Chapter 2 - The Ghost of Bellevue
The rain poured heavily as my town car pulled up to the rear entrance of the Bellevue Hotel. Hazel had finally fallen asleep in the backseat, her tiny fingers still hooked around my thumb. I stroked her hair, my heart burning with a rage I hadn't felt in over half a decade.
For six years, I had lived as Genevieve Brooks—a quiet, modest woman who let her husband take all the spotlight. I had abandoned my real life because I wanted to be loved for who I was, not for the empire attached to my last name. But Sterling had proven that unearned humility only invites predators.
I pulled out a second phone from the bottom of my leather tote—a sleek, encrypted device I hadn't turned on since the day I married Sterling.
It powered up with a soft chime. Within seconds, a private number flashed across the screen.
"I was wondering when you'd turn that back on, Miss Vance," a gravelly, familiar voice answered on the first ring.
"Julian," I said, my tone shifting from broken wife to ruthless heiress. "Is my father in Newport?"
"The Chairman arrived two hours ago for the Bellevue Charity Gala," Julian Thorne, chief legal counsel for Vance Global, replied instantly. "He's attending specifically because Montgomery Real Estate is begging for a fifty-million-dollar bailout tonight."
I looked at Hazel’s tear-stained face in the dim light of the car cabin. "Tell my father that his daughter is coming home. And tell him to prepare the restructuring documents for Montgomery Global."
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"Which documents, ma'am?"
"The ones that execute immediate liquidation," I said coldly. "It's time to take back everything I lent them."
