“That’s impossible,” Adrian whispered, the air leaving his lungs. “Vanguard owns our debt. I play golf with their acquisitions director every month. They love me!”
“Vanguard doesn’t own us, you arrogant idiot!” David sobbed through the speaker. “I just got off the phone with their legal department. Vanguard is a shell company! It’s a blind proxy for Sterling International! The Chairman of Sterling just issued a direct, irrevocable kill order on our entire corporate portfolio!”
Minute Five.
Adrian went entirely, terrifyingly still.
The color violently drained from his face, receding from his cheeks and his neck, leaving him looking like a bloodless wax corpse. His jaw went slack. The leather riding crop, which he had tucked under his arm, slipped and clattered uselessly to the floor.
He slowly, agonizingly turned his head away from the phone.
He looked down at the bleeding, battered woman kneeling on the floor of his estate. He looked at my dark hair, my dark eyes. He watched as I slowly, agonizingly pushed myself up into a sitting position, ignoring the tearing pain in my back.
He stared at me, his mind desperately scrambling, gears grinding as thirty years of narcissistic delusion collided with a horrifying, apocalyptic reality.
He finally remembered my maiden name.
A name I had begged him to keep out of the press because I claimed I was “shy.” A name I had used to quietly co-sign the loans that built his fake empire.
Serena Sterling.
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