2026-02-15 07:37:17Charlotte smirked faintly as she yanked her hand free and said, “Watch me.”
She walked away with Fabio. Chris stood there, staring long after they were gone.
He turned to the balcony, his knuckles white against the railing.
A laugh floated from inside. He didn’t know why, but it felt aimed at him.
Three years of loving her deeply and this is all he gets.
He wasn’t just going to stay there and wallow in pity. He cleaned his teary eyes and walked in back slowly, the music hitting him full force now.
He stopped near the hallway, unsure of what he was even waiting for.
“Uhhh… Look who we have here…” the voice said mockingly.
He turned to see Lucas, watching him with open curiosity.
“Lucas, I’m not in the mood.” Chris said.
“I’m just looking out for my brother-in-law, you know.” Lucas said with a smile.
Chris frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lucas leaned closer. “As I was passing through the restroom just now, I was hearing moans of people and it seemed to belong to Fabio and your darling wife.”
Chris widened his eyes, disbelief washing over him.
Lucas let out a laugh.
“I don’t believe you.” Chris said, shaking his head.”
Lucas chuckled. “I’m not telling you to but you know, seeing is believing.”
He gave Chris a little pat on his shoulder and laughed as he drank the wine in his hand.
Chris’s steps slowed.
His chest felt tight as he walked back toward the party, eyes scanning faces, searching.
“Charlotte wouldn’t do that to me.” He said to himself.
But his heart could not just let it slide.
He did not storm toward the bathroom.
That was the first lie he told himself.
He paced instead. Slowly at first, then faster, his polished shoes tracing invisible lines across the marble floor.
Guests drifted past him in clusters, laughter trailing behind them like loose threads. No one noticed the way his jaw tightened, or how his fingers curled and uncurled at his sides.
He smiled when he had to. Nodded when spoken to. Pretended the air wasn’t burning his lungs.
“It means nothing,” he told himself.
But the image refused to leave his head.
Charlotte walking away with Fabio, her hand wrapped tightly around his.
When he reached the bathroom door, he didn’t hesitate. He knocked once, hard, and pushed it open.
The sight stopped him cold.
Fabio stood near the sink, his jacket open. Charlotte was in front of him, her fingers at his waist, focused, careful.
“What is going on here?” Chris demanded.
Charlotte spun around. “Chris! What are you doing?”
Fabio winced theatrically. “Easy, man. I hurt my fingers earlier. Your wife was just helping.”
“Helping you zip your trousers?” Chris snapped.
Charlotte’s eyes hardened. “Lower your voice. He injured his fingers.”
“This is inappropriate,” he said, his chest rising. “Whatever this is…stop it.”
Fabio didn’t move.
“You should wait outside.” He said gently.
Charlotte didn’t argue.
Then she turned to Chris, “Enough,”
“Chris, you’re embarrassing yourself.”
“I’m your husband,” he said quietly.
“And right now,” she replied, “you’re acting like a child.”
He searched her face for something. Maybe remorse, hesitation, anything.
There was nothing.
Chris stormed out of the bathroom as he felt a heavy lump in his throat.
The world around him seemed to spin and as if that wasn’t enough torture, he saw Fabio and Charlotte enter the party back with their arms intertwined.
Observing the scene before her, Veronica stood, a satisfied smile on her face, and tapped her glass.
“I’d like to make a toast,” she announced.
The room fell silent.
“To my brilliant stepdaughter,” she continued, smiling broadly at Charlotte. “A woman of vision, strength, and excellence.”
Applause followed.
“And,” Veronica added, turning toward Fabio, “To excellence. To loyalty. And to those who protect what we build. Cheers to other prosperous years ahead!”
“Cheers!” the crowd’s voices rippled through the room.
“Thank you, everyone.” Veronica chuckled then she added, “Oh, how I wish my dearest Charlotte was married to a gentleman like Fabio. This night would have even more perfect”
Fabio lifted his glass. “It is only a matter of time, Veronica,” he added. “It always reveals the right choices.”
The laughter felt endless.
Chris sat frozen.
When the last guest finally left and the hall quieted, Chris found Charlotte in the sitting lounge.
They sat close, voices low.
“Why is he still here?” Chris could not help but ask.
Charlotte sighed. “Chris, because he’s important.”
“To whom?”
“To me,” she said. “Fabio is my new investor. He will help the familia go forward and I’m doing what I have to do. Don’t read the meaning into everything.”
Then she added, “At least someone is trying to help me here. All you do Chris, is cause trouble.”
Chris lowered his head. “Sorry if all I ever meant to you was trouble, Charlotte. I’ll leave.
Fabio smiled faintly.
“Don’t be insensitive, Chris. We were just talking about business.”
Chris didn’t respond.
He just walked out of the venue to sit in the car.
He waited for over three hours before Charlotte finally came out.
It was their anniversary that day. Their special day.
But all he feels is pain and anger.
He was nothing in front of Charlotte’s family or even the guests they called to the party.
When Charlotte came out of the venue, she said nothing to Chris.
“Drive.” She said coldly to the driver.
The drive back home was silent, the kind that pressed against the ears. No music played. No phones chimed. Chris watched the city slide past his window in streaks of light.
The moment they stepped inside the house, the silence shattered.
“Oh! look who is here? The useless son-in-law of the Woods family” Veronica said mockingly.
“Look at you. You are so pathetic. Hopeless. A waste of space.” Lucas added as he shakes his head in disbelief.
“I just have a question for you.” Bianca said as she stepped forward.
“What were you thinking when you spilled drink on his expensive dress?” she asked.
