POV: Julian
Elena crossed the room with a thick legal document raised high. She didn't wave it. She drove the stiff edge straight into Clara's cheekbone.
A thin red line opened across Clara's skin. Blood welled and tracked slowly down her jaw. She didn't even blink.
"Read it, Julian," Elena demanded.
"Get that garbage away from me!" I swatted at her wrist.
I didn't care about the cut on Clara's face. I didn't care about the blood. My whole attention had narrowed to the green stone on her finger.
The Sterling emerald.
That ring was the board. Without it I was a placeholder, a signature they tolerated. I had torn this city apart looking for it for three years. I had to get it back.
I lunged across the mattress, kicking through the tangled sheets, ignoring the flashes pouring in from the hall. "Give me the ring!"
My fingers grazed empty air inches from her hand.
Two guards slammed into me. They hauled my naked body backward and drove me into the wall. The textured plaster scraped my spine. The taller one pinned his forearm across my collarbone, and the air left my lungs in a rush.
"Get your hands off me!" I roared.
They didn't move. They held me there.
Clara didn't flinch at any of it. She picked her tan trench coat off the velvet armchair and slid her arms through the sleeves, unhurried, as if I weren't shouting six feet away.
Pinned to the wall, I couldn't look away. The lapels of her coat parted as she shrugged it on, and there, high on her pale collarbone, sat a fresh purpling bruise.
My teeth marks.
I'd spent the last hour buried in her, marking her skin, certain she was a nameless blonde I'd bought a drink at the bar. A stranger. A toy.
The wife I'd put in the ground.
My stomach turned over. I dry-heaved against the guard's arm, twisting my head to the side, a sour flood rising in my throat.
"Sickened?" Clara asked. She sounded amused.
"You planned this," I choked out. "Both of you. You filthy—"
"We did," Elena said. She flipped the legal packet open and ran a manicured finger down the text. "Three months of planning. Clara reached out to me right after I found the wire transfers in your safe. The half-million you sent the night your first wife's car went off the bridge. I married a widower, Julian. Turns out I married the man who made himself one."
"You're my wife, Elena! You're supposed to be on my side!"
"I was on the side of a successful CEO," Elena said. "Not a murderer who buries his wife and remarries before the headstone sets."
"She tricked me!"
"You picked her out at the bar," Clara said, tying her belt. "You bought the drinks. You rented this room. All I did was wear a wig and let you make every choice yourself."
"I didn't know!"
"Ignorance won't trend on the morning shows," Elena said.
I strained against the guard, my chest heaving. "You're teaming up with a ghost to bury me? I built this empire. I made the Sterling name worth dying for."
Elena tapped the wet red seal on the paper. "This is a court order. Your assets are frozen as of an hour ago."
"You can't freeze my money."
"Not just your money. The forty-five percent marital shares too."
"I'll kill you both!" I tore at the guards. "My lawyers will shred this before sunrise. You have no grounds."
"Fraud, embezzlement, and attempted murder," Elena said. "Excellent grounds. You're locked out of tomorrow's board meeting."
"Elena, think," I tried, switching tactics, dropping my voice. "If this scandal tanks the stock, you lose too. We're married. My money is your money."
"Not anymore." Elena smiled. "Clara bought my loyalty. Sixty percent of your frozen assets once she takes the chair. I walk away richer than I'd ever get staying married to a cheating sociopath."
"You greedy bitch."
"Business is business, darling."
"Your lawyers work for the company," Clara added, stepping closer. "And as of ten minutes ago, I am the company. The board already knows I'm alive."
"They won't back you."
"They already have."
I curled my fingers inward until my nails bit into my palms. The skin broke. Warm blood seeped between my knuckles and dripped onto the carpet. The sharp sting was the only thing holding my mind in place while my entire life collapsed.
"You think a piece of paper stops me?" I sneered.
"No," Elena said. "The live stream stops you. The police in the lobby stop you."
Clara adjusted her collar, finally covering the bruise. "It's over, Julian. Enjoy the cell."
She turned toward the broken doorway. Security had shoved the reporters back into the hall, but the lenses still found us, still fired. Questions kept flying, an overlapping roar of accusation.
Clara reached into her leather handbag.
As her hand came out, a folded square of glossy paper snagged on her keys and slipped free. It fluttered down, turning over once in the air, and landed face up on the threshold between us.
Black-and-white static. A curved, undeniable shape in the center.
An ultrasound scan.
The guard's grip on me loosened by a fraction. Clara's eyes dropped to the floor, to the paper, and for the first time all night something flickered across her face that wasn't ice.
I read the white text printed along the top, and the blood in my veins turned to ice water.
