Amara's POV
Grayson always assumed that if he bowed his head, I would forgive him without question. He didn’t know we could never go back to what we were.
When I said nothing, he tried again. “My friends put together a little get-together tonight to help us loosen up. Come with me.”
I started to refuse, but he grabbed me and hauled me into the car before I could finish the sentence.
Soon, the car stopped at a rundown private club on the edge of town. When the private room door opened, dozens of filthy vagrants poured out and surged toward me like a tide. As soon as they saw me, their eyes went ugly and predatory. My chest tightened.
I turned instinctively, but Grayson’s bodyguards had already sealed off the exit. Within seconds, a swarm of guards pressed in from the corridors. I had nowhere to run; they pinned me to the floor.
From across the room, a pair of red heels clicked closer.
Alyssa, the woman he’d said he’d “sent away,” walked up and planted herself in front of me, alive and steady.
She grabbed my hair and started slapping me, one hard blow after another. “Bitch! You killed my baby. You think you deserve anything? You fell for a fake miscarriage report and got fooled. Stupid!”
Grayson cleared his throat, looking shifty. “Amara, I already know that Alyssa was the one who pulled me out of Grayridge. I won’t hold your lies against you, but you shouldn’t have hurt Alyssa and my child. Today, she needs to get her revenge.”
I looked at him and laughed, a raw, incredulous sound. To carry a severely injured man out of Grayridge, I’d taken crippling damage; three-quarters of my meniscus was gone from the injury. And now he calls the woman who betrayed him and turned informant his savior?
He pushed a divorce agreement into my hands and ordered the staff to force me to sign. Three days earlier, he wouldn’t give me that paper; now he shoved it in my face like it was nothing.
“Alyssa is my new bride,” he announced afterward, as if handing me a verdict. “She’ll be my wife from now on. But Alyssa’s magnanimous. If you agree to stay with those homeless men for a day and a night, she’ll even let you remain my mistress.”
His voice had the false tenderness of a man who believed he’d done something reasonable. When he saw my stare had gone dead, he crouched down and tried to soften it. “Amara, I still love you. But this time you were wrong. Learn from this. Apologize to Alyssa. She’s more reasonable and generous than you. She’ll forgive you.”
I ground my teeth until they ached. “Apologize to Alyssa? In your dreams!”
He scowled like a child who’d been denied a toy. “I really spoiled you. Lock her in.”
The homeless men surged forward. I held my hands tight, but I couldn’t stop a group of animals. My nails scraped the floor, and they left two bright, ugly streaks of blood.
I glared at them and spat, my voice raw with despair, “Grayson, I regret it. I should’ve let you die on Grayridge.”
Third Person's POV
The second the door shut, Grayson’s chest tightened as if something corrected itself inside him, for a second. Then, convinced his guards had Amara under control, he wrapped his arm around Alyssa and left without another glance.
The wedding day set the whole city buzzing.
Grayson personally called his bodyguards and instructed, “Bring Amara out. I left the dress I chose for her in the master bedroom. It's her favorite. She’s been through an awful night. Have the servants prepare Consommé for her right away.”
On the other end, the guard stammered like a man whose world had just crashed as he informed, “Mr. Locke, Mr. Locke, Miss Wells… she jumped out of the building. She’s dead.”
