Reborn Rich: The Marvelous William Hudson.

“You useless piece of trash.”

Benjamin's fist connected with William's jaw before the words even finished landing.

The wheelchair skidded sideways from the force of it, one wheel lifting briefly off the floor before crashing back down. William's head snapped to the side. Blood filled his mouth immediately, warm and copper-tasting, and he felt it drip from his lip onto the collar of his already ruined shirt.

He could not raise his arms to protect himself.

He could not stand, he could not do anything except sit in that chair and take it.

But his eyes stayed open.

“Benjamin.” Lydia's voice came from across the room, warm and satisfied, like a woman watching something she had been looking forward to for a long time. She was leaning against the wall with her arms folded, still flushed, still catching her breath from before. A slow smile spread across her face as she watched.

“Don't damage him too badly. Not yet. I want him to hear what I have to say first.”

Then Benjamin stepped back and rolled his shoulder lazily, shaking out his fist.

“He's all yours,” he said.

Lydia pushed off the wall and walked toward William slowly, she stopped directly in front of him.

“Look at you,” she said softly.

She reached out and gripped his chin between her fingers, turning his face up toward hers. Not gently.

“Twenty years ago you were one of the most powerful young man in this city.” She tilted his face left, then right, examining him like he was a broken object.

“And now look at what you've become.”

William stared up at her.

His jaw was throbbing. Blood was running freely from his lip. But his eyes were steady and dark and burning with something that all twenty years of that chair had never managed to extinguish.

“Let go of my face,” he said quietly.

Lydia laughed and released him with a small push that snapped his head back.

“Or what?” she said pleasantly. “You'll stand up and stop me?”

She crouched down until she was level with him.

“I want you to understand what today is, William. I want you to fully understand it, because you deserve to know exactly what has happened.”

“I already know what you are,” William said with a low disgusting voice.

“You know nothing,” she said. “Not the full picture. Not yet.”

She held up one finger.

“Your life insurance policy. The one you signed on our wedding day, the one that took years to mature after the date of your injury.” She smiled. "It was approved this morning. Every cent. Transferred, documented, and completely legal.” She tilted her head.

“Did you know that?”

Something moved through William's face.

“Two years,” she continued. “That's how long Benjamin and I had to keep you breathing. Keep your heart beating. Make sure you didn't catch pneumonia or choke on your food or simply give up.” She clicked her tongue softly.

“Do you have any idea how inconvenient that was?”

“And the company,” Benjamin said from behind her, walking slowly forward with his hands in his pockets.

“Fully transferred. Every share, every subsidiary, every contract with every partner you spent thirty years building.” He stopped beside Lydia and looked down at William with his head tilted. “All of it. Done. Signed. Finished.”

“This morning,” Lydia said again, letting the word sit.

“Everything became ours this morning.”

She stood to her full height.

“Which means,” she said, “that you, William, are no longer useful to us. Not even a little bit. Not even enough to justify the cost of your food.”

William looked between them.

His fingers were gripping the armrests so hard his knuckles had gone completely white. His whole body was trembling with a rage his muscles had no way to release. The blood from his lip dripped steadily onto his shirt.

“Say something,” Lydia said, almost encouragingly, the way you prompt a child.

“This is the part where you tell me how much you loved me. How much you sacrificed. How you built everything from nothing and gave me the best years of your life.” She smiled broadly.

“Go ahead. I want to hear it one more time.”

“I gave you everything,” William said.

His voice did not shake.

“I gave you my name, my company, my trust, my life. I pulled Benjamin out of poverty with my own hands and gave him a future he never would have had, but what did you guys do in return.”

At that moment his lips started shaking before he continued.

“You guys Backstab me, disrespected me, having S*x in front of me, and now you want to end it all, what have I not done for you Lydia. I loved you the way a man loves once in his life.” His eyes moved between them.

“And you put me in this chair on our wedding night. You planned it before we even said our vows.”

“Sharp,” Lydia said approvingly. “Yes. I did.”

“You stole twenty years from me.”

“We did,” she agreed simply.

“And you think it's over.”

Benjamin cracked his knuckles and stepped forward.

“It is over.”

His fist drove into William's ribs.

The breath exploded out of William's lungs. The chair rocked violently. He could not double over, could not curl away from the pain, could only sit and absorb it, his body rigid and trapped and entirely at their mercy.

Benjamin hit him again. Across the face this time. William's vision whitened at the edges. He tasted more blood.

“Thirty years of building,” Benjamin said, hitting him again, his voice rising with each word, each blow, “and it all belongs to me now. Every floor of every building. Every person in that company answers to me. Your name isn't on a single door. Your signature isn't on a single contract.” He grabbed William by the collar and pulled his face close.

“You are nothing. You have been nothing for twenty years and today it becomes official.”

He shoved him back hard into the chair.

William's head swam. His ribs screamed. Blood covered the lower half of his face.

But he lifted his eyes.

He found Lydia first, then Benjamin.

And when he spoke, his voice came out quiet and even and completely without fear.

“I built everything you are standing on,” he said. “This company. This house. Every connection, every contract, every opportunity that has ever put money in your pockets. I built all of it.” He paused, breathing through the pain.

“How touching,” Benjamin said, drawing his fist back again.

“Remember this moment,” William said, looking directly at Lydia as the blow came.

“Remember exactly what you felt today, standing here, believing you had won.”

The fist connected again

At that moment the world tilted and darkened at the edges.

William fought to hold onto consciousness with everything he had.

“Give him the pills,” Lydia said simply. “We're done with him.”

Benjamin grabbed the wheelchair and shoved it hard toward the wall.