“There’s something else you should know about tonight…”
Isabella turned slowly.
The ballroom was dead silent. You could hear a pin drop on the marble floor.
Alex’s face was the color of ash.
“This party? It wasn’t thrown to celebrate your new merger.”
She snapped her fingers.
The massive screens above the sweeping staircase flickered to life. They no longer displayed Alex’s corporate logo.
Instead: a live news feed of federal agents carrying boxes out of Alex’s downtown penthouse.
“No…” Alex choked out, stumbling back. “The offshore accounts… you couldn’t…”
“I could,” Isabella smiled. Cold. Surgical. “And I did.”
She took a step closer, her voice echoing through the speakers.
“You see, Alex, I didn’t put on that maid uniform just to test your character.”
She locked eyes with him.
“I wore it because I’m the one cleaning up your mess.”
The crowd gasped.
“Your company went bankrupt at 4:00 PM today,” Isabella announced effortlessly over the whispers. “That fifty thousand you bet me? You don’t have it. In fact, you don’t even own that rented tuxedo.”
Alex lunged forward, desperate, but two towering security guards instantly materialized, forcing him to his knees.
Then came the final blow.
The blonde fiancée—the woman who had clung to his arm all night—calmly stepped away from him.
She slipped the massive diamond ring off her finger.
Dropped it into a passing waiter’s champagne glass.
Then, she looked right at Isabella.
“The audit is complete, Ms. Laurent,” the fiancée said, her voice entirely professional. “He admitted to the fraud on a hidden mic an hour ago.”
Alex’s heart stopped. *She was a plant.*
Isabella took a sip of champagne, looking down at the ruined, kneeling man.
“You wanted me to dance for you, Alex?” she whispered.
“Watch me waltz away with your empire.”