Unrivaled Dragon: The Fallen Heir’s Return

Chapter 2: The Contract Wife

The heavy iron doors of the Vance Tower lobby offered no shelter from the freezing gale ripping through the concrete canyons of River City. Rain fell in violent, horizontal gusts, soaking through Ethan’s canvas jacket within seconds.

He stood on the broad granite steps outside the entrance, staring out into the dark, gleaming skyline. The cold water dripped down his nose and chin, but he didn't feel it. In the Northern Wastelands, a storm like this was considered mild spring rain. There, a man learned to embrace the cold until it became a part of his blood.

behind him, the muffled sounds of sirens began to echo through the shattered lobby. Julian’s high-society guests were spilling out from the side exits like panicked rats, scrambling into their chauffeur-driven limousines, anxious to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the ghost who had just walked out of the dead.

A harsh screech of tires cut through the roar of the downpour.

A sleek, metallic-grey Maybach pulled up against the curb directly at the foot of the steps. The driver didn't get out. Instead, the rear passenger door opened slowly, and a tall black umbrella emerged, opened against the storm.

A young woman stepped out onto the wet pavement.

She wore a sharp, tailored dark suit over a crisp white silk blouse, her long jet-black hair pulled back into a flawless, low ponytail. Her skin was as smooth and fair as porcelain, contrasting sharply with the deep purple shadows beneath her dark, almond-shaped eyes. Her high cheekbones and delicate features gave her an aristocratic beauty, but her posture was rigid, carrying the heavy, unbearable weight of exhaustion.

Claire Montgomery.

Ethan’s eyes softened by a fraction of a degree—the only visible crack in his stone-cold exterior.

Three years ago, before Ethan’s downfall, their grandfathers had arranged a strategic marriage between the rising Vance Enterprises and the venerable, but struggling, Montgomery Logistics. It was an alliance built on paper. On the day of their legal signing, Ethan had been framed, arrested, and hauled away in chains before they could even hold a wedding banquet.

They had never lived under the same roof. They had never shared a bed. For three years, she had carried the social stigma of being the "convict's bride" while her family's empire slowly collapsed around her.

Claire walked up the granite steps, her heels clicking evenly against the wet stone. She stopped three feet away from Ethan, holding the umbrella high enough to look directly into his eyes.

She scanned his mud-splattered boots, his faded canvas coat, and the faint, pale scars running along his neck. Her chest heaved with a quiet, suppressed sigh, her lips pressing into a thin line.

"You haven't changed at all," Claire said. Her voice was cool, crisp, and smooth, though a faint tremor betrayed her underlying stress. "The very first hour you return to the city, you destroy the front entrance of the Vance Tower and beat six security guards into the hospital."

"They were in my way," Ethan said quietly.

"Julian is the most powerful man in the commercial district now, Ethan!" Claire snapped, her quiet composure wavering as anger flared in her eyes. "He controls the port authorities, the banking union, and half the city council! You walked in there looking like a homeless beggar and threatened him! Do you have any idea what he will do to you tomorrow?"

"He won't do anything," Ethan replied, his tone as vast and unyielding as an ocean. "Because by tomorrow, he won't have the power to command a street sweeper."

Claire closed her eyes for a brief second, shaking her head in utter disbelief. "Still arrogant. Still delusional. You think River City stood still for three years while you were gone? You think you can just show up and wave your hands to fix everything?"

She reached inside her structured leather briefcase and pulled out a thick manila folder wrapped in a waterproof plastic sleeve. She held it out to him into the open rain.

"Sign it, Ethan," she said, her voice dropping to a low, dead tone.

Ethan looked down at the document through the transparent sleeve. Bold black letters stood out against the white paper: DEED OF DIVORCE AND DISSOLUTION OF MARITAL ASSETS.

"A divorce?" Ethan asked, looking back up into her eyes.

"Julian came to my father's office this afternoon," Claire said, tears of frustration suddenly brimming at the corners of her dark eyes, though she furiously blinked them away. "He gave us an ultimatum. If I don't sign these papers, sever all legal ties with your name, and hand over thirty percent of Montgomery Logistics' voting shares by midnight, Vance Enterprises will terminate our primary harbor lease tomorrow morning."

She took a step closer, her voice trembling with intense emotion. "Do you know what that means, Ethan? Without that harbor lease, our cargo ships cannot dock. Our warehouses will be seized by the port authorities. My father’s lifetime of hard work will be wiped out in seventy-two hours! My family will be completely bankrupt!"

Ethan looked at the trembling papers in her hand, then at the deep exhaustion etched into her beautiful face.

"You don't want to divorce me because you despise me," Ethan said, his voice dropping into a soft, resonant whisper that cut through the sound of the falling rain. "You are doing this to save your father."

"It doesn't matter why I'm doing it!" Claire cried out, her voice cracking as a single hot tear slipped down her cheek, mingling with the raindrops blowing under her umbrella. "What matters is reality! Look at yourself, Ethan! You are standing in the freezing rain wearing rags! You have no money, no connections, no family, and no background! You cannot fight Julian! You cannot fight the system!"

She thrust the folder closer to his chest. "Sign the papers! Let me save what is left of my family! If you ever had any respect for me or my grandfather, just sign them and run away from this city!"

Ethan looked down at the folder. He slowly reached out his right hand, taking the plastic sleeve from her grasp.

