I looked at the bloody manila folder resting on the marble. Then, I looked up at the man who genuinely believed he owned the world.
My vision blurred, but not from the excruciating agony radiating from my torn back. It blurred from a sudden, terrifying, absolute clarity. The last lingering shred of my pathetic, hopeful delusion—the naive belief that I could find a man who loved me for me, and not for the empire I belonged to—evaporated into ash.
I reached into the pocket of my ruined, blood-soaked dress with a trembling hand.
Adrian threw his head back and laughed, a dark, mocking sound that vibrated in his chest. “What are you doing? Calling the police? Go ahead, Serena. Dial 911. Tell them the great billionaire Adrian Vale disciplined his hysterical, ungrateful wife. The police chief plays poker at my house. He’ll have you committed to a psychiatric ward by midnight.”
But I didn’t dial 911.
I pulled out my phone and dialed a private, heavily encrypted satellite number that bypassing local cell towers entirely. I pressed the phone to my ear. It rang exactly half a time before a voice answered.
“Serena?”
“Dad,” I whispered, staring dead into Adrian’s arrogant, mocking eyes, a bloody smile breaking across my split lips. “Just as you told me… destroy his life.”
Chapter 2: The Five-Minute Doomsday
“Very dramatic,” Adrian sneered, turning his back on me to walk toward the mahogany wet bar. He picked up a heavy crystal decanter to pour himself a celebratory glass of twenty-year-old Macallan. “Did you call your imaginary father? The mechanic? Are you hoping he’ll send you a Greyhound bus ticket back to whatever trailer park you crawled out of?”
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