Chapter 3 - The Billionaire's Wrath**
Inside the armored SUV, the heater was blasting a comforting warmth that immediately thawed my freezing skin, but my mind was spinning out of control. Alexander Vance sat opposite me on the leather bench seat, his piercing blue eyes scanning my face with a devastating intensity, while outside, his security team kept Richard’s Mercedes completely locked down.
Richard finally managed to force his car door open, shoving past a guard and stumbling into the rain, stammering Alexander’s name like a prayer he had suddenly forgotten how to say.
“Mr. Vance! Mr. Vance, there’s been a misunderstanding!” Richard shouted, waving his arms frantically as water plastered his hair to his forehead. “This is a private, domestic family matter! My ex-wife—she’s unstable, she’s fabricating stories! She has zero connection to a man of your stature!”
Alexander didn’t even turn his head to look at him. He simply raised one gloved finger, and two guards stepped forward, firmly pushing Richard back against his car door without a single word.
“She’s a nobody!” Richard shrieked, panic breaking through his polished corporate composure. “She grew up bouncing around foster homes, and she has absolutely no family left in this world! She’s lying to you!”
At the word family, Alexander Vance became completely, terrifyingly still.
The temperature inside the luxury cabin seemed to drop ten degrees. Slowly, deliberately, Alexander turned his gaze away from me and looked out the bulletproof window at Vanessa Cole, who was still peering nervously from the back seat of the Mercedes.
His eyes locked onto the pear-shaped emerald resting against Vanessa’s neck.
A profound, shattering change washed over the billionaire's face. The hardened, untouchable expression of a global corporate titan melted away, replaced by an ancient, haunting grief that made my breath catch in my throat.
“Where did she get that necklace?” Alexander asked, his voice barely above a whisper, yet every person in the vehicle heard it with absolute clarity.
Richard, desperate to regain control, pushed past the guards. “I bought it! It’s an asset of mine! It legally belongs to my girlfriend now under—”
Alexander cut him off with two quiet, icy words that silenced the entire street:
“No, it doesn’t.”
Alexander turned back to me, his eyes shining with unshed tears. He reached out calloused, gentle fingers and lightly touched the lapel of his overcoat that I was clutching around my pregnant belly.
“Do you know what that emerald represents, child?” Alexander asked softly, his voice trembling.
I shook my head slowly, unable to speak.
“That necklace was commissioned thirty years ago by my late wife,” Alexander said, looking back at Vanessa with a gaze that promised total destruction. “It was custom-made for our only daughter—the daughter who was driven away by family betrayal, who vanished into the foster care system, and who died believing she had been abandoned by everyone who shared her blood.”
May you like
The world outside the window seemed to stop spinning.
“Her name was Catherine,” Alexander whispered, a tear finally cutting a clean line down his weathered cheek. “And looking at you right now... I am looking directly into her eyes.”
