Constance stared at the back of her hand, a red mark blooming where Aisling had smacked it. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish.

"You savage!" Constance shrieked. "You have no class!"

Aisling crossed her arms over her chest and smirked. "Better a savage than a parasite who confuses cruelty with class."

Brendon finally snapped out of his shock. He puffed up his chest, trying to reclaim his territory. He pointed at the door. "Get out of my house, Aisling. Now."

Aisling didn't even turn her head to look at him. "Shut up, you pathetic mama's boy. You can't even protect your own wife."

The insult hit Brendon's fragile ego like a bullet. His face turned a dark, ugly red. He lunged forward, reaching out to grab Aisling by the shoulder and physically throw her out.

Christen moved faster. She stepped in front of Aisling, her body acting as a shield. She glared at Brendon, her eyes burning with a violent intensity he had never seen before.

"Touch her," Christen hissed, her voice vibrating with rage, "and see what happens."

Brendon froze. His hand hovered in the air. He actually took a step back, intimidated by the raw hatred radiating from his wife.

Constance saw her son retreat and lost her mind. "You ungrateful bitch!" she screamed at Christen. "You bring outsiders in to attack your own husband? You are a disgrace to this family!"

Christen looked at the mother and son. The pristine suits, the expensive watches, the absolute rot underneath it all. The last three years of her life flashed before her eyes-a pathetic, desperate attempt to belong to a family that was nothing but a beautiful corpse.

She took a deep breath. The suffocating weight she had carried for three years lifted off her chest. She stood up perfectly straight.

"The Jimenez family is a joke," Christen said. Her voice was terrifyingly calm. "You are an empty shell built on lies and dirty secrets."

Constance gasped, clutching her chest as if she had been stabbed. "Get out! Get out of my son's house!"

"I'm leaving," Christen said. She looked directly at Brendon. The silence in the hallway was absolute.

"And I want a divorce."

The words dropped like a bomb.

Brendon's pupils dilated. His jaw went slack. "What?"

Constance stared for a second, then burst into a sharp, hysterical laugh. "A divorce? Is this your little game to get a payout? Read your prenup, you stupid girl. You won't get a single dime from us."

"Your money is filthy," Christen said, her voice steady. "I wouldn't take a cent if you begged me. I'm leaving with nothing."

Panic finally pierced through Brendon's arrogance. He realized she meant it. His perfect image, his controlled life, was shattering.

"No!" Brendon roared, his voice cracking. "I do not agree to a divorce! You are not leaving!"

Christen ignored him. She bent down and picked up her canvas bag. She turned toward the door.

Constance saw Christen dismissing them, turning her back on their authority. Her mind snapped.

She lunged forward with terrifying speed. She raised her arm high and swung with every ounce of strength in her body.

Aisling was blocked by Brendon's broad shoulders and couldn't reach them in time. Christen, weighed down by the heavy bag, couldn't duck fast enough. She only managed to turn her head slightly.

Smack.

The sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed sharply in the hallway.

Constance's palm connected brutally with the left side of Christen's face. The sheer force of the blow snapped Christen's head to the side.

A stinging, burning pain exploded across her cheek. Her ear rang with a high-pitched whine. She tasted the warm, metallic tang of blood pooling inside her cheek where her teeth had cut the flesh.

The hallway went dead silent.

Brendon stared at his mother in horror, but his feet remained glued to the floor. He didn't move to help his wife.

Aisling let out a guttural scream of pure rage. She shoved Brendon out of the way with both hands, charging forward like a lioness.

Aisling slammed her hands into Constance's shoulders, shoving her backward with brutal force.

Constance, off-balance in her heels, stumbled backward. Her spine collided hard with the decorative entryway wall. She let out a sharp gasp of pain as the breath was knocked out of her.

Aisling ignored her and grabbed Christen's face, her hands trembling. She stared at the angry, raised red handprint blooming across Christen's pale skin. Tears of rage welled in Aisling's eyes.

Christen raised her hand. She pressed the back of her thumb to the corner of her mouth and wiped away a thin smear of blood. Her eyes were completely dead.

Brendon finally snapped out of his paralysis. He saw the blood. A flicker of genuine panic crossed his face, and he took a step toward Christen, his hand reaching out.

Christen snapped her head toward him. She looked at him like he was a piece of rotting garbage on the street.

Brendon stopped dead in his tracks.

Constance pushed herself off the wall, her chest heaving. She had lost all sense of reality. "She deserved it!" she shrieked, pointing a shaking finger at Christen. "That's what you get for disrespecting your betters!"

Christen gently pushed Aisling's hands away. She walked slowly toward Constance. There was no anger in her steps. Only cold, clinical precision.

She stopped inches from Constance's face. She leaned in slightly.

"You try so hard to control Brendon," Christen whispered, her voice smooth and devoid of emotion. "Because I know the truth. Because three years ago, while organizing Brendon's locked study, I found the shredded copies of the medical bribe receipts he forgot to burn. I know your husband died of a heart attack in his twenty-year-old mistress's bed, and you had to bribe the paramedics to move his body so you wouldn't be a laughingstock. You are a failure, Constance. As a wife, and as a human being."

The words hit Constance like a physical execution.

All the blood drained from Constance's face, leaving her a sickly, grayish white. Her lips trembled violently, but no sound came out. It was the Jimenez family's darkest, most heavily guarded secret.

Brendon sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes wide with shock. He had no idea his docile wife knew the truth.

Christen didn't wait for a reaction. She turned on her heel, grabbed her canvas bag from the floor, and walked out the front door. Her spine was perfectly straight.

Aisling grabbed her Birkin, flipped her middle finger directly in Brendon's face, and followed Christen out.

The heavy oak door slammed shut behind them, sealing the rot inside.

