Chapter 3 - THE COLLAPSE OF THE KINGDOM
The phone in my pocket began to vibrate,
a steady,
rhythmic pulse that signaled the start of the end.
Dominic’s own phone,
lying on the marble bar behind him,
lit up with a frantic series of notifications.
He glanced at it,
then at me,
the realization of my last name finally beginning to dawn in his panicked eyes.
"Vivienne,
let's go into the office,"
he pleaded,
stepping toward me and reaching out a hand.
"We can talk about this.
It's not what it looks like."
"It looks like a crime,
Dominic,"
I said,
my voice devoid of any emotion.
"It looks like bigamy,
fraud,
and a complete lack of basic human decency."
Suddenly,
the heavy oak doors of the penthouse were thrown open.
A group of men in dark suits marched in,
led by my brother's head of security.
They weren't there for the party;
they were there for the inventory.
"Mr. Miller,"
the lead man said,
holding up a legal document,
"as of five minutes ago,
the Sterling Group has called in all outstanding loans and terminated the lease on this building."
The guests began to murmur,
their faces shifting from curiosity to alarm as they realized the party was over.
"You can't do that!"
the other woman shouted,
stepping forward as if her outrage could stop the momentum of a billion-dollar empire.
"This is Dominic's company!"
The man didn't even look at her.
"Actually,
ma'am,
this company is a subsidiary of a shell corporation owned entirely by Vivienne Sterling."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Even the air seemed to stop moving.
Dominic collapsed into a nearby chair,
the glass of bourbon slipping from his hand and shattering on the floor.
The smell of the alcohol rose up,
bitter and stinging,
matching the atmosphere of the room.
"Vivienne,
please,"
Dominic whispered,
looking up at me with eyes that were now full of tears.
"Everything I did,
I did for us.
I wanted to be a man you could be proud of."
"By lying to me for six years?"
I asked,
kneeling down so I was eye-to-level with him.
"By letting my daughter believe her father was a hero while you were raising another son in secret?"
I took the paper necklace from Sophia’s hand.
She was crying now,
confused and frightened by the chaos,
but I held her close.
"This was the only thing in this room that was real,"
I said,
dropping the necklace onto the puddle of bourbon at his feet.
My phone buzzed again.
It was a text from Victor:
The bank accounts are frozen.
The assets are being seized.
He has nothing left but the clothes on his back.
I looked at the "wife" in the expensive dress,
who was now frantically checking her own phone,
her face contorting as she realized her credit cards had been declined.
She looked at Dominic,
the man she thought was a billionaire,
and I saw the love in her eyes turn into the same cold calculation I had seen in Chloe.
She didn't stay to defend him.
She didn't stay to comfort him.
She grabbed her son’s hand and started toward the door,
her diamonds glinting one last time in the gala lights.
"Dominic,
you're a loser,"
May you like
she spat,
and then she was gone.
