The Kingmaker Ex-Husband: Trillionaire in the Shadows

The Discarded Ring and the First Slap

Damian’s icy stare caused the smile on Clarissa’s face to freeze for a fraction of a second, whilst Julian Kingsley’s leather shoes still pressed down on the divorce papers lying on the marble floor. Inside the magnificent hall, dozens of pairs of eyes among the invited guests seemed to stare at Damian with condescending anticipation. They were all waiting to see whether the soaking-wet young courier would truly humiliate himself for a cheque worth ten thousand US dollars.

Tyler Caldwell, standing beside his mother, immediately burst out laughing at the sight of Damian, who remained frozen in place. For Tyler, this moment was a golden opportunity to further trample on his brother-in-law’s self-respect in front of New Avalon’s leading businessmen.

“Why are you just standing there daydreaming, Damian?!” shouted Tyler as he stepped forward with an arrogant air.

“Young Master Julian has been kind enough to offer you a way out! Get down on your knees and pick up that cheque with your mouth if you have to!” Tyler shouted again, stretching out both hands to shove Damian’s shoulders with all his might, hoping to send him crashing to the floor.

But just as Tyler’s palms struck Damian’s shoulders, the young man’s body did not budge even a single millimetre. On the contrary, Tyler felt as though his hands had just collided with a solid cast-steel pillar. A sudden, piercing pain shot from his wrists up to his elbows, causing him to jerk backwards, grimacing as he clutched his throbbing, aching wrists.

“This man’s body… how can it be as hard as stone?!” thought Tyler, his eyes wide with shock.

Julian Kingsley, witnessing Tyler’s failure, snorted in annoyance whilst casting a look of disgust at Damian. As the only son of the Kingsley Capital conglomerate, Julian was used to seeing poor people bowing obediently just to get a single note from him. Damian’s calm, unshakeable demeanour actually wounded his high sense of self-worth in front of Clarissa.

“So it seems you still want to put on a tough act in front of your ex-wife, do you?” Julian sneered with a cynical grin.

“Very well, if you won’t kneel of your own free will, I’ll break both your legs myself so you know your place!” Julian snapped arrogantly.

Julian immediately swung his right leg, intending to deliver a powerful kick aimed at Damian’s shin to humiliate the young man in public. The kick was delivered with full force, fuelled by his overconfidence, feeling he had the upper hand.

However, before the tip of Julian’s expensive shoe could touch Damian’s trousers, a lightning-fast movement occurred. The movement was so swift and subtle that it was almost imperceptible to the ordinary people around them. Damian merely shifted the tip of his shoe a few centimetres to the side, then with a slight, controlled burst of internal strength, he tripped Julian’s ankle just as the man’s leg was in the air.

‘Crack!’

The sound of a sprained joint cracking could be heard quite clearly near the serving table.

“Aaargh!”

A shrill scream suddenly burst from Julian Kingsley’s mouth. The tall figure, clad in an ivory-white tuxedo, instantly lost his balance, then tumbled to the ground, crashing onto the marble floor in a most humiliating sitting position. The crystal wine glass in his left hand slipped from his grasp and shattered into pieces, spilling thick red liquid onto his white trousers until they looked as dishevelled as a dirty rag.

“Julian!” cried Clarissa, her face as pale as a sheet.

She immediately rushed forward with Margaret to help Julian, who was grimacing in pain whilst clutching his ankle. All the guests in the main hall were instantly stunned. No one could have imagined that the heir to the powerful Kingsley family could take such a tumble in the blink of an eye.

“How dare you harm Young Master Julian, you lowly scoundrel!” Margaret screamed hysterically, pointing at Damian’s face with a finger that was trembling violently.

“Clarissa, look at this barbaric behaviour from your ex-husband! He deliberately harmed Julian out of spite, because he’s jealous that Julian is far superior to him!” Margaret exclaimed again to her daughter.

Clarissa stared at Damian with eyes brimming with anger and deep disappointment. In her eyes, Damian’s recent actions were merely a wild outburst of emotion from a lowly man who was desperate after having just been dumped.

“Damian Cross, you’ve really gone too far!” snapped Clarissa, her chest heaving.

“Julian came here with good intentions to help me and my family, but you repaid him with brutal violence like a street thug! Your despicable behaviour tonight only further proves that my decision to divorce you is the rightest thing I’ve ever done in my life!” said Clarissa in a voice brimming with hatred.

Damian did not respond to Clarissa’s accusations with anger at all. His calm gaze shifted from Clarissa’s face to the divorce papers lying beside the shards of wine glass.

Slowly, Damian stepped forward. He did not kneel as Julian had wanted, but merely bent slightly to pick up a clean sheet of paper containing the divorce settlement clause. From the nearby serving table, Damian reached for a gold pen belonging to the hotel secretary, which lay on a tray.

Without reading the property division clause which clearly stripped him of his rights Damian confidently ran the pen across the signature column for the second party. The black ink dried on the thick paper in a matter of seconds, bringing to an end the three-year marriage that he had so patiently maintained.

