Aisling slammed her hands into Constance's shoulders, shoving her backward with brutal force.
Constance, off-balance in her heels, stumbled backward. Her spine collided hard with the decorative entryway wall. She let out a sharp gasp of pain as the breath was knocked out of her.
Aisling ignored her and grabbed Christen's face, her hands trembling. She stared at the angry, raised red handprint blooming across Christen's pale skin. Tears of rage welled in Aisling's eyes.
Christen raised her hand. She pressed the back of her thumb to the corner of her mouth and wiped away a thin smear of blood. Her eyes were completely dead.
Brendon finally snapped out of his paralysis. He saw the blood. A flicker of genuine panic crossed his face, and he took a step toward Christen, his hand reaching out.
Christen snapped her head toward him. She looked at him like he was a piece of rotting garbage on the street.
Brendon stopped dead in his tracks.
Constance pushed herself off the wall, her chest heaving. She had lost all sense of reality. "She deserved it!" she shrieked, pointing a shaking finger at Christen. "That's what you get for disrespecting your betters!"
Christen gently pushed Aisling's hands away. She walked slowly toward Constance. There was no anger in her steps. Only cold, clinical precision.
She stopped inches from Constance's face. She leaned in slightly.
"You try so hard to control Brendon," Christen whispered, her voice smooth and devoid of emotion. "Because I know the truth. Because three years ago, while organizing Brendon's locked study, I found the shredded copies of the medical bribe receipts he forgot to burn. I know your husband died of a heart attack in his twenty-year-old mistress's bed, and you had to bribe the paramedics to move his body so you wouldn't be a laughingstock. You are a failure, Constance. As a wife, and as a human being."
The words hit Constance like a physical execution.
All the blood drained from Constance's face, leaving her a sickly, grayish white. Her lips trembled violently, but no sound came out. It was the Jimenez family's darkest, most heavily guarded secret.
Brendon sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes wide with shock. He had no idea his docile wife knew the truth.
Christen didn't wait for a reaction. She turned on her heel, grabbed her canvas bag from the floor, and walked out the front door. Her spine was perfectly straight.
Aisling grabbed her Birkin, flipped her middle finger directly in Brendon's face, and followed Christen out.
The heavy oak door slammed shut behind them, sealing the rot inside.
They stepped into the elevator. The moment the metal doors closed, the adrenaline crashed. Christen's shoulders slumped.
Aisling wrapped her arms tightly around her. Christen didn't cry. She just rested her forehead against Aisling's shoulder, her body heavy with exhaustion.
They walked out of the building into the biting chill of the Manhattan autumn wind. The cold air felt like a slap of reality.
Aisling stepped to the curb and threw her arm up. A yellow Ford taxi screeched to a halt.
They climbed into the back. "SoHo. The corner of Spring and Mercer," Aisling told the driver.
The cab sped down Fifth Avenue. The streetlights flickered through the window, casting alternating shadows over the angry red welt on Christen's face.
Twenty minutes later, the cab pulled up to a discreet, high-end cafe. Aisling threw cash at the driver and pulled Christen inside.
The brass bell above the door chimed. The cafe was warm, smelling of roasted beans and old wood.
Aisling guided her to the darkest, most secluded booth in the back corner. They slid into the seats facing each other.
A waiter brought two glasses of ice water. Aisling immediately pulled a clean napkin, wrapped an ice cube in it, and pressed it gently against Christen's swollen cheek.
The freezing cold sent a sharp ache through Christen's skin, but it cleared the fog in her brain.
She looked at Aisling's worried eyes. Her stomach was still tied in knots, but her mind was made up.
She had initially thought about leaving cleanly, walking away without a single piece of their filthy wealth. But the stinging pain still radiating across her cheek and the memory of Constance and Brendon's smug, cruel faces shifted something deep inside her. They had stolen three years of her youth and her desperate hope for a real family. Simply walking away wasn't justice; it was surrender. She needed to make them bleed the only way they knew how.
"I'm divorcing him," Christen said. Her voice was flat, carrying the weight of an absolute vow. "And I'm going to take him for everything he has."
