Ethan’s POV “So… are you going to invite me in or just keep pretending you didn’t see me walk through the glass walls?”Vanessa’s voice was sugar-laced poison, her smile the kind you’d carve into a wax doll before tossing it into fire. And me? I should’ve shut the door in her face. I should’ve told Clara to send security. Instead, I stepped aside like a fool caught between two detonating bombs.“Fine,” I muttered. “Come in.”Vanessa swanned past me like a queen reclaiming her throne. She didn’t look at Olivia. Not at first. But I saw the calculation in her eyes, like a cat pretending not to notice the wounded bird in the room.“A lovely office” she said, eyes scanning my office like she owned it. “But then again, nothing ever really changes with you, does it, Ethan?”“Make your point,” I said, already exhausted.“Why so tense?” she said sweetly, settling into the chair across my desk like it had been reserved for her. “You used to be better at hiding that.”Olivia hadn’t moved from t

Ethan’s POV About an hour or so after Vanessa left, my office still reeked of her lies.I sat slouched in my chair, elbow on the desk, staring at the untouched espresso Clara had brought me earlier. The steam had died, and so had the appetite for anything that resembled normalcy. If chaos had a scent, it was the lingering perfume mix of two women who should’ve never have crossed paths in my life again. Or so I believed. “God,” I muttered, rubbing my temple. “What a mess…”What was I even doing?Trying to breathe in the ruins of a Monday morning that had started with Olivia’s broken heart and ended with Vanessa’s crocodile tears on my floor. How the hell did it get here? My life was spiraling like a damn soap opera I didn’t audition for.The one thing I was thankful for?My grandfather wasn’t around to witness that train wreck.He would’ve raised his brow, cocked his head to the side, and muttered something like, “I built a legacy and left you an empire, and this is how you run it? B

Vanessa’s POV I had just returned home from seeing Ethan, an experience I would rather not recount to anyone.I sat in my car, parked just outside the house like the marble driveway suddenly demanded my respect. My fingers were still trembling around the steering wheel, nails digging into the leather as if the wheel had wronged me. I couldn’t go inside. Not yet. Not while my heart was still stuck in that cold, heartless office where he’d looked at me like I was filth.“He hates me,” I whispered under my breath, my voice cracking. “He really... hates me.”I tilted my head back against the headrest, blinking away the sting in my eyes. I hadn’t cried when he yelled. Not when he called security. Not even when he spat the word trash like it belonged to me. But now, alone in the quiet bubble of my car, it hit differently.“Who wouldn’t?” I muttered, scoffing bitterly at myself. “I practically destroyed the one person who actually loved me.”He loved me once. I know he did. There was no way

Vanessa’s POV Tired of the whole drama, I slammed the door behind Nathan and his pathetic entourage, locking it with more force than necessary. The bass from the now-silenced speakers still thudded inside my skull, a cruel echo of the madness I had just evicted. Drunk girls with smudged mascara and glittered heels had been stumbling over my Persian rug like it was a damn runway. Nathan, high out of his mind, had laughed at thin air, drooling over the same chaos he dragged in. My home, my place if solace, had turned into a drug-fueled circus in a matter of hours.“Why do I even let him back in?” I muttered aloud, tightening my silk robe around me. “Because he’s my brother? Or because somewhere in my deranged heart I think he’ll change?”Maybe I was the deluded one. Always hoping. Always giving him another chance. But I was done. Done playing mother, fixer, savior.I needed to cleanse every ounce of that filth. I needed a bath, something hot enough to scald off Nathan’s stench from my

Ethan’s POV “Are you sure you want to do this?” Jordan’s voice crackled through the secure line. “Because once this gets out, there’s no going back.” “No one burns my house and walks away,” I said flatly, gripping the edge of my desk. “Let it burn them instead.”“You’ll be starting a war.”“I didn’t start it. The Hales did the moment they tried to ruin me.”Silence on the other end. Then a slow exhale.“Alright. The files are ready. Everything you asked for—bank transfers, offshore accounts, distribution routes, and the tapes from the warehouse surveillance.”I closed my eyes for a second, letting the gravity of it wash over me. “Send the package anonymously to the District Prosecutor,” I said. “Make sure it can not be traced back to me.” “Already handled. By tonight, the press will be begging for statements.”“Good,” I muttered, staring at the framed photo of myself on the shelf. “Let them watch it burn.” The call ended. It was only a matter of hours before the news spread like