Veronica smirked, “He was trying to make a scene to see if Charlotte will pay him attention.”
They all laughed. Even Charlotte.
Chris’s chest heaved. Something in him snapped but he couldn’t find the right words to say.
They were right.
He is indeed useless with nothing to his name. Only brilliant ideas that make no progress, and empty bank accounts.
If only his developing app will work this time. If only the investor would get back to him.
Chris sat alone on the couch, absorbing the weight of it all.
Was fortune about to turn or was this another trap?
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Chapter 250
The heavy iron gates of the main Mikaelson estate slid shut, sealing out the rest of Arcadia City. Inside the sprawling private grounds, the usual oppressive silence had completely dissolved. Tonight, the fortress was alive with an uncharacteristic, vibrant warmth.To personally celebrate the total neutralization of the Gordon threat and the safety of his fiancée, Chris had ordered the estate staff to prepare a massive, open-air feast within the grand stone courtyard. He hadn't restricted the celebration to elite corporate executives or high-ranking family directors. Instead, long wooden tables stretched across the manicured lawns, illuminated by the flickering amber glow of massive iron fire pits and string lights woven through the ancient oak trees. Every single personal security guard, driver, perimeter watchman, and front-line mercenary on both the Mikaelson and Greene Global payrolls had a seat at the tables.The crisp night air of Arcadia City was thick with the rich, mouth-wate
Chapter 249
A profound, revitalizing silence settled over Onyx Harbor. With the Zenith High Council completely dismantled and their corrupt grip broken, the blackouts that had plagued the commercial districts ceased overnight. The municipal power grid stabilized, surging with a clean, uninterrupted current. It was as if a suffocating, heavy weight had been lifted from the chest of the entire city. For months, the population had lived under the shadow of corporate extortion. Now, small businesses reopened their doors, the neon signs of the entertainment sectors burned steady into the dawn, and the streets hummed with a newfound, peaceful energy. The fear that had defined Zenith's reign was evaporating, replaced by the realization that a new era had begun.High above the bustling streets, insulated from the city’s ambient noise by triple-paned reinforced glass, Chris Greene sat in his executive office at the top of the Greene Global tower. The room was dark save for the ambient glow of the city bel
Chapter 248
Gordon finally turned around and walked toward them. When he was in front of her, His knees buckled under the sudden, crushing weight of total defeat, and he sank onto the cold ground next to his bleeding, groaning son. He stared up at her, his face turning pale, his lips trembling as his thirty-year empire dissolved into pure dust before his eyes. "You... you violated the terms. We gave you the girl...""I don't negotiate the survival of the Mikaelson name with bankrupt criminals," Lynda whispered. She turned her head toward her commanders. "Throw them both in the back of the transport vans. Take them directly to the subterranean cells of the Mikaelson estate. They are going to face a very long, very thorough trial for corporate espionage and kidnapping."As the doors of the vans slammed shut on the bound, humiliated Gordons, Lynda turned back to Michelle, her expression softening. "The threat is neutralized, Lady Michelle. The Gordons are erased. Let us get you home.”Meanwhile I
Chapter 247
He turned his attention back to Lynda. "Here are our terms for the trade, Lynda. We hand over Michelle Antonio right now, entirely unharmed. In exchange, you grant my son and me a twelve-hour operational window of total immunity. You pull back your shadow blockades from the western docks, you let our private transport jet leave the regional airspace, and you guarantee that your tactical cells will not pursue us into our South American territories. If you refuse, or if a single sniper fires a round, my son will pull the trigger on the girl, and we will all die together in this clearing. Decide. Right now."Lynda stood perfectly still for several long, agonizing seconds. The heavy silence in the shipping yard was thick enough to choke on. She looked past Gordon, her eyes locking onto Michelle.Michelle gave a single, slow, and deliberate nod of her head. She understood the chess board perfectly. She knew that survival in this moment was the only priority, because once she was safe, the
Chapter 246
"How are you such a completely useless son?" the patriarch spat, his voice dropping into a hateful tone that cut deeper than any physical blow. "How on earth did I raise such a parasite? You aren't even an asset to this family—you are a cancer that just destroyed thirty years of my labor in a single night!"Michelle stood near the doorway, flanked by the two mercenaries. Even with her hands bound, her expression was one of pure amusement. She watched the breakdown of the Gordon dynasty with cold satisfaction. Levitt wiped the blood from his mouth, a spark of defensive, desperate anger flaring in his eyes as he scrambled to his feet. "Dad! Insulting me doesn't solve anything right now! The fact is, the Antonio girl is here! She’s standing right in front of us! Instead of screaming at me, how do we use her to get ourselves out of this mess?"The entitlement in Levitt’s voice, the total failure to grasp the sheer gravity of the apocalypse he had invited into their home was the final st
Chapter 245
"Help me lift her!" Levitt gasped to the last remaining mercenary, his voice cracking with pure terror. Together, they roughly dragged Michelle's limp body out of the back of the crippled van and threw her into the rear of a small, nondescript utility truck that had been parked inside the warehouse as a final emergency escape vehicle."I'll hold them off, sir! Get out of here!" the mercenary yelled, turning back toward the main warehouse floor with his weapon raised.Levitt didn't look back. He jumped into the driver's seat of the utility truck, slammed it into gear, and smashed through a rotted wooden loading dock door that led out into a deep, unlit concrete drainage canal behind the industrial park. He accelerated into the darkness just as a team of Mikaelson shadow soldiers blew the inner doors off the loading dock.When Lynda's commanders reached the platform, the area was empty. They found the bodies of the mercenaries, the abandoned black van, and the tracks of an escaping vehi
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