2025-07-29 22:43:02“Say what you want, Loretta,” Emma said, stepping forward. “But if you ever disrespect my husband again, I swear you’ll regret it.”
The room froze. Even the cashier paused mid-scan. Loretta blinked, stunned. Jennifer gasped. Emma wasn’t just defending Ethan—she was owning him. The fire in her eyes was unmistakable. Anyone who didn’t know better would’ve sworn this was a marriage born of love and choice.
Loretta tilted her head mockingly. “Emma, how do you sleep at night? The girl who once dreamed of marrying a Forbes-listed billionaire… who fantasized about a wedding that would shut down half the country… Now here you are. No ring, no wedding, married to a… loser. This is your legacy?”
Emma’s throat tightened. The words stung more than she thought they would. Loretta was right—about her dreams, her ambition, even her former sense of pride. But what hurt most wasn’t Loretta’s mockery. It was the reminder that Tracy and Stella had abandoned her. That her family still didn’t know what mess she’d gotten herself into. That she’d lost the Enzogrande contract. That her “husband” was a man she didn’t even know—an ex-convict, no less.
Then, as though the universe itself wanted to rub salt in her wounds, the large TV screen above the cashier buzzed to life.
“Breaking News!” the anchor’s voice filled the boutique.
Everyone turned to the screen, including Emma, Loretta, and Jennifer.
“Enzogrande Corporation has officially hit a trillion-dollar valuation! The company has just joined the elite club of global corporate giants. As part of today’s announcement, the board also confirmed a change of ownership.”
All eyes widened.
Even Ethan looked up with mild interest. He already knew what was coming.
The camera cut to a press conference. A suited executive stepped forward with a smile. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to introduce a new era for Enzogrande Corporation. The company is now owned by a young and brilliant entrepreneur, a 27-year-old bachelor, and quite possibly the most eligible man in the country. We won't be revealing his name due to privacy requests, but ladies, you might want to shoot your shots!”
Laughter echoed in the press room. But the boutique was dead silent.
Loretta was the first to react. She clutched her purse tighter, her eyes gleaming. “Well, well. Looks like a new lion is in the jungle. Shame, Emma. If this was last week, I’d be terrified. You would’ve been the favorite to win his heart.”
She sighed theatrically.
“But not anymore.” Loretta smiled like a viper. “Your brand is done. You’re married to an ex-convict. You can’t even compete. Thank you, Ethan. You may be good for nothing else, but you’ve done one thing right—you’ve eliminated your wife from the competition.”
She turned to leave.
“Loretta,” Ethan called calmly.
She turned.
“She’ll be attending the class reunion,” he said, “and she’ll be doing so with a signed contract from Enzogrande Corporation.”
Everyone froze.
Emma turned sharply. “Ethan, stop. Don’t say—”
Loretta grinned, amused. “Is that so?” Her eyes twinkled with malicious delight. “You’re serious?”
“I am.”
Emma stared at him like he had lost his mind.
“Interesting,” Loretta murmured. “You know what? I love a challenge.”
She stepped back in, closer to them, her perfume leaving a trail of roses and contempt. “Let’s make it a bet.”
Ethan smiled slightly. “Name your price.”
“If Emma doesn’t show up with a contract,” Loretta said, “she will publicly renounce every beauty goddess title she’s ever won. All of them. And she’ll announce that she cheated to win. She’ll also declare me the rightful winner—on stage.”
Emma gasped.
Jennifer stepped in. “You’re crazy, Loretta.”
But Emma said nothing. The pain was real. She knew Loretta never forgave her for always coming second in the contests they both took so seriously. Despite all her tricks to win, Loretta always fell short to Emma.
“I’m not agreeing to that,” Emma said firmly. “That’s a trap.”
Ethan leaned toward her. “Then make a counteroffer.”
Emma hesitated.
“Let me,” Ethan said smoothly. Then he turned to Loretta. “If Emma does show up with the contract, then you’ll sell 75% of your company to her… at one-tenth the market value.”
Loretta’s confident smirk flickered.
“And,” Ethan continued, “you’ll make a public confession at the reunion. You’ll admit every false accusation, every lie, every stunt you pulled back in school—including the ones on Emma.”
Emma’s eyes widened, a spark of respect flaring. His plan was bold, surgical, hitting Loretta’s pride and power.
Loretta’s laugh was harsh, but her eyes flickered with unease. “Fine, but you’ll lose. Enzogrande rejected you once, Emma. You can’t charm the new owner.”
Ethan’s gaze was steel. “Accept it.”
Loretta’s confidence wavered—she recalled her school schemes: framing Victor Sandler for harassment just to punish his girlfriend, ruining his life for a petty slight.
Confession would destroy her—humiliation, lawsuits, banishment from reunions. But the lure of crushing Emma, stealing her crowns, was too sweet. Her greed outweighed her fear.
“You’re on,” Loretta whispered. “You idiots are digging your own graves.”
Jennifer shouted, “What are you doing?! Are you insane?!”
