Chapter 5

Elenora Quinn POV:

Finally, a message. Not a call, but a text. From Greyson.

I'm so sorry, Elenora. It was the only way. I had to protect Isla. It will blow over. People will forget.

My blood ran cold. The only way? To sacrifice me? To destroy everything I was? I knew then. He had done this. He had taken my trust, my love, and twisted it into a weapon.

My parents, their faces etched with shock and disbelief, immediately sprang into action. They contacted their network of media contacts, lawyers, PR firms. "We will clear your name, Elenora," my father had promised, his voice firm, his jaw set. "This is a heinous slander. We will fight this."

A press conference was hastily arranged. I prepared a statement, my hands shaking as I wrote it. I would tell the truth. I would expose the lie.

We arrived at the designated venue. An empty hall. No cameras. No reporters. Just a deafening silence that screamed of a larger conspiracy.

Panic clawed at my throat. My parents, usually so calm, so collected, looked lost, bewildered. The media, their usual allies, had vanished.

Then it hit me. My father had recently begun transitioning the family business to Greyson, grooming him to take over. Greyson, the loyal, adopted son. The one who had saved my life. He had access. He had influence. He had power. He had cut off our lifelines.

My phone rang, a harsh, jarring sound in the silent hall. It was Greyson.

"Elenora," his voice was cold, devoid of the earlier urgency. "What do you think you're doing? Trying to make things worse? I told you it would blow over."

"You did this!" I screamed into the phone, tears streaming down my face. "You destroyed me! Why?"

"It had to be done," he said, his voice flat. "Isla's career, her future... it was at stake. Yours is just a temporary setback."

"Temporary setback?" My voice cracked. "My life is over!"

"It's not over," he countered, a strange, chilling calmness in his tone. "Not if you listen to me."

He hung up. The abrupt click echoed in the empty hall, a final, brutal punctuation mark to his betrayal.

Then, the doors burst open. Not reporters, but a group of masked men, their faces obscured, their movements quick and brutal. They grabbed me, throwing me to the floor. My parents lunged forward, trying to protect me, screaming their defiance.

I heard my father's choked cry, saw the flash of metal. He fell, a dark stain spreading across his pristine white shirt. My mother screamed, a primal sound of agony, before collapsing beside him, her eyes wide and vacant.

They held me down, forcing me to watch as they desecrated my name, my body, in front of my dying father, my unconscious mother. The very place where I had come to clear my name became the site of my ultimate humiliation, my family' s destruction.

Greyson. He must have known. He must have given them our location. He planned this. All of it.

I crawled to my father, his eyes glazed, his breath rattling. My mother lay still, her face ashen. I fumbled for my phone, dialing 911, my fingers slick with tears, with blood.

No ambulance came. The phone lines were jammed, the streets blocked. The world had conspired against me. I dragged my mother's limp body onto my back, my father's last gasp echoing in my ears, and stumbled out into the street. The hospital was miles away.

The phone rang again as I entered the emergency room, my clothes torn, my body bruised, my heart shattered. It was him.

"See, Elenora?" His voice was a cold whisper. "This is what happens when you don't cooperate. This is the cost of defiance. Your family's empire? It's mine now. All of it."

Rage, pure and undiluted, surged through me. "I'll divorce you, Greyson! I'll take everything!"

He laughed, a chilling, hollow sound. "You can try, darling. But you have nothing left to take."

I never got that divorce. Not then. Not for a long, agonizing time.

Days later, at my father's funeral, a woman, Isla Whitehead, the woman he had claimed to protect, sent me a video. A video of her and Greyson, in my bed, on the very day of my father's funeral. A brazen act of mockery. A final, cruel twist of the knife.

Kailey, who had been an unwavering rock through it all, saw the video. Her eyes blazed with a fierce, protective fury. She grabbed a knife from the kitchen, her intention clear. "I'll kill him," she swore, her voice shaking with rage. "I'll kill them both."

I fell to my knees, clinging to her, tears streaming down my face. "No, Kailey! Please, don't! You can't!"

She stared at me, her eyes filled with disbelief. "Why, Elenora? Why do you let him do this to you? Why do you just take it?"

"My mother," I choked out, the words ripped from my soul. "He still has her. He threatened to cut off her medical care. He'll let her die. He'll take away the last piece of my family."