Eliana POV
The emergency room doctor threaded six stitches into the skin of my forehead.
As he tied the final knot, he paused. He asked if I felt safe at home.
"I'm handling it," I told him, my voice steady.
The moment I walked out, I called Laura, my father's lawyer.
"I want the papers drawn up," I said. "And I want a restraining order attached to this medical report."
She asked if I wanted to freeze the assets.
"Not yet," I said.
"I have a renovation to finish first."
I stopped at a hardware store next.
I bought a ten-pound sledgehammer.
Then I called Craig.
Craig used to be an Enforcer.
He had left the life two years ago to sculpt metal, but he still had the size of a tank and the loyalty of a war dog.
"I need muscle, Craig."
He met me at the curb of the penthouse building with three of his guys.
They were carrying heavy tool bags.
I walked up to the doorman and slapped the property deed on his desk.
My name was on it.
Dustin had put the penthouse in my name five years ago to hide it from a RICO investigation. A loophole he was about to regret.
"I am the owner," I told the doorman, my tone brokering no argument. "These men are contractors. We are doing emergency demolition."
He looked at the bloody bandage on my head, then at the size of Craig, and stepped aside.
We went up.
Dustin was gone.
Probably taking Jami to a spa to recover from her fake trauma.
Perfect.
"Start with the server room," I told Craig.
I led them to the hidden room behind the library.
This was the brain of Dustin's operation.
The servers blinking in the dark held every illegal transaction, every laundered dollar, every hit order.
I had built it.
"Rip it out," I said.
The sound of metal tearing was music.
They ripped sensors from the walls.
They cut the fiber optic cables.
They smashed the hard drives with hammers.
His digital fortress was crumbling.
I walked to the kitchen.
I took the sledgehammer and swung it into the twenty-thousand-dollar espresso machine.
Steam hissed violently and glass shattered across the floor.
It felt better than good.
It felt like taking my first breath in years.
Craig walked over to me.
He held a blowtorch.
I handed him the pieces of the broken gold chain and the setting of the ring.
I kept the sapphire in my pocket.
"Melt it," I said.
He fired up the torch.
The gold turned liquid, pooling on the granite counter.
It cooled into a raw, ugly nugget.
I took a permanent marker and wrote on the counter next to it: Payment for stitches.
The elevator chimed.
Dustin and Jami walked in.
They stopped dead.
The apartment looked like a war zone.
Wires hung from the ceiling like gutted entrails.
The smart glass windows were opaque and dead.
Dustin's face turned purple.
"What the fuck have you done?" he screamed. "I am calling the cops!"
I pointed to the bandage on my forehead.
"Go ahead, Dustin."
"Call them."
"Tell them you assaulted the owner of this apartment."
"Tell them about the illegal servers that are currently being turned into confetti."
He looked at the server room.
His face went pale.
"You destroyed the system?"
I tapped my temple.
"Intellectual property rights, Dustin. I built it. I own the code. I revoked your license."
Jami started to cry.
"My sofa!" she whined.
I looked at her.
"It is all yours, honey. Enjoy the ruins."
I dropped the sledgehammer on the floor.
It made a heavy thud that shook the room.
I looked at Dustin.
He was kneeling on the floor, trying to piece together a smashed hard drive.
He looked small.
"You are trash, Dustin," I said.
I signaled to Craig.
We walked out.
I left him kneeling in the dust of his own empire.
I stepped into the elevator.
I did not look back.
I had just lit the match.
Now I was going to watch him burn.
