Chapter 16 - The Final LedgerThe silence in the penthouse was absolute, broken only by the distant rumble of thunder outside the floor-to-ceiling glass walls.
Selena didn't step back. She didn't raise her hands. She simply looked at Damen with a profound, crushing pity that enraged him far more than fear ever could.
"You still don't get it, do you, Damen?" Selena said, her voice steady, clear, and completely devoid of emotion. "You never owned me. You rented my time, my labor, and my patience because you were too weak to build your own empire without stealing the foundation from under mine."
"I'll kill you," Damen sobbed, his finger tightening convulsively on the trigger, his knuckles turning white. "I'll kill you both and take back every damn share—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
From the shadows behind the kitchen island, Rico materialized like a ghost, moving with lightning speed. A heavy steel blade flashed in the dim ambient light, and a dull, sickening thud echoed through the room as Rico brought the hilt of a tactical knife down hard across Damen’s right wrist.
The pistol dropped from Damen’s nerveless fingers, clattering loudly against the hardwood floor.
Before Damen could scream, Lucian crossed the remaining distance in two massive strides, grabbed the front of the cheap tweed jacket with one hand, and hoisted the corporate lawyer off his feet as if he weighed nothing at all, slamming him hard against the glass wall.
The glass groaned under the impact, spider-webbing outward into the dark void of the Manhattan night forty floors below.
"You broke into the wrong house, Cross," Lucian murmured, his dark eyes flat, black, and utterly bottomless. "And you pointed a weapon at the wrong woman."
Damen gasped for air, his feet dangling six inches off the floor, his face turning purple as Lucian’s grip crushed his windpipe. "Please... Moretti... don't..."
Selena walked slowly forward until she stood right in front of her trembling ex-fiancé. She looked down at him—the man who had spent six years telling her she was small, insignificant, and utterly dependent.
She reached down, picked up his dropped pistol from the floor, and ejected the magazine with a sharp, metallic click, scattering the rounds across the polished wood. Then she tossed the empty frame out the cracked window into the rainy night below.
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"Tell the federal marshals hello when they pick you up downstairs in five minutes," Selena said softly. "And Damen? Try to find a better hobby in prison. Corporate finance was never really your game."
With a flick of his wrist, Lucian hurled Damen backward onto the floor like a discarded piece of trash. Rico hauled him up by his collar and dragged him silently toward the private elevator, the doors sliding shut with a final, echoing chime.
