Chapter 10 - The Queen’s ReignSix months later, the autumn wind rustled through the maple trees outside my estate—the very same estate Evelyn had once smugly claimed I was unfit to live in.
I stood on the wide veranda, wearing a tailored cashmere coat, watching a tiny stroller rolling slowly down the garden path. Elena was six months old now, laughing, babbling, and clutching a small silver rattle engraved with her own initials: E.V.
The corporate lawsuits were over. Adrian was serving a mandatory eight-year sentence in a maximum-security federal penitentiary, sharing a cell block with white-collar criminals who despised him just as much as his former board members did. Celeste had taken a plea deal, her social media accounts deleted forever, living quietly in a modest suburban duplex while paying back every stolen penny from her monthly wages.
As for me?
I wasn't the broken, quiet woman they had discarded. I was the architect of my own destiny, a billionaire CEO, and a mother who would never, ever let anyone question her worth again.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting a legal update from David. Instead, it was a photo message from an anonymous source: a picture of the St. Jude Cathedral steps where the wedding had fallen apart, now freshly repaved and bright under the autumn sun.
May you like
I smiled, locked my phone, and slipped it back into my pocket.
Let them rebuild their lives from the ashes. I was already busy writing an entirely new empire.
