They’re not impressed. Adrian exhales, long and disappointed. “It’s unfair to the girl, Dimitri.”
Unfair. To Vivian? I almost laugh.
How about how her betrayal was unfair to me? Is no one going to bring that up?
I hate how they’ve softened. Ever since they let love into their homes, they’ve turned into men who hesitate—men who explain themselves. Who fold when their women frown. Who let emotion cloud instinct.
I make a silent vow right then:
Never me. Never ever. No woman will ever come close enough to turn me into a soft, mushy bastard who thinks with his heart and his dick instead of his brain.
“Save the sermon,” I say coldly. “I’m not changing my mind. Vivian is my revenge piece, and I intend to use her.”
There’s a long silence on the line. The kind that says they’re judging me. The kind that should bother me—but doesn’t.
Not today. I end the call without waiting for their response. And for the first time since the scandal broke, I feel something like clarity.
If the world wants a villain today? I’ll give them one.
Later that night, as I prepare for the press conference, I catch my own reflection in the mirror. For a moment, I don’t recognize the man staring back.
Sharp jaw, tense shoulders, dead eyes. Cold. Calculated. A man carved out of vengeance and necessity, not flesh.
Everything I swore I’d never become.
Everything I hated in the men who ruined my life years ago.
And yet…here I am. Wearing their face.
I don’t know whether I despise it or accept it.
Whether this version of me is survival—or decay.
But I do know one thing:
It’s the only mask that can save me tonight.
My business. My name. My empire.
All of it hangs on the performance I deliver in the next hour.
And she—Vivian—is part of that performance.
She brought out this monster in me. She opened the door for my enemies. She awakened instincts I spent my whole life burying.
So she better learn to dance with the devil she helped create.
I adjust my cufflinks, straighten my jacket, and meet my own eyes again. No softness. No hesitation. No mercy.
Tonight, Dimitri Rusnak walks onto that stage—and the world will remember exactly who I am.
Chapter 12 – Vivian
The first step in the humiliation tonight was stylists and makeup artists arriving to dress me up for the press conference. They’re like robots. Or even worse, like bees buzzing in my ears, saying this and that. When I tell them I don’t want anything heavy, they apologetically tell me that Dimitri already told them what kind of makeup to do. Something heavy. Seductive. Bold red lipstick.
The stylist brings out a dress that’s like liquid gold, and after my makeup is done, she helps me into it. I feel like a new bride being prepared, and I hate it.
When they finish, they both hurry out of the room, leaving me staring at my reflection.
