Julian's POV:
I stared at the papers on the table, my mind blank, unable to process my mother's words.
I brushed past her, grabbing my car keys.
"Not now," I muttered, a strange, inexplicable panic tightening in my chest. "I have to get Sienna. She's probably at the hospital. We need to see her grandmother."
My mother didn't move.
She stood perfectly straight in the center of the foyer.
"Her grandmother died yesterday, Julian," she said.
The words hit me like a fist to the gut, a sharp, searing pain.
"Died?" I froze, the sharp metal of the keys biting into my palm.
My mother pulled a folded document from her designer bag.
She tossed it at my chest; it fluttered to the floor.
It was the finalized, stamped divorce decree.
It was official?
"No," I breathed, stepping back. "Impossible. She was stable. The doctors said she had years."
"You're lying to me!"
My foot lashed out, my boot connecting hard with the leg of the heavy oak side table.
My thigh muscle seized from the impact, but I didn't kick the table over. I just stared at the paper on the floor, my throat dry, struggling to swallow.
"You're lying to me! You opposed it when Sienna and I got married. So you're lying to me, aren't you!"
I roared in denial, clutching my hair.
"I used the old woman's life to keep Sienna tied to me!" I yelled, the ugly truth finally ripping from me. "As long as the grandmother lived, she wouldn't leave!"
I fumbled for a cigarette.
My hands shook so badly I snapped the white cylinder in half.
I threw the pieces on the floor and pushed past my mother.
"You trespassed in my territory!" I snarled at her. "You gave her those papers!"
My mother stepped aside, her expression cold and detached.
"I provided the documents," she reminded me calmly. "But you signed them, Julian."
I stumbled out the front door and into my car.
Grandma's death was too sudden, it made no sense.
The doctors had said she had years.
I tore through the dark New York streets, running red lights until I reached the family hospital.
I slammed open the double doors of the private wing.
The attending doctor was standing by the nurse's station.
I lunged at him, grabbing his throat and slamming him against the wall.
"How did she die? How does a protected patient die under your nose?" I demanded.
The terrified doctor clawed at my hands.
"She was fine!" he choked out. "Two days ago, she suffered a massive shock. It triggered respiratory failure. We couldn't revive her!"
I threw him to the floor.
"I want all medical records from the last month," I ordered the cowering staff, "and the security footage. Now!"
I locked myself in the security room at the end of the hall.
The flickering monitors cast a harsh, white light on my face.
I pulled up the hallway footage from two days ago.
I watched the grainy video as Vivian slipped past my soldiers.
She walked straight into the room.
I switched to the interior camera.
I watched my mistress sneer at the frail old woman in the bed.
I watched Vivian fling a stack of explicit photos in Grandma's face.
I watched Grandma cry out in terror.
I watched her reach for the phone, then pull her hand back – too afraid to call Sienna, to worry her, to worry the baby.
She knew. She knew Sienna was staying with me because of her.
She knew.
I watched Grandma clutch her chest, suffocating in the darkness.
I watched her hit the emergency button, seconds later the medical team rushing in to perform CPR, but the fatal damage was already done.
I watched her die in agony.
A suffocating silence enveloped me.
"Search every corner of that room!" I barked into the radio, my voice trembling with fear.
Ten minutes later, a soldier returned, handing me a thick stack of photos they'd found under her mattress.
I walked out of the security room, my eyes hollow, looking at the hospital staff crowded in the hallway.
I asked, "Who let a whore past my security?"
My voice was barely a whisper, but it echoed like a gunshot in the quiet hall.
A nurse stepped forward, sobbing.
"She called you," the nurse confessed, tears streaming down her face. "She called you in front of us. We heard you talking to her on speakerphone, using that affectionate, indulgent tone. We didn't dare stop a woman you spoke to like that."
I froze.
The thought hit me like a physical weight, crushing the air from my lungs.
I had empowered Vivian. I had given her the arrogance that ultimately killed Grandma.
It was me.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
It was a news alert.
Vivian had just landed the lead role in a major movie, a production financed entirely with my dirty money.
I stared at her smiling face on the screen.
I squeezed the phone until the glass cracked, shards embedding in my skin.
My voice was hoarse as I looked at the soldiers standing at the end of the hall.
"Bring Vivian to the estate," I ordered, my voice cold as ice. "Now."
