Chapter 6 - A DEADLY HAND
The following evening, inside a private penthouse suite at the St. Regis Hotel.
Chloe Mercer sat at the glass table, her designer makeup unable to conceal her hollow eyes and frantic tremors. When the door opened and Elena walked in—wearing an elegant camel coat, flanked not by guards, but walking side-by-side with Alexander Sterling—Chloe dropped her glass of scotch.
“Elena?!” Chloe gasped, stumbling backward. “How… why are you here?”
“Did you expect me to be weeping in a corner, Chloe?” Elena took a seat opposite her, her posture radiating an effortless, terrifying authority. “Did you really think the trap you helped Julian set for me six months ago would keep me down forever?”
“I… I was just following Julian’s orders!” Chloe stammered, looking frantically at Alexander. “Mr. Sterling, we had a deal! I give you the Swiss offshore keys, you give me a new passport and a private transport out of the US!”
“The deal stands,” Alexander said coldly. “With one additional condition. You will release a recorded confession detailing Julian’s fake marriage scheme and his plot against Liam to the press tomorrow morning.”
“He will kill me!” Chloe screamed. “He’s insane!”
“If you refuse,” Elena cut in, drawing the old external hard drive from her handbag and setting it on the table, “I will surrender your personal paper trail regarding corporate tax fraud and medical bribery directly to the Department of Justice. You will spend the next twenty years in a federal prison. Choose, Chloe: a cell in New York, or exile with cash?”
Chloe stared at the hard drive, then at Elena—the woman she had once dismissed as a fragile, pushover socialite. That woman was gone. In her place stood a formidable force.
“Fine… I’ll do it,” Chloe sobbed, collapsing back into her chair.
When the transfer was complete and Chloe was escorted out, silence settled over the suite.
“You handled her brilliantly,” Alexander remarked, a genuine look of admiration flickering in his eyes.
“I only reclaimed what she took from me,” Elena replied softly, leaning back.
Alexander moved closer, handing her a glass of water. “This hard drive… you’re truly trusting me with it?”
Elena met his gaze, her expression solemn. “Alexander, I know you want justice for your parents. But I am giving you this drive for Liam’s future, not for bloodlust. I want Julian held accountable by the law, not destroyed by a new crime committed by you.”
May you like
Alexander paused. For ten years, no one had ever spoken to him about his humanity or cared about the state of his soul. Everyone had treated him as a broken, dangerous monster.
He looked deep into her eyes, his voice softening into something undeniably raw. “You are nothing like what I imagined, Elena.”
