His gaze shifts to Helena. Confusion flickers, then something darker. “What is this? You said he was hurt. You said?—“
“He is hurt. Just not by accident.” Helena steps closer to him. “Surprise.”
“Helena.” Victor's voice drops low, dangerous. “What the fuck have you done?”
“What I should have done years ago.” She gestures to the mercenaries. “Your loyal security team. Except they're not so loyal anymore, are they? I cultivated them for years. It's amazing what people will do for the right price.”
My father's jaw clenches, the muscle jumping. His eyes cut to me, to Logan slumped against the beam, back to Helena. He's calculating, assessing, looking for an angle.
He won't find one. She's thought of everything.
“Sit down, Victor.” Helena nods to the mercenaries. “Don't make this harder than it needs to be.” She smiles, showing her teeth. “Or please do.”
They grab him before he can react. My father struggles, swinging at one of the men, but two armed goons against one isn't a fight he can win. Still, he doesn't make it easy. In a surprising show of rage, he headbutts one man. “Fucker!” the man shouts, bending over, covering his face. The other guard doesn't waste time. Two quick punches to the stomach andVictor doubles over. The guard forces him to the ground beside me, binds his wrists.
Victor Hammond. Titan of industry. King of his domain.
Tied up next to his worthless son.
“Helena.” His voice is controlled, but I can hear the strain underneath. “Whatever you think you're doing, we can talk about this. We can negotiate.”
“The time for negotiation was twenty years ago, when you spent our anniversary with your mistress.” Helena's composure cracks, a flash of something raw and wounded before the mask slides back into place. “The time for negotiation was ten years ago, when you gave Julia that apartment next to your office and thought I wouldn't notice. The time for negotiation was three months ago, when you started drawing up divorce papers because your whore got pregnant.”
Victor's throat works as he swallows. “Helena?—“
“You don't get toHelename.” Her voice rises, and the fury pouring off her is terrifying. “I gave you everything. My youth. My beauty. My ambition. I could have been someone on my own, but I chose you. I chose this family. How did you repay me? By humiliating me at every opportunity while I smiled and played the dutiful wife.”
“I never asked you to stay.”
The words drop into the room like a bomb. Helena goes very still.
“What did you say?”
“I never asked you to stay,” Victor repeats, and there's something almost gentle in his tone. Which makes it worse. “You chose to. You wanted the money. The status. The name. Don't pretend this was about love, Helena. We both know better.”
Her hand moves before I register it. The slap cracks across my father's face hard enough to snap his head to the side.
“Don't you dare.” Her voice is shaking now. “Don't you dare try to rewrite history. I loved you. I loved you, and you destroyed me.”
Victor turns his head back to face her. A red mark blooms across his cheek, but his expression doesn't change. If anything, he looks sad.
“Maybe you did,” he says quietly. “Once. But we both became something else along the way.”
The silence that follows is suffocating. Helena stands there, chest heaving, mask completely gone. What's left underneath is ugly and raw and almost pitiable.
Almost.
I watch her rebuild the walls. Brick by brick, pulling herself together until she's in control again.
“Enough,” she says. “I didn't bring you here to litigate our marriage. I brought you here to sign.”
She produces another set of documents. Thicker. More signatures needed. Victor's majority shares in Hammond Industries.
“Sign these over to me, and you and your son can walk out of here.”
“And if I refuse?”
Helena's smile returns, thin and vicious. “Then I'll have my men shoot Alexander in front of you. Then I'll take these documents to my lawyers anyway and forge your signature. It'll be messier, more complicated, but I'll still win.” She pauses. “The only question is whether you'll be alive to see it.”
