### Chapter 6
Otto took the papers. His fingertips paused at the edge of the first page, as if he meant to flip through them. My heartbeat slammed into the base of my throat, and cold sweat beaded across my palms.
Then Wendy's syrupy voice drifted down from upstairs.
He scrawled his signature in two quick strokes and handed the papers back to me.
“I'm glad you've finally learned your place, Zara.”
There was something almost like approval in his voice. He turned and left without another glance.
The door closed.
I pulled the divorce agreement and the share-transfer deed from between the pages and called my father.
“Dad, it's done. I have everything.”
His steady baritone came through the line.
“Sweetheart, I've also got the evidence of Otto's business crimes over the years. Sending it to you now.”
“And you were right — the assassination ten years ago was no simple hit. Even that woman, Wendy Fox — tsk……”
His voice trailed off with heavy implication, and my inbox chimed.
I opened the attachments. My eyes moved over the photos and documents, and what started as shock slowly bent into a thin, cold smile.
Otto Delgado. You thought you controlled everything. Thought you stood above me, pulling the strings.
But what if your “truth” was rotten at the root — nothing but a trap she designed from the start?
I couldn't wait to see your face.
I removed my earring stud and extracted the hidden video file, then loaded it onto a flash drive along with the evidence from the assistant and everything my father had sent.
The next morning, I handed all of it to my lawyer.
I also prepared two copies as timed emails — one addressed to Old Mr. Delgado, the other to Otto.
If the old man learned that the assassination attempt that nearly killed him ten years ago wasn't the work of a rival family at all, but Wendy Fox's doing — and that his most prized grandson had known all along, had covered for the real culprit —
What would he do?
The night of the party, every light in the Delgado estate blazed.
I picked up my suitcase, took one last look at that gilded cage, and walked out the back door without turning around.
A black sedan waited at the curb.
A tall, steady-shouldered man stepped out and pulled me into his arms — “My daughter — Dad's taking you home!”
“Dad……”
Ten long years since I'd last felt this embrace, and it was still the only place in the world where I could rest.
The tears I'd been holding back for so long finally spilled, and I leaned against my father's warm shoulder, knowing the nightmare was over.
Once inside the car, I took out the SIM card I'd used for ten years.
Otto had given it to me when we first got together. A pair of matching numbers.
He'd said the linked digits were like Cupid's arrow, tying us together for life.
And I had never once turned off my phone — just so he could always reach me the moment he needed to.
I pressed hard and snapped the card in half, then tossed the pieces out the window. Every tie between us, severed.
Goodbye, Otto Delgado. You will never find me again.
May we never meet in this lifetime.
