2026-05-13 16:19:46Two of the other bodyguards moved to her before she could take another step.
They were not rough but they were completely immovable, and within seconds Jenna found herself pinned, her arms locked, her feet barely touching the ground.
Mark found his voice again somewhere under the shock and the humiliation, and what came out of him was raw and ugly.
"I will kill you!" he screamed, spittle at the corner of his mouth, his eyes red. "Every single one of you! I will have your entire families wiped out, you hear me? You are all dead!"
Jenna, never one to be outdone, started screaming curses. Real ones, the kind that came from somewhere low and desperate, strung together in a breathless torrent aimed at Vivien, at the bodyguards, at anyone within range.
Vivien's face changed.
It was subtle. The composed mask did not crack exactly, but something behind her eyes went very still and very sharp, the way a person goes still when something crosses a line they cannot ignore.
Her grandfather was lying in a hospital bed right now, his body failing him, doctors standing around him with nothing useful to offer. And this woman on the ground was screaming curses at her family.
"A hundred times," Vivien said quietly.
One of the bodyguards looked at her. "Miss Holden?"
"Slap her," Vivien replied, her voice perfectly even. "A hundred times."
The color drained from Jenna's face immediately.
What followed was not quick. It was methodical and it was thorough, and Jenna went from screaming insults to screaming in pain to, eventually, sobbing and begging with her palms pressed flat against the floor.
"Stop, please, please stop, I am sorry, I am sorry, please."
Mark, who had been scrambling to his feet with the intention of rushing at Vivien, met two bodyguards before he got within three steps of her.
The struggle lasted about four seconds. When it was over, Mark was on the ground and one of his legs was bent at an angle that made it immediately obvious something had snapped.
His scream was long and high and genuine.
Edward had been standing in the doorway watching all of this with his arms loose at his sides and a slight frown pulling at his brow.
Not distress exactly. More the expression of a man watching something messy happen in a place he cared about.
He looked at Vivien. "Stop."
She glanced at him.
"This is the house my parents left me," he continued, his voice quiet and completely without drama. "I do not want their screaming in it. It is irritating." He tilted his head slightly toward the gate. "Make them leave."
Vivien held his gaze for a moment, then turned and gave the bodyguards a small nod.
The bodyguards stepped back.
Vivien looked down at Jenna, who was hunched on the ground with her hair loose and her face swollen, shaking visibly.
"You are leaving with your life," Vivien informed her, her voice carrying no satisfaction, just fact. "That is because of Mr. Harper. If it were my decision alone, you would be leaving without at least one hand." She straightened slightly. "Be grateful and do not come back."
Jenna did not argue. She could not even fully stand on her own.
She grabbed Mark's arm and dragged herself upright, and together they stumbled toward the gate, Mark half hopping and half dragging his broken leg, his face white and soaked with tears he was too proud to wipe away.
Nobody followed them.
They made it to the road outside the villa gates.
Jenna leaned against the wall, breathing hard, her hands shaking as she pushed her hair out of her face.
Mark slid down against the wall beside her, clutching his leg, his teeth grinding against the pain.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Jenna's hand moved to her pocket.
She pulled out her phone, her fingers clumsy and urgent, and dialed. It barely rang once before the other line picked up.
"Ken." Her voice broke on the first word, and the tears came flooding out of her all at once, messy and uncontrolled. "Ken, that criminal, that useless criminal Edward, he had someone break Mark's leg. He broke our son's leg, Ken. Come here right now. Come here right now!"
