Chapter 7 - The Downfall of the EmpressCeleste lost all color in her face. The sheer shock hit her system like a physical blow. She clutched her swollen stomach, gasping for air, her knees wobbling beneath the heavy champagne lace.
“No… no, no, no,” she muttered, stumbling forward before her eyes rolled back. She collapsed onto the marble floor in a crumpled heap of silk and synthetic pearls.
“Celeste!” Adrian cried out, trying to rush to her side, but two federal agents stepped in front of him, slipping cold steel handcuffs around his wrists with a sharp, metallic click.
“Adrian Vale, you have the right to remain silent,” the lead officer recited monotonously, pushing him down onto his knees beside the unconscious woman he had traded a seven-year marriage for.
I stood above them both, holding my sleeping daughter against my chest, looking down like an empress reviewing prisoners of war.
“You wanted an heir, Adrian,” I said quietly, leaning down just enough for him to hear over the roaring cameras and the cries of his mother in the front row. “You wanted a real family. But you forgot one simple rule of business: never underestimate the woman you spent years underestimating.”
Paramedics pushed their way through the media scrum, wheeling a gurney down the aisle to hoist an unconscious Celeste onto it. Her expensive makeup was streaked with desperate tears, her grand wedding dream turning into a perp-walk nightmare broadcasted live across every major news network in the country.
Adrian was hoisted up by the arms, his expensive Tom Ford tux wrinkled, his face pale and slick with cold sweat. As they dragged him past me toward the exit, he looked at Elena, then up at me with eyes hollowed out by absolute ruin.
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“Mia…” he choked out. “Please…”
I didn’t even blink. I turned my back to him, walking gracefully back toward the exit as the choir loft finally burst into a triumphant, ironic rendition of an old hymn.
