Miriam’s POV
The elevator descended slowly, and with each floor that passed, reality seemed to shift beneath my feet.
The folder Victor had given me felt like it was getting heavier by the second.
CEO.
Ashford Industries.
A dream job that should have excited me just days ago.
Now it was just another weight pressing down on me.
I caught my reflection in the polished steel walls.
Everything looked perfect on the outside.
Flawless suit.
Perfect makeup.
Not a single hair out of place.
But inside, I was falling apart.
Nobody could see what had happened yesterday.
Nobody could know what I was planning.
My phone vibrated.
Lily calling.
“I’m on my way to see you,” I said, cutting off whatever greeting she was about to give.
“Great, I’ve got what you asked for ready,” she answered.
Her voice sounded different.
Lighter.
Strange.
The drive to her office gave me too much time to think about everything falling apart.
Victor’s crazy offer.
The new job.
The keys to an expensive car in my pocket.
It was all moving too fast, but I needed it.
I needed the power to make Williams suffer for what he’d done.
Lily’s office was exactly what you’d expect from a successful lawyer-top floor of a downtown building, lots of glass and chrome, the kind of space that screamed money and success.
Her assistant barely glanced at me before waving me through to the back corner office.
“Miriam!” Lily stood up when I walked in, but her smile looked wrong.
Painted on.
“Where are the papers?” I asked.
No point wasting time on fake pleasantries.
“About those papers…” She pointed to a chair.
“Sit down first.”
The door behind me closed with a soft click.
When I turned around, Williams was standing there looking like he’d just stepped out of a magazine.
One of his tailored suits.
That confident expression that used to make my heart race.
Now it just made me sick.
“Well, well,” he said, amusement in his voice.
“Didn’t expect to see me, did you?”
I looked between them, my mind trying to piece together what was happening.
“What’s going on here?”
Lily moved around her desk and stood next to Williams.
Not just next to him.
Close to him.
She leaned in slightly, and he touched her arm like they’d done it a hundred times before.
The realization hit me like cold water.
“No,” I breathed.
“How long have you known?” My voice sounded strange, hollow.
“Long enough for what matters,” Lily said, and suddenly she didn’t look like my friend anymore.
She looked like someone I’d never seen before.
“Did you honestly think Williams would settle for just one affair?”
My sister’s name in her mouth made everything hurt all over again.
“You’re my lawyer. You’re supposed to be helping me.”
“I help whoever pays the most,” Lily said simply.
“And Williams paid very well.”
Williams pulled out an envelope, thick with papers.
“Speaking of which, we have some documents for you to look at.”
I could already tell.
These weren’t the papers I’d asked for.
“These aren’t divorce papers,” I said, backing away.
“No,” he agreed, stepping toward me.
His hand closed around my arm, squeezing hard enough that I knew there would be marks.
“They’re not. And unless you want photographs of you and Victor Ashford this morning circulating in every news outlet, you’re going to cooperate.”
“That’s not…”
“What’s real doesn’t matter,” Lily interrupted.
“Only what people believe. And right now, you can’t prove anything.”
The papers on her desk told a story I didn’t want to read.
Transfers.
Everything being moved.
My parents’ inheritance.
My own money.
Every investment, every property, every asset I’d worked to build.
All of it was supposed to go to Williams.
“This is illegal,” I said, my hands shaking as I looked at the documents.
“Is it?” A voice came from the doorway.
My sister walked in like she was walking onto a stage, wearing clothes I’d never seen before, looking like a completely different person.
“Nadia, what…”
“They opened my eyes,” she said, her voice hard in a way I’d never heard before.
“Showed me what you really are.”
I stared at her, trying to find my sister in this stranger’s face.
“What did they do to you?”
She laughed, and it was nothing like the sound I remembered.
“Made me understand that you’ve been controlling me. Using me. Making me feel small while you got to be perfect.”
“That’s not true, I never…”
“Sign the papers,” Williams said, his grip tightening on my arm until pain shot through me.
“Or Victor Ashford finds out that you had something to do with your parents’ accident.”
My entire body went numb.
“What?”
“Sign,” he repeated.
“And you don’t have to worry about what we know.”
Lily handed me a pen.
My hand was shaking so badly I could barely hold it, but I knew what would happen if I didn’t.
One by one, I signed.
Each signature felt like I was erasing myself.
When it was done, Williams reached into my purse and took my keys.
“Your things will be sent to you. Maybe.”
“You can’t just throw me out…”
“Just watch,” Nadia said, and there was something ugly in her smile now.
“How does it feel to have nothing?”
I looked at her face and underneath all the cruelty, I could still see who she used to be.
The girl who needed me.
The one I’d taken care of when our parents died.
They’d poisoned her.
Turned her into this.
“I’m sorry I didn’t protect you,” I whispered.
His hand came so fast I didn’t see it coming.
The slap made my head snap to the side, and I tasted blood.
“Leave,” he snarled.
I straightened up, even though my whole body wanted to collapse.
“You’re going to regret this. All of you.”
Williams just laughed at me.
“You have nothing. You signed it all away. What are you going to do?”
I looked each of them in the eye- the man I’d married, the lawyer I’d trusted, the sister I’d raised.
“You have no idea what I’m capable of when I have nothing left to lose.”
Security dragged me out before I could say anything else.
But not before I saw something flicker across Nadia’s face.
Doubt.
Fear.
Good.
The sidewalk outside the building was hot, and I was completely alone.
No car.
No money.
No phone.
Just the clothes on my back and Victor’s folder that I’d somehow managed to keep clutched to my chest.
I pulled out the Bentley keys.
They felt like a second chance.
Williams had taken everything from my past.
He’d destroyed my present.
But he’d made a mistake.
He’d forgotten that I still had Victor.
And now I was going to use him to burn it all down.
My hand found my stomach.
My baby was still there, still growing, still safe.
That was the one thing they hadn’t taken.
I straightened my jacket and started walking.
I had a new life to step into.
A new position to claim.
And I had people to destroy.
Let them celebrate.
Let them think they’d won.
I was going to make sure they paid for everything.