Chapter 4 - The Broken Engagement
The grand ballroom felt like a courtroom awaiting a guilty verdict.
Evelyn Langley stood restrained by security, her chest heaving, her perfect hair disheveled.
Victoria stood alone.
Completely, utterly alone.
She turned to Daniel, her eyes wide and pleading.
Tears—real ones this time—streamed down her face.
“Daniel, I didn’t know,” she sobbed. “I swear to you, I didn’t know anything about this!”
Daniel looked at her.
For four months, she had played the perfect, loving partner.
But tonight, the mask had completely melted.
“You didn’t know?” Daniel asked, his voice deathly quiet.
“No! I was just a child when this happened!”
Daniel pointed a shaking finger at me.
“Then why did you order Anna to burn the lace tonight?”
Victoria flinched as if she had been slapped.
“I… I thought it was just old trash!”
“Don’t lie to me!” Daniel shouted, his voice echoing off the glass walls.
He walked slowly toward her.
“Anna said you panicked. She said you knew exactly what the locket was before she even opened it. Why?”
Victoria backed away, her hands trembling.
“You’re taking the word of a seamstress over your future wife?”
It was the wrong thing to say.
Daniel stopped.
His eyes turned entirely cold.
“You are not my future wife.”
Victoria let out a shattered gasp.
“Daniel, no. Please.”
Daniel reached for his left hand.
He didn’t wear a wedding band yet, but he wore a heavy gold signet ring Victoria had given him.
He pulled it off.
He tossed it onto the floor.
It clattered against the marble, rolling to a stop right next to the brass key.
“The engagement is over,” Daniel said.
Victoria dropped to her knees.
Right there in the middle of the ballroom, surrounded by billionaires, politicians, and reporters.
“Daniel, please! I love you! You can’t do this to me!”
Daniel didn’t even blink.
“You don’t love me, Victoria. You love the Harrington money. You love the bailout.”
He turned to his father.
Richard was standing beside Eleanor, holding his sister’s hand as if he would never let her go again.
“Dad,” Daniel said. “Call the police.”
Evelyn Langley screamed.
“No! Richard, please! We can fix this! We can transfer the properties back!”
Richard looked at the woman who had helped steal his sister’s life.
“You can’t transfer back twenty-five years, Evelyn.”
He pulled his phone from his tuxedo pocket.
“And I don’t want your properties. I want you in a federal penitentiary for the rest of your miserable life.”
As Richard dialed, Victoria crawled across the floor toward Eleanor.
Her expensive silver gown dragged against the marble.
“Eleanor,” Victoria begged, weeping openly. “Please. Show mercy. I had nothing to do with kidnapping you.”
Eleanor looked down at the sobbing woman.
There was no pity in her eyes.
Only the cold, hard justice of a woman who had survived hell.
“You didn’t kidnap me, Victoria,” Eleanor said quietly.
“But you spent my money. You lived in my house. You wore my jewelry.”
Eleanor crouched down, bringing her face inches from Victoria’s.
“And tonight, you tried to burn my last connection to the world.”
Eleanor stood back up, towering over the broken bride.
“Mercy is for people who make mistakes. Your family made a business out of my suffering.”
Far in the distance, cutting through the quiet hum of the ocean waves outside, a new sound emerged.
Sirens.
May you like
Victoria collapsed against the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
The empire was dead.
