t let me leave. Not without total public submission.
He grabbed my bare shoulder, violently spinning me back into the grand foyer. Vanessa was right on his heels, clutching a glass of red wine, ready to watch my final humiliation.
I snatched the wine glass straight from her manicured fingers.
Before she could protest, Damian’s hand cracked across my face.
The blow was blinding. My head snapped to the side. Tears pricked my wide eyes—a cocktail of shock, stinging pain, and a volcanic, brewing rage.
But I didn’t cower. I used the momentum.
In one fluid, violent whip of my wrist, I spun back and hurled the dark red wine.
Not at Damian. At Vanessa.
The crimson liquid exploded across her chest, splattering her flawless face and soaking into the diamonds of her designer gown like fresh blood.
She shrieked. Her jaw unhinged in a horrified gasp, hands frantically clutching her ruined chest as she trembled in shock.
Damian froze. His chest heaved, his blind rage instantly melting into pure, dumbfounded panic at the sheer chaos.
He twitched, as if to grab me again.
I stepped directly into his space. I raised my left hand, palm out, stopping him dead in his tracks. My eyes locked onto his, freezing the blood in his veins.
“Touch me again,” I commanded, my voice dropping to a glacial, terrifying calm. “And you lose everything.”
I reached into my worn leather purse. I didn’t pull out Evelyn’s missing necklace.
I pulled out a stack of legal documents.
“I didn’t steal your grandmother’s jewelry, Evelyn,” I announced to the dead-silent room. “I pawned it. Yesterday. To cover the final debt on *my* estate.”
I dropped the master deed to the mansion at Damian’s feet.
My name was the only one on it.
“Security,” I called out, smiling at the guards by the door. “You have ten minutes to remove these trespassers from my property.”