Claire let out a long, shuddering breath, her shoulders sagging as if a mountain had been lifted off her back. "Thank you... I will have my driver drop you at a hotel outside the city limits. I'll give you ten thousand dollars in cash to help you get established somewhere else—"

RIP.

The sharp sound of tearing paper echoed loudly over the granite steps.

Claire’s breath hitched in her throat. Her eyes widened in absolute horror.

Ethan had pulled the document from the sleeve and casually torn it down the center. He folded the two halves together and tore it again, letting the thick white scraps flutter from his hands into the muddy rainwater pooling at their feet.

"What... what are you doing?" Claire gasped, stumbling backward as if she had been struck. "Are you insane? That was our only way out!"

"There is no 'way out' that involves you kneeling to Julian Vance," Ethan said calmly. He stepped down one granite stair, stepping closer to her under the rim of her umbrella. The dark, golden flecks in his eyes glinted like dying embers. "You are my wife, Claire. Three years ago, I couldn't protect you because I was betrayed by those I trusted. But today, no one in this city—not Julian, not the Four Great Families, and not the government—will force you to bow your head."

"Ethan, you fool!" Claire sobbed, gripping the handle of her umbrella so tightly her fingers turned blue. "This isn't a fairy tale! Words cannot pay off a bank debt! My father needs fifty million dollars in liquid cash by nine o'clock tomorrow morning to clear our short-term credit notes! Fifty million dollars! Can you give me fifty million dollars right now?"

Ethan raised his left arm, pulling back the sleeve of his wet canvas coat to reveal an old, worn stainless-steel watch.

The second hand clicked precisely onto the twelve. Exactly ten minutes had passed since he made the satellite call on top of the Vance Tower.

BUZZ. BUZZ.

Deep inside Claire’s suit jacket, her encrypted corporate smartphone began to vibrate frantically.

Claire froze. She wiped the tears from her face with her sleeve, frowning in confusion. Almost no one called her personal corporate line at this hour of the night unless it was an absolute emergency from the harbor board.

She pulled out her phone. The screen was flashing with a high-priority notification from the Secure Commercial Bank of River City.

NOTIFICATION: INCOMING REAL-TIME WIRE TRANSFER.

Claire frowned, her trembling thumb tapping the screen to open her company’s master financial dashboard. She expected to see a notification of account freezing or a legal seizure notice from Julian’s attorneys.

The application loaded, revealing the primary operating account of Montgomery Logistics.

PREVIOUS BALANCE: -$4,210,500.00

NEW BALANCE: $50,000,000.00

SENDER: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY COUNCIL (RESERVE FUND ALPHA)

STATUS: CLEARED / UNCONDITIONAL LIQUID ASSETS

Claire stood frozen on the steps.

The rain continued to slam against her black umbrella, but the sound seemed to fade into a distant, muffled hum. She refreshed the application screen once. Twice. Three times.

The row of seven zeroes remained unchanged, glowing brightly against the dark blue interface of her screen. The forty-million-dollar deficit was gone, replaced by a massive, overwhelming surplus of liquid cash that could purchase her entire company three times over.

"This... this is a glitch," Claire whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind. She stared at the screen, her phone trembling violently in her hand. "The bank portal must be experiencing a system failure... this is impossible..."

"It isn't a glitch," Ethan said smoothly.

Claire snapped her head up, staring at Ethan as if he were a ghost, a demon, or something entirely beyond her comprehension. "Where... where did this money come from? Did you rob a national reserve? Ethan, if you involved my family in illegal money laundering, we will all be executed!"

"It is entirely legal, fully tax-cleared, and registered under your company's name as an institutional private investment," Ethan said, his expression completely unreadable. "You wanted fifty million to save your father. Now you have it."

Claire swallowed hard, her mind spinning into absolute chaos. She looked down at her muddy phone, then back at the man standing in front of her in a wet canvas jacket. The ragged ex-convict who had walked out of a frozen wasteland an hour ago had just deposited a fortune that most River City billionaires couldn't raise in a month.

"Who are you?" Claire breathed, her voice trembling with a mixture of awe and terrifying uncertainty. "What happened to you during those three years in the north?"

Before Ethan could answer, the heavy double doors at the side exit of the Vance Tower burst open.

A group of wealthy executives, led by Evelyn Sterling’s uncle—Victor Sterling, the influential President of the River City Commercial Bank—hurried down the steps toward their awaiting luxury sedans, surrounded by bodyguards.

Victor Sterling was furiously typing on his phone, his face pale as ash. "What do you mean all our credit lines are locked? Unfreeze them! I don't care if it takes a billion dollars, unfreeze Vance Enterprises' accounts right now!"

He stopped at the bottom of the steps, his eyes falling upon Ethan and Claire standing near the Maybach.

Victor’s eyes narrowed into sharp, cruel slits. He recognized Ethan instantly. "You! Ethan Vance! What kind of sick trick did you play inside? Did you hack the tower's internal network before you left?"

Ethan didn't even turn his head to look at Victor. He simply looked down at Claire, his voice steady and calm.

"Doesn't Julian have a special charity auction scheduled at the Imperial Hotel tonight?" Ethan asked smoothly.

Claire blinked, trying to regain her composure. "Yes... the Grand Maritime Charity Ball. He invited all the city elders because he planned to publicly buy out our primary docklands terminal at a forced bankruptcy price."

"Good," Ethan murmured, a cold, lethal smile finally touching the corners of his lips. "Let's go show your husband's stepbrother who really owns the docks of River City."