"I will use this chance to rewrite my destiny," Elena whispered to her reflection.
"I gave him my heart, and he tried to turn it into a floor mat. He thought I was small because I chose to be kind, now, he will see how tall I stand when I choose to be ruthless."
She turned to Silas. "Is the gold phone encrypted?"
"Fully," Silas replied.
"Only the five of us can reach you to the rest of the world, you are a ghost that has suddenly become a god."
"Good," Elena said, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across her face.
"Tell the kitchen I want a real meal, I'm tired of eating the leftovers of a man who isn't fit to serve me."
While Elena slept on silk sheets for the first time in years, the morning sun rose over Solana City like a red ink stain over spreadsheet. the fate was already decided.
In the penthouse, the air was stale. Tom Phoenix woke up with a headache that throbbed behind his eyes, a remnant of the expensive champagne he and Sandra had uncorked to celebrate Elena's departure. He reached out for Sandra, but her side of the bed was cold.
He found her in the kitchen, staring at her phone.
The "sickly-sweet" perfume was replaced by the sharp scent of burnt coffee.
"Tom," she whispered, her voice trembling.
"The business account I tried to order the nursery furniture this morning. The card was declined."
Tom scoffed, rubbing his face.
"Don't be ridiculous. I have five million
I have five million in that account alone. It's probably just a banking error. Elena must have messed with the autopay before she left."
He pulled out his own phone to check the Phoenix Logistics dashboard. His thumb froze over the screen.
[ACCESS DENIED: ACCOUNT TERMINATED BY ADMINISTRATIVE OVERRIDE]
"What the hell?" Tom muttered. He tried again.
The same red text flashed back at him, it felt like a slap. "Sandra, call the IT department now!"
"I tried," Sandra cried, her face pale.
"No one is answering Tom, look at the news."
She turned the television to the financial channel. A scrolling ticker at the bottom made Tom's heart stop:
PHOENIX LOGISTICS UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR CORPORATE TREASON. TRADING HALTED. LUANDA GROUP ANNOUNCES FULL LIQUIDATION.
"Treason?" Tom's voice was a ghost of itself.
"I didn't... I mean, we only talked to the rivals we didn't sign anything yet!"
"Tom, look outside," Sandra pointed to the floor-to-ceiling window.
Down on the street, three blocks away, a figure was walking. She wasn't in a car, she was walking right down the center of the walking avenue with tree planted along the lines , and The morning traffic parted for her like the Red Sea.
It was Elena she was wearing a charcoal grey suit that moved like smoke, and her red heels clicked against the pavement with the precision of a ticking bomb.
Behind her, a wall of men in black suits followed, and behind them, a swarm of reporters with cameras aimed at her back.
She wasn't hiding she was coming for him.
"She's coming here," Sandra shrieked, clutching her stomach the "fake" belly that Elena now knew held a rival's child.
"Tom, do something! Call the police! She's trespassing!"
But Tom couldn't move he watched through the glass as Elena stopped in front of the building. She didn't look up at the penthouse. She looked at the giant "PHOENIX" sign above the lobby doors.
She raised a hand, and one of her guards handed her a heavy, iron sledge hammer.
Tom watched in horror as his "useless" wife swung the tool with a strength he never knew she had, shattering the glass nameplate of his company into a thousand jagged pieces.
"She's not just taking the company, Sandra," Tom whispered, finally feeling the first real wave of terror.
"She's erasing us."
The lobby of Phoenix Logistics was a palace of chrome and glass, a monument to Tom's ego.
But as Elena stepped through the shattered remains of the front door, the air inside felt different. It was cold, it was quiet, the dozens of employees who usually moved very quickly like ants were frozen, their eyes glued to the woman in the charcoal-grey suit.
Elena didn't look at them, her heels clicked against the marble with a rhythmic clack-clack-clack that sounded like a countdown.
"Elena! Stop right there!"
Tom's voice echoed from the first hallway. He was disheveled, his tie crooked, his face a mess of sweat and panic. Beside him, Sandra clutched the railing, her knuckles white.
"You're trespassing, Elena!" Tom shouted, his voice cracking.
"I've called the police! You think because you have some goons in suits you can just walk in here? This is my building! My My name is on the wall!"
Elena stopped, she stood in the center of the lobby, directly under the massive crystal chandelier she used to hand clean every month because Tom was too cheap to hire a professional crew.
She looked up at him, and for the first time, Tom saw the "Luo" fire in her eyes. It was ancient it was terrifying.
"Your name was on the wall, Tom," Elena said, her voice amplified by the dead silence of the room.
"But the land belongs to the Luo Empire, and as of 8:01 AM, the lease for this building has been terminated for breach of moral conduct."
"You're insane!" Sandra shrieked from above.
"You're just a bitter ex-wife! You have nothing! No proof, no power—"
"
"Actually," Elena interrupted, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the gold-plated phone. She didn't look at the screen; she looked directly at Tom.
"I have something better than proof. I have a confession."
She tapped a command on the phone. Instantly, every screen in the lobby the arrival boards, the stock tickers, the tablets in the employees' hands—flickered and changed.
The audio boomed through the high-end speaker system, filling the room with Sandra's voice.
"I've got the shipping manifests, Marcus. Tom is so blinded by this 'heir' I promised him that he hasn't noticed I'm routing the Phoenix contracts to your firm. Once the company is hollow, we'll let Elena take the blame for the bankruptcy, he's a fool, Marcus a useful, arrogant fool."
The silence that followed was absolute, it was the kind of silence that came before a crash.
Tom turned to Sandra, his mouth hanging open.
"Sandra? What... what is that? Who is Marcus?"
Sandra's face went from pale to a sickly green, she tried to step back, but Silas Luanda was already standing at the top of the stairs behind her, his presence blocking her escape like a shadow.
"Marcus is the CEO of Solana International," Silas said, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
"And according to the DNA lab records Elena just authorized me to pull... Marcus is also the father of the child you're currently using to manipulate this man."
Tom's knees buckled he grabbed the railing to keep from falling. "The child... isn't mine?"