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 49: The Golden Card
Chapter 45: The Golden CardThe lounge smelled like old wood and expensive silence.Vivien had chosen it deliberately. No staff, no family members hovering at a respectful distance, no performance required. Just two chairs angled toward the window and a city spread out below them, still burning through the dark the way cities do, indifferent to everything that had happened inside the manor tonight.She sat across from Edward and looked at him the way she had been looking at him since the hospital corridor, with the focused attention of someone trying to map something that kept refusing to hold still."You saved my grandfather's life twice," she said. "I want you to understand that I know what that means."Edward looked at the window. "Logan did the harder part.""Logan was unconscious," Vivien said flatly.The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. Something smaller and more private than that."It was a small matter," he said.Vivien looked at him for a moment, and the expressi
chapter 48: Part -2
. "I was not asking for your approval, Uncle.""I was not offering it," Ken replied."Then we agree," Harley said, and turned back to Larl.Mark watched the exchange from his bed with his head tilted slightly back against the pillow. He had been quiet for a long time. When he spoke, his voice came out lower than usual, stripped of the heat that normally lived in it."What about the Holden family," he said. "Three months of competing for business orders does not fix what happened tonight."The ward went quiet again."No," Larl said. "It does not.""So we ignore it.""We manage it," Larl said. "Carefully. From a distance. We do not poke at that situation until we understand it better." He looked at Ken. "No more public statements about Edward. No more theories about deception. No more pointing fingers on stages."Ken said nothing."Kenneth," Larl said."I heard you," Ken replied.Larl looked at him for one moment longer, the look of a man deciding whether heard and understood meant the
Chapter 48: Three Months part-1
Larl had not sat down since he arrived.He stood in the center of the ward with his hands at his sides and looked at his son in the chair, at the broken leg, at Peter against the wall with his jacket still twisted from being manhandled off a stage, and he took his time looking because looking carefully was how he had run this family for forty years before he handed it to people who broke their legs at celebration dinners.Ken held his father's gaze for as long as he could and then looked at his own hands."What I said makes sense," Ken said quietly. "You know it does.""I know it is convenient," Larl replied. "Those are different things.""Edward is not what they think he is.""You said that before you went on stage." Larl's voice was flat and did not move. "You said it loudly. Into a microphone. In front of two hundred people." He looked at his son for one more second. "We both know how that ended."Ken's jaw tightened."But," Larl said, and the word made several people in the room l
chapter 47: part-2
a private citizen with a company scandal attached to her name." He looked around the room, meeting eyes, holding them. "We lose John Stanton's connection. We lose the cruise. We lose the room full of people on that boat who could open doors for this family that the Holden situation has tried to close." His chin lifted slightly. "Edward is a temporary problem. John Stanton is a permanent asset. Do not sacrifice the second for the first."Harley looked at him for a long moment."So your answer to offending a first-tier family," she said, "is to put all your hope in a party invitation.""It is not a party invitation," Ken snapped. "It is John Stanton. Do you understand what that name means in this city? The Holden family is first tier, yes. But John Stanton built half the infrastructure that first-tier families operate on. His relationships run deeper than any single banquet.""Then why were we not already in those relationships before tonight?" Harley asked.Ken opened his mouth."Why d
Chapter 47: The Cruise part-1
Chapter 43: The CruiseKen sat up straighter in his chair and the movement cost him, the broken leg sending something sharp and white up through his thigh, but he pressed through it because this was not the moment to look like a man who could not sit up straight."Father." His voice came out measured, the boardroom voice, the one that still worked even when the rest of him did not. "I respect what you are saying. But going to Edward now would be the single worst move this family could make."Larl looked at him."The Holden family's impression of Edward is temporary," Ken continued. "It has to be. The man walked out of a prison cell two days ago with nothing. Whatever story he told them, whatever trick he pulled with that hospital situation, it is a house of cards and houses of cards fall." He spread one hand, the gesture of a man presenting something reasonable. "If we go to him now, if we bow our heads to that worthless piece of garbage before the Holdens discover who he really is, w
chapter 46: part-2
"A first-tier family's patriarch. You vouched for the man. You and that Henderson boy presented him as legitimate." He paused. "And now my son is sitting in that chair and you are standing here arguing with your cousins about leadership."Eliza held his gaze. "Grandfather, I was deceived. The credentials were—""I am not interested in the credentials," Larl said. "I am interested in the result."The room was completely still.Larl looked at the family around him, the cousins, Jenna, Mark, the others gathered in the doorway, and his eyes moved across all of them with the slow, comprehensive clarity of a man who had built this family and understood its mechanics better than anyone in it."The Norton family has one path forward," he said. "One. And none of you are going to like it." He looked back at Eliza. "You are going to find Edward Cole and you are going to apologize to him. Directly. In person. Without conditions and without excuses."The ward erupted."Absolutely not." Jenna was o
You may also like
THE ULTIMATE TRILLIONAIRE BOSS
Victor Amos Regannez202.9K viewsReturn Of The Dragon Lord
Snowwriter 139.2K viewsSecretly Rich Son in Law
Banin SN198.8K viewsTrillionaire they never noticed
Alfred ifeanyi75.8K viewsThe Heir They Humiliated
Bami477 viewsThe billionaire they buried
Ashford 38 viewsThe Genius She Treated Like a Dog
FrankintheHouse9 viewsThe Son-in-Law They Regretted Losing
Amma Brandon56 views