Chapter 8 - The Crimson Crown
Julian’s hand hovered over the glass drive. Sweat began to bead on his forehead, glistening beneath the harsh fluorescent lights of the boardroom.
“What’s the matter, uncle?” Ava whispered, her eyes burning with pure venom. “Scared?”
“This is ridiculous!” Julian barked, snatching his hand back and looking toward his two armed guards in the corner. “I don't need to prove anything to an imposter! Guards, clear the room!”
The two men reached into their coats—
BANG!
A single gunshot shattered the quiet of the high-rise. But the bullet didn't come from Roman, nor did it come from Hector.
It came from the door behind them.
The boardroom doors swung open, and stepping into the room was a tall, elegant woman dressed in a cream-colored silk trench coat. She held a suppressed silver pistol in her hand, smoke curling gently from the barrel. One of Julian’s guards collapsed to the floor, clutching his bleeding shoulder.
Ava gasped, stepping back. The woman was older, her dark hair streaked with elegant silver, but her face... her eyes...
“Sofia?” Roman breathed, his voice cracking for the first time in his life. He stared at the woman as if he were looking at a ghost. “You... you’re dead.”
“I was dead to you, Roman,” the woman said softly, her voice cool and smooth as velvet. She walked into the room, ignoring the shocked gasps of the board members, and stopped right beside Ava. She turned her head, looking deep into Ava’s eyes. Tears welled in the older woman’s eyes, but her expression remained fierce. “Hello, my little girl.”
Ava felt as if the floor had vanished beneath her feet. “Mother?”
“She isn't your mother!” Julian screamed, his composure completely shattering as he backed away toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. “She’s a traitor! She planned this three years ago!”
Sofia turned her icy gaze to Julian, raising her pistol slightly. “I didn't plan to leave my daughter, Julian. You forced my hand when you poisoned my IV at the hospital three years ago to kill us both. The nurse—Ava’s abuela—saved her life by hiding her away before your men could finish the job. I spent three years in hiding, building the evidence to tear you down.”
Sofia reached into her coat and tossed a thick black folder onto the center of the marble table.
“Inside that folder,” Sofia announced to the terrified board, “are thirty years of offshore transactions showing that Julian Garza has been embezzling money from the Garza Trust to fund illegal arms trade in South America. He didn't want the estate to protect the legacy... he wanted it to pay off his debts to the cartel.”
The board members exploded into chaos. Several directors stood up, yelling for security, while others frantically called their attorneys.
Realizing he was completely ruined, Julian’s eyes went wild. In a last, desperate bid for survival, he lunged across the table, grabbing the silver Derringer that Ava had tucked into her waistband during the chaos. He seized Ava from behind, wrapping his arm around her throat and pulling her back against his chest, slamming the gun barrel against her temple.
“Back off!” Julian screamed, his voice high and unhinged. “Back off or I spill her brains across this table! I want a helicopter on the helipad in five minutes, or the Garza bloodline ends right here!”
Roman took a step forward, his eyes burning with absolute, murderous fury. “Put her down, Julian. Touch her, and I will tear you apart piece by piece.”
“Try it, brother!” Julian shrieked, pressing the barrel harder into Ava’s head. “She dies first!”
Ava felt the cold steel against her skin. She felt the frantic, heavy breathing of the man holding her hostage. She looked across the table—at Roman, her real father, who was ready to burn the world down for her; at Sofia, the mother she thought she’d lost forever; and at her abuela, sitting bound in the corner, weeping softly.
Ava didn't scream. She didn't cry.
A strange, icy clarity settled over her. The Garza blood inside her wasn't just money or power—it was survival.
“Julian,” Ava whispered softly, leaning back against his chest.
“Shut up!” he yelled.
“You forgot one thing,” Ava said, a tiny, cold smile touching her lips.
“What?!”
“That pistol you’re holding...” Ava murmured, her fingers dropping down to touch the small Derringer in his hand. “Roman gave it to me last night. It’s a two-shot antique. And I already used the second shot while we were running through the woods.”
Julian’s eyes widened in horror. He pulled the trigger—CLICK.
Empty.
Before Julian could react, Ava slammed her elbow violently backward into his nose. Bone crunched, and Julian fell back, howling in pain, blood spurting over his silk tie.
