Chapter 12
No.1
The elevator doors opened onto the ground floor.Elisa stepped into the grand,marble-floored lobby of the penthouse building. The air conditioning was freezing against her damp clothes.
Before she could take three steps, a blinding explosion of white light hit her eyes.
Camera flashes fired in rapid succession through the massive glass doors of the lobby.
A mob of paparazzi was pressed against the glass,shouting and shoving. The building's private security guards were using their entire body weight to keep the doors locked and the crowd outside.
Elisa squinted, raising her uninjured left hand to shield her eyes.
"You disgusting,low-class trash!"
The sharp, venomous voice echoed across the empty lobby.
Elisa turned her head.
Meredith Hastings, August's aunt, was sitting on the center leather sofa. She wore a pristine Chanel suit.
Her face was contorted with absolute fury.
Meredith stood up. Her expensive heels clicked aggressively against the marble as she marched straight toward Elisa.
"I was at a dinner party three blocks away when my phone exploded with this garbage!" Meredith shrieked, her perfectly manicured hands trembling with rage. She had rushed over the moment she saw the headlines, eager to crush whoever threatened the family's pristine image. She raised her hand and violently hurled a smartphone directly at Elisa's face.
Elisa jerked her head to the side.
The phone flew past her ear and smashed into the marble floor. The screen spider-webbed into a thousand pieces, but the display stayed lit.
Elisa looked down.
It was the homepage of Page Six. The headline took up half the screen in bold, black letters.
No.2
WALL STREET TITAN RUSHES MYSTERY WOMAN TO ER. WIFE STANDS BY. A CHAMBERS DIVORCE?
Below the headline was a grainy, zoomed-in photo from the hospital. It showed August carrying a woman whose face was covered by his trench coat.Elisa was standing in the background, staring blankly.
"You sold us out!" Meredith screamed,pointing a shaking finger at Elisa. "You tipped off the tabloids!You took the money to drag the Chambers name through the mud!"
Elisa stared at the cracked screen. A cold, cynical realization washed over her. She hadn't called the press. She had been too busy bleeding on a Persian
rug.
"You are a parasite," Meredith spat, stepping closer."You can't give August a child, so you act like a toxic bitch to ruin his reputation. You are nothing but a cheap nurse."
Elisa slowly lifted her eyes from the floor. She looked at Meredith.
"If you don't want people to know your nephew is a cheating bastard," Elisa said, her voice dangerously quiet, "tell him to stop acting like one in public."
Meredith's face turned a violent shade of purple.
She raised her right hand. A massive diamond ring flashed under the lobby lights. She swung her arm with all her strength, aiming a vicious slap right at Elisa's cheek.
Elisa didn't flinch.
She shot her left hand up.
Her fingers clamped down on Meredith's wrist,stopping the slap mere inches from her face.
Elisa squeezed. She dug her thumb directly into the delicate bones of Meredith's wrist.
Meredith gasped, her eyes widening in shock and sudden pain.
Elisa stepped into Meredith's personal space. Her eyes were as cold and dead as a shark's.
No.3
"Don't ever touch me," Elisa whispered.
A soft ding echoed through the lobby. The private
elevator doors slid open.
August,stepped out. He was fully dressed in a tailored suit. He held his phone in his left hand.
He stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the scene.
Meredith immediately saw him. Her face twisted into a mask of pure, victimized terror.
"August!" Meredith cried out, her voice trembling."She's attacking me! She's gone completely insane!"
August's eyes darkened. He marched across the lobby. His gaze locked onto Elisa's hand gripping his aunt's wrist.
"Let her go. Right now," August ordered. His voice was a low, dangerous rumble.
Elisa didn't move. She kept her grip tight.
From the phone in August's hand, Allena's high,breathy voice filtered out.
"Elisa, please," Allena begged through the speaker.
"Don't hurt your family just because you're jealous of me. It's not their fault."
Hearing Allena's voice coming from August's hand was the final, absurd straw.
A wave of pure, physiological disgust rolled through Elisa's stomach.
She violently shoved Meredith's arm away.
No.4
Meredith stumbled backward, her heels slipping on the marble. She crashed directly into August's chest.
August caught his aunt, steadying her.He looked at
Elisa with a level of revulsion she had never seen before.
"You leak photos to the press, you spread vile rumors about my private life, and now you physically assault my family," August sneered. He adjusted his suit jacket, his jaw tight. "If you ever lay a hand on anyone in my family again, I will personally ensure you never work in this city again."
Elisa stood perfectly still.
She looked at the man she had spent seven years trying to please. He was holding his aunt,protecting his mistress on a screen, and threatening his bleeding wife.
A soft sound escaped Elisa's throat.
She started to laugh.
It wasn't a hysterical laugh. It was a quiet, breathy sound of absolute clarity. The heavy, suffocating weight of her marriage simply evaporated.
