Chapter 6 - THE SHADOW OF THE EAST RIVERThe private dock behind the East River estate was dark, save for the amber glow of old-fashioned carriage lamps casting long, distorted shadows across the choppy, black water.
Serena Bellamy still wore her wedding dress, though the silk was now stained with dirt at the hem and her hair hung in damp, tangled strands around her face. She sat on a wooden crate near the edge of the dock, her hands no longer tied, but her spirit thoroughly crushed.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel path behind her.
She didn't turn around. She didn't have to. She knew the heavy, rhythmic cadence of those shoes anywhere.
Adrian Vale stopped two paces behind her, looking out over the dark river toward the glittering lights of Manhattan in the distance.
“Your uncle sends his regards,” Adrian said quietly.
Serena’s head snapped up. Her voice was cracked and hollow. “Is he... is he dead?”
“Julian is currently on a cargo freighter bound for a non-extradition port in South America,” Adrian said, his voice as flat as the water before them. “He’s alive. But he’s traveling in a shipping container with thirty crates of expired fertilizer and no water for the first forty-eight hours. By the time he reaches port, he’ll have plenty of time to contemplate the value of other people’s ledgers.”
Serena let out a bitter, choked laugh, hugging her arms around her shivering shoulders.
“You’re a monster, Adrian.”
“Maybe,” Adrian replied without turning his head. “But I’m a monster who keeps his ledger balanced.”
He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a manila folder, tossing it onto the wooden crate beside her hip.
Serena stared at it suspiciously. “What is this?”
“Your new identity,” Adrian said.
She blinked, looking up at him in sheer disbelief. “My... what? After everything—after the trap, the wedding, the theft—you’re letting me go?”
“I’m not letting you go,” Adrian corrected coldly. “I’m deporting you. Your assets have been frozen, your corporate entities dissolved, and your name scrubbed from every registry in North America. You have twenty-four hours to board a flight to a small town in rural Nova Scotia under the name Sarah Miller.”
Serena stared at the folder, her hands trembling as she touched the manila cardboard. “Why? Why not just put a bullet in my head like you did with your rivals in Chicago?”
Adrian finally turned to look down at her. The streetlamp caught the hard angles of his face, making him look carved from granite.
“Because killing you would make you a martyr in your uncle’s eyes,” Adrian said softly. “And because Maddie’s mother deserves to know the person who destroyed her family is gone—not dead, but erased. Just like your wealth. Just like your name.”
Serena opened the folder. Inside was a Canadian passport, a one-way ticket, and a cashier’s check for precisely five thousand dollars—enough to rent a small apartment and buy a winter coat, but not a single penny more.
May you like
“You’re a cruel man, Adrian Vale,” she whispered, a tear finally falling onto the cover of the passport.
“No, Serena,” Adrian said, turning his back and walking slowly back toward the glowing warmth of the estate house. “I’m just a man who hates surprises at his wedding.”
