And then the poison crept in.
Suspicion.
My thoughts turned, inexorably, toward Elena.
There was no way her sister could have known I had men tracking her. Not unless information had leaked. Not unless someone close had warned her.
The timing was too precise. The evasion too perfect.
Had she warned her? Fed her information?
Was she still playing the obedient wife while protecting the monster who had destroyed my world?
I didn’t delegate this. I didn’t trust anyone else with it.
I hacked her phone myself.
Old habits resurfaced easily—encryption layers peeled back under my fingers like skin. And there it was. A message from an unlisted, encrypted number I traced directly back to Panama.
A string of letters and symbols. Code, most likely.
Damning enough.
And Elena’s reply followed beneath it.
“They are coming. Run.”
The words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest.
Betrayal roared through me, eclipsing every doubt I had ever suppressed.
All this time—while I had held back, restrained my vengeance, spared her the worst out of some warped sense of mercy—she had been deceiving me?
Communicating with her sister.
Listening in on my conversations with my men.
Passing information whenever she could.
Protecting her.
Mocking me.
The realization twisted something inside me beyond recognition. The obsession curdled, darkened, sharpened into something cruel and merciless.
If she wanted to shield her sister...
She would pay the price instead.
I had always prided myself on my instincts. The razor-sharp intuition that had carried me from the gutter to an empire built on blood and leverage. I survived because I trusted my gut when others hesitated.
But when it came to Elena, those instincts betrayed me.
Or so I believed.
I convinced myself her marriage to me had been a coincidence.
The narrative hardened quickly.