Roman closed the distance in a fraction of a second. He grabbed Julian by the collar of his suit and hauled him off his feet, lifting the man high into the air with sheer, terrifying strength. He threw Julian forward, crashing him through the massive floor-to-ceiling glass window behind the head of the table.
The glass exploded into ten thousand glittering diamond shards.
Julian screamed, dangling precariously fifty stories above the downtown streets, caught only by Roman’s single, crushing grip on his lapels.
“Roman! Please! Don't!” Julian sobbed, his polished demeanor completely gone, urine soaking through his trousers as he looked down at the tiny cars below. “We’re brothers! We share the same father!”
Roman looked down at him through the cold wind rushing into the broken window. His Slate eyes were completely devoid of mercy.
“My father had one child,” Roman said softly.
He glanced back at Ava, who stood among the shattered glass, tall, unbothered, and calm.
“And she’s standing right behind me.”
Roman opened his hand.
Julian’s screams faded into the rushing wind as he fell into the abyss.
THE UNEXPECTED TWIST (THE TWIST ENDING)Silence descended on the 50th floor, broken only by the cold wind blowing through the shattered window.
Roman turned around, taking a deep breath, and walked back into the room. He looked at Sofia, then looked at Ava, a rare expression of deep relief washing over his hard face.
“It’s over,” Roman said, stepping toward Ava and placing a warm hand on her shoulder. “The empire is safe. You’re safe. We’re a family again.”
Sofia stepped forward, holding out her arms, tears running down her cheeks. “Ava... my baby. Come here.”
Ava looked at Roman. Then she looked at Sofia.
Then, slowly, Ava pulled a small, sleek black remote control from her inner jacket pocket—the master control unit for the building’s secure mainframe that she had taken from Roman’s desk back at the glass house while he was in surgery.
With a cold, deliberate click of her thumb, heavy steel blast doors slammed down over all the exit doors of the boardroom, locking everyone inside—including Roman, Sofia, the board of directors, and the security team.
Roman blinked, startled. “Ava? What are you doing?”
Ava stepped back, standing near the elevator control panel outside the blast zone. She looked at her parents with a look that was entirely unfamiliar—not scared, not angry, but terrifyingly calculating.
“You were right about one thing, Roman,” Ava said, her voice echoing over the room’s intercom system. “Your empire is built on bloodlines. But you both made a huge mistake.”
Sofia frowned, her voice rising in panic. “Ava, sweetie, what are you talking about?”
Ava pulled out her phone and tapped the screen, displaying a live document that had just been filed with the Texas Supreme Court ten minutes ago.
“Three years ago, when Julian tried to kill you, Sofia... you didn't run away to hide,” Ava said, looking directly at her mother. “You ran away because you had already transferred eighty percent of the Garza Trust assets into a shell company registered under my birth certificate. You weren't trying to save me—you were using my identity as an offshore tax vault so Roman couldn't touch it during your divorce.”
Sofia’s face went dead white. Roman turned slowly to look at his wife, shock tearing through his expression.
“And you, Roman,” Ava continued, turning her cold gaze to her father. “You didn't bring me here because you loved me. You brought me here because without my biological signature before midnight, the court would have frozen all your accounts and bankrupted you. You both used me as a pawn before I was even born.”
“Ava...” Roman stepped toward the reinforced glass of the blast doors, his voice low and dangerous. “Think carefully about what you’re doing.”
“I already thought about it,” Ava said calmly. She put the canary diamond ring into her pocket. “Thirty minutes ago, using the biometric scan I gave your doctor, I authorized the full liquid transfer of the four-billion-dollar Garza Trust into my private account. Under Texas law, as the sole recognized biological heir of age, I have legally removed both of you from the board.”
She picked up her abuela’s wheelchair, pushing the old woman safely into the private executive elevator behind her.
“Ava!” Roman roared, slamming his massive fist against the steel blast doors, the reinforced glass cracking under his force. “You can’t do this! I built this empire!”
Ava looked at him through the glass. Her Slate-gray eyes—the exact same eyes as his—were completely devoid of warmth.
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“You built it,” Ava said softly as the elevator doors began to slide shut. “But I just took it. Happy forty-fifth birthday, Dad.”
The elevator doors closed, taking the true queen of the Garza empire down to her new world, leaving the monsters who created her locked in the high-rise tower they built.
