Vivian smiled, savoring her red wine. Hiding Alejandro’s missing wife in plain sight, right under his own roof, had been her ultimate masterpiece. A daily, cruel joke.
“She broke so easily,” Vivian purred, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. “A few threats. A little starvation. She’s been scrubbing the floors you walk on for months, and you never even looked down.”
Alejandro stood perfectly still. His eyes drifted from his trembling wife to the massive brown stain she was frantically scrubbing on the white marble.
Then, the grief in his eyes simply… vanished.
His shoulders relaxed. The desperate, heartbroken husband disappeared, instantly replaced by something cold. Calculated. Lethal.
Vivian’s arrogant smirk faltered. “What are you—”
Alejandro didn’t answer. He closed the distance in three long strides, stopping inches from Vivian’s face. He raised a black-gloved finger to a hidden earpiece beneath his dark hair.
His voice was a low, terrifying command: *”Destroy everything.”*
Vivian loudly gasped, her eyes going wide with sudden horror as she froze, knuckles white around her wine glass.
Outside, a deafening explosion shattered the stormy night. The heavy mansion doors blew off their hinges. Red laser sights sliced through the dust, instantly painting Vivian’s chest as heavily armed operatives swarmed the foyer.
On the floor, the “terrified” Elena stopped crying.
The trembling vanished. She calmly stood up, brushing the dirt off her maid’s apron, and cracked her neck. She looked down at the brown stain—not dirt, but a highly corrosive chemical compound she’d just finished applying to melt the hinges of Vivian’s underground syndicate vault.
Elena smirked, wiping away a fake tear as she looked at her husband. “Took you long enough.”
Alejandro smiled. “You know I hate traffic, my love.”