They stepped into the elevator. The moment the metal doors closed, the adrenaline crashed. Christen's shoulders slumped.

Aisling wrapped her arms tightly around her. Christen didn't cry. She just rested her forehead against Aisling's shoulder, her body heavy with exhaustion.

They walked out of the building into the biting chill of the Manhattan autumn wind. The cold air felt like a slap of reality.

Aisling stepped to the curb and threw her arm up. A yellow Ford taxi screeched to a halt.

They climbed into the back. "SoHo. The corner of Spring and Mercer," Aisling told the driver.

The cab sped down Fifth Avenue. The streetlights flickered through the window, casting alternating shadows over the angry red welt on Christen's face.

Twenty minutes later, the cab pulled up to a discreet, high-end cafe. Aisling threw cash at the driver and pulled Christen inside.

The brass bell above the door chimed. The cafe was warm, smelling of roasted beans and old wood.

Aisling guided her to the darkest, most secluded booth in the back corner. They slid into the seats facing each other.

A waiter brought two glasses of ice water. Aisling immediately pulled a clean napkin, wrapped an ice cube in it, and pressed it gently against Christen's swollen cheek.

The freezing cold sent a sharp ache through Christen's skin, but it cleared the fog in her brain.

She looked at Aisling's worried eyes. Her stomach was still tied in knots, but her mind was made up.

She had initially thought about leaving cleanly, walking away without a single piece of their filthy wealth. But the stinging pain still radiating across her cheek and the memory of Constance and Brendon's smug, cruel faces shifted something deep inside her. They had stolen three years of her youth and her desperate hope for a real family. Simply walking away wasn't justice; it was surrender. She needed to make them bleed the only way they knew how.

"I'm divorcing him," Christen said. Her voice was flat, carrying the weight of an absolute vow. "And I'm going to take him for everything he has."

Low, mournful jazz drifted from the speakers in the corner of the cafe. The lighting in their booth was dim, casting long shadows across the table.

Aisling ordered a pot of hot chamomile tea. She poured a cup and pushed it toward Christen, her eyes never leaving the red mark on her friend's face.

"Okay," Aisling said softly. "Tell me. What exactly happened at the gala tonight that made you finally snap?"

Christen wrapped both hands around the ceramic cup. The heat seeped into her freezing palms, but it didn't reach the coldness in her chest. She stared at the ripples in the amber liquid.

She took a breath that shuddered in her lungs. "I went looking for him. I heard noises in one of the VIP lounges. I looked through the crack in the door." She swallowed hard. "It was Kaelynn. And Brendon. On the couch."

Aisling froze. Her eyes went wide, absolute horror washing over her features.

"Kaelynn?" Aisling breathed. Then her face twisted in fury. She slammed her hand on the table. "That backstabbing, cheap little bitch!"

Christen let out a dry, hollow laugh. "That's not even the worst part." She looked up, meeting Aisling's eyes. "Brendon and I haven't slept together in three years. Not since the honeymoon."

Aisling's jaw physically dropped. She stared at Christen, her brain struggling to process the level of deception.

"Three years?" Aisling whispered, her voice breaking. She reached across the table and grabbed Christen's hands, squeezing them tight. "Christen... why? Why did you stay?"

Christen looked down at their joined hands. "Because I'm an orphan. I wanted a real family so badly I was willing to pretend I had one. I lied to myself."

Aisling's eyes filled with tears. She squeezed harder. "I am going to skin them both alive. I swear to God, I will ruin them."

Aisling wiped her eyes, her lawyer instincts kicking in. She needed to distract Christen, to shift the energy from grief to strategy.

"We need to be smart," Aisling said, her tone shifting to business. "I was just dealing with a case at the firm before you called. A hostile takeover. It's a bloodbath. The guy running it is a monster. If we want to destroy Brendon, we need to think like him."

"Who?" Christen asked, her voice numb.

"Kile Barrett," Aisling said in a hushed tone.

The name hit Christen like a physical punch to the gut.

Her breath hitched. Her hand jerked, rattling the teacup against the saucer with a sharp clatter.

Aisling didn't notice. She kept talking, her voice filled with professional awe and dread. "The Barrett family is old money, but Kile is a different breed. He's a shark. He destroys companies for sport. He's unpredictable, vindictive, and completely untouchable. You do not cross a man like that."

Christen's stomach violently cramped. The memory of the bar flooded her brain. The smell of cedar. The grip on her jaw. You clearly don't know how to respect a woman.

Cold sweat broke out across her forehead. She had practically thrown herself at the most dangerous man in New York, trying to use him as a pawn in her petty revenge.

She reached down and pressed her hand against her clutch. She could feel the hard outline of his black card through the leather. It felt like a live grenade.

"Christen? Are you okay? Does your face hurt?" Aisling asked, finally noticing her pale, sweaty skin.

Christen forced her mouth into a rigid smile. She shook her head quickly. "No. I'm fine." She took a large gulp of the hot tea, burning her tongue, praying Kile Barrett would just forget she existed.

The brass bell above the cafe door let out a sharp, cheerful ring.

A gust of cold wind, smelling of wet asphalt and rain, swept into the room.

Christen looked up out of pure reflex.

Her lungs stopped working.

A tall man stepped through the doorway. He handed a dripping black trench coat to the hostess. As he turned his head, he casually slipped his phone into his pocket, the screen briefly illuminating a blinking red dot perfectly locked onto this exact location. His dark, predatory eyes scanned the room, bypassing the other patrons with chilling precision. His gaze locked onto the corner booth. Onto Christen.

Kile Barrett's lips curved into a slow, terrifying smirk. He bypassed the hostess, his long legs eating up the distance as he walked straight toward their table.