Color drains from their faces so fast I almost clap.
“That’s right.” I lean back on my heels. “You didn’t just piss off a teenager. You pissed off a psycho.”
Silence suffocates the room. I savor it.
“Let me clear up a few things…” I chuckle. “I took everything from you.” I pace the office.“Let’s recap, shall we? Your steel plant? Ashes. Your inventory shipments? Missing. Your overseas accounts? Gone.”
I turn and grin.
“Oh. And the house?” I gesture around the room. “It’s technically mine now. Paperwork was surprisingly easy.”
Her father stumbles backward until he hits the bookshelf.
“You’re lying.”
I hold up a set of folded documents between two fingers. Inside are his bank reports, his asset liquidation notices, and his bankruptcy projections.
I place it down in front of him. “Read it. This will be fun,” I purr.
Her mother sinks into the nearest chair, her face ghost-white. “Is this because of Victoria?”
“In part, but it’s also because of my mother. You treated her like she was beneath you. Mocked her often. And then there’s me, what you did to me…” I reply, pocketing the papers again.
Her mother’s eyes narrow. “You still love her?”
I laugh so violently it echoes off the walls. “Love?” I repeat, pretending to wipe a tear from my eye. “No. No, Mrs. Danforth. I don’t love your daughter.”
I step close enough that she will feel the heat of the threat behind every syllable.
“I hate her. And I plan to spend the rest of my very long and violent life making sure she regrets ever walking away from me.”
Her husband coughs. Hard. “What is this? What do you want? You’ve already taken everything.”
“Not everything,” I correct.
I stroll to the desk and drop a thick envelope onto the polished wood. It lands with the weight of a guillotine blade.
Inside is a contract.
A proposal. An ultimatum.
“I’m offering you salvation,” I say. “A bailout. Complete erasure of your debts, a restoration of your company, and protection under my organization.”
Her father stares at the envelope like it’s ticking. “What’s the condition?”
I smile. Like a wolf circling its prey. “I marry your daughter.”
He pales. Mrs. Danforth opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She’s in shock, apparently.
It’s Victoria’s father who finds his words first. “That’s impossible, she’s already marrying Grant.”
“Nothing is impossible. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And I can be very convincing, as I’m sure you’ve noticed already . . .”
“Victoria would never marry you,” the asshole grits out.
“She doesn’t have a choice—”
“You can’t be serious,” his wife shrieks.