Emma stared at Ethan, fear and anger mingling in her chest. “You just made the biggest mistake of my life.”
Loretta waved as she walked out. “See you at the reunion. Make sure to bring those crowns in a one million dollar box..”
Silence filled the boutique.
Ethan turned to Emma, his eyes warm, confident. “Trust me. I promised to protect you, defend your interests, and slap down anyone who wrongs you—even if this marriage is temporary. I’ll keep that promise.”
Emma’s heart stirred, a trust she couldn’t explain, defying her brain’s logic. Her heart had never led her astray. “I trust you,” she said, her voice soft but firm. “But if this goes wrong, I’ll kill you myself.”
Jennifer’s eyes widened, her disdain boiling—this lowlife ex-convict was leading her boss to ruin. She bit her tongue, waiting for the inevitable crash.
They paid for the $40,000 suit, the attendant’s hands trembling as she bagged it, and stepped into the blazing sunlight.
Emma’s Mercedes waited, its chrome glinting, but before they reached it, two black SUVs screeched across their path, tires smoking.
Eight men spilled out, guns and bats gleaming—pistols, crowbars, a machete catching the sun. They surrounded the trio, forcing them back from the car, their boots crunching gravel.
The leader stepped forward, his leather coat swinging, a ruby-serpent ring glinting—King Locust, Cobra’s uncle, his face a mask of rage.
“Where’s the bastard who put my nephew in a coma?!”
Ethan didn’t flinch.
“I’m King Locust. Cobra’s uncle. And that piece of trash you’re walking with almost killed him.”
Emma stepped forward, confused. “Wait… you’re Cobra’s uncle?”
Locust turned to her. “You. You were the reason for the fight. And that man you’re protecting? He’s a walking dead man.”
Emma’s hands shook. “He couldn’t have done that. Look at him—he doesn’t even look like he could hurt a fly. Just tell me what you want. I’ll pay you whatever.”
Locust burst into laughter. “I’m not here for money. I’m here for revenge.”
Jennifer stepped forward arrogantly. “Listen, you flea-bitten street roach. Take your boys and crawl back to whatever trash dump you came from. This is Emma Robbins you’re threatening. Her security team—”
Ethan pulled at her arm. “Stop.”
She slapped his hand away. “Don’t ever touch me, you dirty—”
Emma tried to calm her down, but Jennifer was on fire now.
Ethan tried again, his tone urgent. “Back off, Jennifer.”
She ignored him, striding toward Locust, her heels clicking, her voice dripping with disdain.
“You’re nothing but a street dog from some godforsaken dump.”
Emma called out, “Jennifer, stop—we’ll settle this!”
But Jennifer pressed on, unstoppable. “You’re untouchable? We’ll show you who runs this city.”
Ethan sighed, stepping back, leaving her to her fate.
Jennifer faced Locust, her chin high. “You’re a stray mutt who—”
Her words cut off as Locust’s hand cracked across her face, a slap so loud it echoed like a gunshot.
She stumbled, clutching her cheek, but another slap followed, deafening her other ear.
She collapsed at Ethan’s feet, her pride shattered, her hands gripping his legs for protection, fear replacing her arrogance. Her life flashed before her, her bravado gone.
She clung to his leg, eyes wide in shock and terror. “P-please…”
Emma surged forward, her voice blazing. “Cobra deserved it, not Ethan! He can’t even hurt a fly—leave us alone!”
Locust raised his hand toward Emma. “And you—”
Before he could swing, Ethan moved.
A single, effortless kick.
BOOM.
Locust flew through the air, like a ragdoll in a hurricane.
He crashed against a parked car over fifty feet away.
Silence.
Gasps.
The other thugs dropped their weapons. Fear gripped them like chains.
They scrambled, grabbed Locust’s unconscious body, and sped off in their cars without looking back.
The entire street was stunned.
Emma stood frozen. Her ears rang. Her heart pounded.
Suddenly, images from the night before came flooding back—Cobra’s men… her screams… the blows… the man who saved her in the alley with godlike strength.
It had been Ethan.
She remembered everything.
He was the one who saved her. He was the man who destroyed them all.
She stared at him now, breathing heavily.
“What… what are you?” she whispered.
Ethan looked at her, a calm smile on his face.
“Just a man keeping a promise.”
Jennifer was on the ground, shaking.
Emma didn’t speak again.
She couldn’t.
Because she knew—whatever she had gotten herself into… it wasn’t just a mistake anymore.
He wasn’t ordinary—not a frail ex-convict, but… something else. A supreme master, a war god, AMEN in whispers, probably.
Jennifer, clutching her swollen cheeks, stared up, dumbstruck. “Why didn’t you act sooner?” she whispered, her voice small. “You let him hit me.”