After putting the pen back, Damian bent down to pick up the cheque for ten thousand US dollars that Clarissa had previously thrown onto the floor. Clarissa and Margaret, who had witnessed this, briefly flashed scornful smiles, assuming that Damian had, in the end, been unable to resist the temptation of the severance pay.

However, in the very next moment, the smiles on both women’s lips vanished instantly.

With a very casual movement, Damian’s hands tore the ten-thousand-dollar cheque in two, then tore it again into four, then eight, until the white paper was reduced to shreds. Damian opened his palm, letting the shreds of the cheque scatter and fall onto the face of Julian Kingsley, who was still sitting on the floor.

“You’d be better off using this ten thousand dollars’ worth of small change to treat the ankle of your dream man, Clarissa,” said Damian in a tone that was so cold and cutting.

Damian’s left hand then rose. His index finger and thumb moved slowly, slipping off a plain silver ring that encircled the ring finger of his left hand. That cheap ring was the only item the late Arthur Caldwell had bought himself three years ago for their simple wedding ceremony at a suburban church.

‘Clink!’

Damian dropped the silver ring straight into Clarissa’s champagne glass, which was sitting on the table in the front row. The clink of metal striking the base of the crystal glass echoed softly amidst the silence of the hall.

“Three years ago, I stood by your late grandfather’s hospital bedside and promised to look after you until your company reached the pinnacle of this industry,” said Damian, gazing straight into Clarissa’s eyes, which were beginning to waver.

“Tonight, Caldwell Bio-Tech has officially become a publicly listed company worth three hundred million dollars. My promise to your grandfather has been fully fulfilled,” Damian continued, without a trace of doubt on his face.

“From this moment on, you are no longer my wife, and I am no longer part of the Caldwell family. Hold on tight to all the arrogance and luxury you’ve been boasting about today, Clarissa. Because when the day comes when everything you own crumbles to ashes, do not ever come crying and grovelling before me,” Damian declared with a hidden authority that sent shivers down the spines of several guests in the nearest row.

Clarissa froze, listening to every word that came from Damian’s lips. For the first time in three years, she felt a terrifying chasm separating her from the man who had always cooked her breakfast every morning. The look in Damian’s eyes that evening was not that of a heartbroken husband, but that of an emperor sweeping a trifling matter from his path.

Margaret, unable to bear seeing her poor son-in-law daring to dictate to her daughter, immediately shouted for the hotel security.

“Security! Where is this hotel’s security?!” Margaret shouted in a hoarse voice.

“Drag this mad tramp out this very instant! Break both his arms and throw him into the rubbish bin outside!” Margaret ordered the four burly hotel security guards who had just arrived with batons strapped to their waists.

The security guard at the front, who was the largest of the lot, immediately strode towards Damian. His hand, clad in a leather glove, reached out roughly, intending to grab Damian by the collar of his wet shirt and drag him away by force.

“Young man, come with us calmly or you’ll face the consequences!” the burly security guard growled.

However, before the man’s grip could touch the fabric of his shirt, Damian’s right hand moved to intercept the attack. Using a highly precise military joint-lock technique, Damian seized the guard’s wrist, twisted it in a half-circle downwards, then utilised his opponent’s body weight to slam the ninety-kilogram man straight onto the marble floor.

‘Thud!’

A loud thud rang out as the security guard’s back slammed hard against the marble floor. The guard didn’t even have time to scream before his breath was cut short and his body lay limp and helpless on the floor.

Three other security officers who were about to step forward immediately halted in their tracks, their faces pale with fear. They exchanged glances, cold sweat trickling down their temples, realising that the martial arts technique just demonstrated by the young man in front of them was no ordinary street fight, but rather a high-level killing skill possessed only by elite special forces.

Damian smoothed down the damp collar of his shirt without so much as a glance towards the officer lying sprawled on the floor. He turned calmly, striding purposefully through the crowd of New Avalon billionaires, who now automatically parted to make way for him out of an inexplicable sense of awe.

Clarissa could only stand frozen, staring at Damian’s back as he slowly walked away from the hall where her company’s celebration was taking place. Deep within her chest, a sudden pang of anxiety and a strange sense of foreboding arose, as though she had just let go of the most precious thing in her life.

Damian pushed open the glass doors of the main lobby at The Grand Imperial Hotel and stepped out onto the VIP car park. Outside the building, heavy rain was still lashing down on the city of New Avalon, with the strong night wind whipping against his face.

Just as Damian descended the steps of the hotel lobby terrace, the roar of high-powered car engines suddenly pierced the silence of the night. The blinding glare of the headlights pierced through the curtain of heavy rain from the direction of the hotel’s entrance gate.

One by one, a convoy of ten jet-black, armoured Maybach Pullman saloons glided into the VIP car park in a flawless VVIP escort formation. All the luxury cars, fitted with bulletproof glass and bearing the consortium’s special number plates, braked simultaneously, then came to a halt in a neat line directly in front of the steps where Damian was standing, completely blocking the entrance to the main lobby of the seven-star hotel from the outside world.