She stopped laughing. She reached up with her left hand and adjusted the collar of her ruined coat.She straightened her spine until she was standing at her full height.
She looked August dead in the eyes.
"Save your threats, August," Elisa said, her voice ringing clear and cold across the marble lobby. "I'll see you in court."
She didn't wait for his response.
She turned her back on him, ignored the flashing
lights of the paparazzi outside the front doors, and walked straight toward the employee exit at the back of the building.
August stood frozen in the lobby. He watched her walk away. His fingers twitched, reaching up to twist the heavy platinum cufflink at his wrist. The cold metal grounded him, but it couldn't stop the sudden, inexplicable drop in his stomach. A strange,uncontrollable spike of panic flared in his chest.
No.5
The employee exit dumped Elisa into a dark, rain-soaked alley.
She walked two blocks before hailing a passing cab.She slid into the back seat, the cheap vinyl cold against her legs.
"Long Island," she told the driver.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and powered it back on.
Instantly, the screen lit up with a barrage of push notifications. News apps, Twitter, Google alerts.
She tapped the Twitter icon. The Page Six article from twenty minutes ago was trending at number one.
But the narrative had completely flipped.
Elisa scrolled through the comments. The initial outrage about August cheating on his wife was gone. It had been buried under an avalanche of thousands of identical, highly coordinated bot accounts.
The new comments wvere identical.
That's not his mistress! That's Allena, his cousin Julian's fiancée!
August is such a good guy. He rushed his sick future sister-in-law to the hospital in the middle of the night.
His wife is just standing there doing nothing.What a cold bitch.
Elisa stared at the screen. A slow, dark realization crept into her mind.
Meanwhile, miles away in the financial district, the air inside the Chambers Group boardroom was freezing.
August sat at the head of the massive oval table.The room was soundproof, lined with bulletproof glass.
Meredith sat halfway down the table. Next to her sat her son, Julian-Allena's official fiancé. Julian looked pale and hungover.
No.6
Three senior trust board members watched August from holographic screens.
"The stock dipped two percent at the opening bell because of this hospital photo," an elderly board member barked through the speaker. "We cannot afford a scandal right before the merger, August."
August leaned back in his leather chair. He steepled his fingers, his face a mask of absolute control.
"There is no scandal," August said smoothly. "It was a medical emergency. My cousin Julian was unavailable to care for his own fiancée, so l stepped in."
August shifted his gaze to Julian. His eyes were dead.
"In fact," August continued, his voice dropping in
temperature, "Julian's consistentneglect of Allena shows a severe lack of judgment and family responsibility."
Julian swallowed hard,shrinking into his chair.
"Therefore," August said, looking directly at the board members, "I am officially dissolving the engagement between Julian Hastings and Allena Mills. Furthermore, I am reducing Julian's voting shares in the family trust by fifteen percent,effective immediately."
The boardroom erupted.
Julian jumped to his feet, his chair crashing to the floor."You can't do that!"
Meredith slammed her hands on the mahogany table. Her face was red with fury. "You are using the trust to steal her! You're punishing my son so you can keep that girl for yourself!"
August didn't yell. He simply released the full,suffocating weight of his authority.
He leaned forward, his dark eyes locking onto Meredith.
"Challenge me," August whispered, "and I will invoke the morality clause. I will cut the entire Hastings branch out of the quarterly dividends. Sit down,Meredith."
Meredith's mouth opened, but no sound came out.The threat of losing her wealth crushed her. She slowly sank back into her chair, her hands shaking.
No.7
The door opened. Simon, August's executive
assistant, walked in holding a sleek leather folder.
He placed a drafted press release in front of August. It officially announced the broken engagement.
August picked up his gold fountain pen and signed his name. A sharp, victorious gleam flashed in his eyes.
Back in the cab, Elisa's phone buzzed.
It was an encrypted email from her old anonymous source inside the Chambers PR department.
She opened the attachment. It was the internal memo. Engagement Dissolved. Julian Hastings Penalized.
Elisa stopped breathing.
The pieces snapped together with sickening clarity.The paparazzi in the lobby. The sudden flood of water army comments. The broken engagement.
August hadn't just covered up an affair. He had orchestrated the entire media leak.
He used the photo of Elisa standing coldly in the ER to make himself look like a hero saving his cousin's neglected fiancée. He used the public sympathy to justify destroying Julian.
He used Elisa as a human shield to wash Allena clean of the cheating scandal, clearing the path to bring her into the family.
Elisa gripped the phone so hard her knuckles turned white.
A single, hot tear broke free and slid down her cold cheek. It wasn't a tear of sadness. It was the physical manifestation of a heart turning completely to stone.4
She wiped the tear away with her thumb. She locked the phone.
August Chambers was a monster. And she was going to destroy him.