A murmur rippled through the room. Jefferson scoffed from his seat. Tom's fingers twitched behind his back.Simone's left eye twitched once. He straightened his posture and looked at Mia with the kind of rage that a man feels when the thing he considers beneath him dares to speak back."You chose a cockroach over me." He pointed at his own chest. "Me. Simone Greene. Heir to the largest empire on the eastern seaboard. You stood in front of the world and chose a washed up firefighter who cannot even afford to put food on a table without begging your family for scraps.""Alex never begged anyone for anything." Mia's chin lifted higher. "He earned everything with his own hands. Something you would never understand because everything you have was handed to you by the old man sitting behind you."Simone's face flushed red. His neck veins bulged visibly. He opened his mouth to respond but before he could utter a word, a sharp sound cracked through the air.The slap came from the side. Fast.

Jefferson's mouth snapped shut. His face went from red to white in the span of a heartbeat. The memory of Alex's foot crushing his fingers flashed behind his eyes and he physically stepped backward.Tom cleared his throat loudly. "Mia. That is enough. You have said your piece. Now listen to what is being offered to you."Mia turned toward her grandfather. Her gaze on him carried something deeper than anger. It carried the kind of quiet disgust that forms when the last thread of love finally snaps."Offered? You kidnapped me off a highway and dragged me here in a blindfold. You used my own mother as bait. And you call this an offer?"Tom's face remained unmoved. "I call it a correction. You made a mistake by marrying that man. This is your chance to fix it before things get worse for everyone involved.""Worse for who? For you?" Mia almost laughed but the sound that came out was hollow and bitter. "Everything you do is for yourself, Tom. Every decision. Every arrangement. Every allianc

Alex looked down at him with an expression that carried nothing. No hatred. No satisfaction. Nothing at all. And that nothingness was more humiliating than any insult Simone had ever received in his life.Jefferson pressed himself against the wall, his remaining good hand covering his mouth. His eyes were the size of coins. Tom's face had gone from composed to ashen gray. The other Vinda family members sat frozen in their seats, some gripping the armrests so hard their knuckles were bone white.Alex slowly lifted his gaze from Simone and swept it across the entire room. Person by person. Face by face. He looked at Jefferson until the man physically shrank. He looked at Tom until the patriarch looked away. He looked at the aunts and uncles until they lowered their heads. He looked at the guards on the floor until the ones still conscious stopped trying to get up."Mia is my wife." His voice was not loud. It filled the room anyway, pressing against every wall and every ear. "She is not

More laughter rippled through the room. Even some of the injured guards on the floor managed weak, contemptuous smiles.Mia reached up and gently tugged on Alex's sleeve. Her fingers were still trembling from everything she had been through. The swelling on her cheek had darkened to a deep shade of red and the blood at the corner of her lip had dried into a thin line."Alex." Her voice was barely above a whisper, meant only for his ears. "Please. Don't make this worse. The Greenes are not like the others. They have connections everywhere. I don't want you to get hurt because of me."Alex turned his head and looked at her. The coldness in his eyes softened for exactly one second. Just one. Then it returned."You don't need to worry about anything." His words were quiet but they carried the weight of an oath. "Anyone who puts their hands on my wife pays the price. I don't care if they own banks in twelve countries or twelve hundred countries. They touched you. That is all that matters."

The fluorescent lights of the hospital corridor buzzed overhead as Simone leaned against the wall outside the ICU. A doctor in blue scrubs stepped through the double doors and pulled his mask down to his chin."Your grandfather survived the cardiac arrest. His vitals have stabilized for now, but his condition remains critical. The next forty eight hours will determine his recovery."Simone exhaled sharply and pressed the back of his head against the wall. "He is going to be fine. He has survived worse."The doctor hesitated. "Mr. Greene, I need to be straightforward with you. At his age, another episode could be fatal. He needs complete rest and zero stress.""Then make sure he gets it." Simone waved the doctor away without looking at him. "That is what I am paying you for."The doctor nodded stiffly and disappeared back through the doors.Simone closed his eyes for three seconds before his phone started vibrating again.It had not stopped vibrating since they arrived at the hospital.