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Chapter 207: Visions like memories
Ethan lowered himself onto the woven mat, the coarse fibers a tactile anchor in the surreal chamber. He crossed his legs, rested his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes. The weight of the stone room, the scent of earth, the profound silence—it all pressed in, not as an assault, but as an invitation to dissolve.This was the same thing he had run away from back then that he was now finding himself performing again.But what choice had he got? He needed to complete this before he could think of facing Nathan for the sake of Emma and his unborn baby.“Breathe into the stillness,” the Grand Physician’s voice murmured, not from across the room, but seemingly from within the stillness itself. “The Quieting is not an erasure. It is a re-ordering. You will see the tapestry of your life. The threads of joy, of pain, of choice and consequence. Do not cling to them. Observe them as patterns in the weave. You will have visions. Keep an open mind. The mind that judges is the mind that suffers
Chapter 206: The sanctuary of stillness
They passed through corridors Ethan vaguely remembered, places of instruction and meditation. But the Grand Physician led him deeper than he had ever gone before, to a part of the compound that felt less like a building and more like a natural cave system that had been gently shaped. The air grew cooler, the scent of stone and damp earth replacing the incense.Finally, they entered a circular chamber. The ceiling was a natural dome of rock, with a single shaft of muted light falling from a hidden opening far above, illuminating the center of the room. In that pool of light was a simple mat of woven reeds. Around the perimeter, in deep shadow, stood nine smooth stone pillars, each carved with a single, complex symbol that seemed to shift in the low light.This was the Sanctuary of Stillness. The air itself felt thick, heavy with intention, as if sound went to die here.The Grand Physician gestured to the mat. "The place of unraveling."Ethan moved toward it, the gravity of the room pre
Chapter 205: The ‘Quieting’ Ritual
As Ethan drove to the Grand Physician’s the following morning, his hands tight on the wheel, his mind was a million miles away—or rather, decades.He wasn't navigating by GPS, but by muscle memory of a journey taken in a different life. The towering pines blurred into a green-grey wall, and with them, the present dissolved.“The focus is not to feel nothing, Ethan. That is the crude aim of a brute. The aim is to feel everything… and choose which sensation becomes action. The rest, you relegate to a silent room and lock the door.”The Grand Physician’s voice, dry as ancient parchment, echoed in his mind. He could see the austere training hall, the smell of sandalwood and cold stone. He’d been young, arrogant, flush with the early successes of the skills he’d already learned. The ‘Quieting’ had been presented as the final masterwork, the capstone. Not a new weapon, but the forging of an impregnable armory for the mind itself.And he’d walked away just before he could even get to underst
Chapter 204: Back To The Grand Physician
Ethan didn’t answer for a long moment. He pushed back from the desk, the chair rolling soundlessly on the thick rug. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, his back to the room, his silhouette tense against the glittering, indifferent cityscape.“I know my brother,” Ethan said, his voice hollow, stripped of all its usual command. “I know that Elizabeth Robbins would swallow broken glass before calling me for help. The fact that she did…” He bowed his head, a hand coming up to press against the cold glass. “It means she has exhausted every other option.”Ethan gave a single, jerky nod. The weight of it—the dual loss, the compounded violation—seemed to press him physically into the floor. “My brother understands currency. He understands leverage. He has just acquired the only two things in this universe I would trade the crown for. Not that I would ever be given the choice.”He strode back to the desk, not with purpose, but with a frantic, caged energy. He picked up the dead phone, s
Chapter 203: What do we do now?
Elizabeth’s phone slipped from her nerveless fingers, thudding softly onto the carpet. She didn’t hear it. All she heard was the roaring silence of a timeline that ended at seven o’clock.She was leaving.Four hours ago.The chill from the balcony was nothing compared to the glacial fear freezing her from the inside out. Every terrible possibility—the kind she’d spent years as a corporate wife learning to suppress—flooded her mind. An accident on the winding coastal road. A mugging in the city garage. Or worse, something deliberate, something linked to the crown, to the viper’s nest Emma had just been thrust into.Her gaze swept the room, landing on the family portrait from a decade ago—Richard’s arm around her, a young, smiling Emma between them. A perfect, painful lie. She was alone. Utterly alone with this terror.And then, unbidden, the most complicated, infuriating face of all surfaced in her mind: Ethan.She recoiled from the thought. Emma’s fury at him had been absolute, scorch
Chapter 202: Four hours ago
"You're operating under the assumption that Ethan and I are still connected. That I am leverage." Emma's voice was cold and sharp. "You're wrong. What happened with my grandfather severed that tie completely. I am done with Ethan. There is no loyalty to exploit, no affection to manipulate. Keeping me here is a pointless risk. Your quarrel is with him. Let me go, and you eliminate a complication. He will still come for you, for the crown. But you won't have an angry, resourceful hostage who has zero stake in his survival cluttering your operation."She delivered the speech with icy precision, every word a calculated move on this new, horrifying board. She was a redundant asset. A liability. She painted the picture with clear, logical strokes.And of course, that was what she thought. There was no point in dragging her into a sibling rivalry that she had no stakes in, and much worse, dragging her unborn child into it as well.Nathan listened, his head tilted. When she finished, he didn'
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