Chapter 4

A few days after Julian's grand exit to Monaco, I was reviewing the evidence I'd gathered.

My phone buzzed. A news alert from a gossip site Tori owned.

Headline: "Sterling Heiress's Architect Husband's Parents in Financial Ruin? Foreclosure Looms for Brooklyn Home, Pension Frozen Amidst Scandal."

My blood ran cold. It was a public announcement.

The article was vague on details but heavy on insinuation. My parents' names. Their address.

I called Tori. She was still in Monaco, supposedly devastated by Julian's "abandonment."

"What have you done?" I barely recognized my own voice, raw with fury and fear.

Her laugh was chilling. "Payback, darling. You took Julian. I take something of yours. Tit for tat."

"Those are my parents, Tori! They're innocent!"

"Julian was innocent too," she purred. "Just a sweet boy. And you sent him away."

I could almost hear the smirk in her voice. No, Julian wasn't on the line. She was alone in this particular brand of cruelty. Her earlier words about Julian being "entertainment" echoed. This wasn't about Julian's innocence; it was about her thwarted will.

She was enjoying this.

I hung up, my hand shaking.

I raced to my parents' Brooklyn home.

The news vans weren't there yet, but the air of dread was palpable.

My father stood on the porch, his face grim. My mother was inside, crying softly.

Neighbors were whispering, some sympathetic, some curious. The shame was a physical weight.

I remembered Tori's early days of pursuit. Her possessiveness. She'd once thrown a fit when I had dinner with a female colleague. She'd smashed a vase. "You're mine, Ethan," she'd hissed. "No one else gets to even look."

Now, this. This public stripping of my family's dignity.

The next call came from Tori. "The live feed is on your secure server, Ethan. The auditors are back. The clock is ticking. Sixty minutes. Julian's exact location in Monaco. Or your parents are on the street tonight."

I had to give her Julian's hotel, the one I'd arranged.

Each word I typed into the secure message, confirming his whereabouts, felt like a piece of my soul flaking away.

My love for her, already a withered thing, crumbled to dust.

When I hit send, it was over. Whatever I'd once felt for Victoria Sterling was dead. Utterly.

She called back almost immediately. "Good. I'm on my way to him."

Then, the cruelest cut. "The stop order for your parents is in a safety deposit box. Midtown. Key is in the Hamptons estate. Hidden. You have until my jet lands in Monaco. Let's say... three hours? If you're quick."

She knew it was nearly impossible.

I was silent. I knew about the prenup. That was my only weapon now.

She must have mistaken my silence for defeat.

"Don't worry, Ethan," she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "When I bring Julian back, we'll all have a lovely dinner to celebrate. You'll apologize to him properly then."

She hung up.

Julian, meanwhile, was probably already posting on social media from Monaco, flaunting the "perks" of his new fake contract. Perks Tori was undoubtedly funding, even as she chased him.

I wasn't even angry at Julian anymore. He was a symptom. Tori was the disease.

She was absent from the penthouse, off on her wild goose chase. She had no idea I was using this time to finalize my own escape.