"He Whispered a Threat at the Altar. Then He Saw My Wedding Night Dress—and Went Completely Still."

Inside a sprawling, unheated corrugated warehouse, the air smelled of salt, rust, and old diesel fuel.

Grant sat tied to a wooden chair in the center of the concrete floor, shivering violently despite the wool jacket Mateo had tossed over his shoulders. Around him stood six of Roman’s top enforcers—silent, stone-faced men who looked as though they had spent their lives chewing gravel and breaking bones.

I stood beside Roman near a battered metal desk where a single desk lamp cut a sharp circle of light through the gloom. Roman had slipped back into his charcoal suit jacket, exuding the absolute, suffocating authority of a man who owned the very ground beneath our feet.

"Please," Grant choked out, tears finally spilling over his cheeks as he stared up at Roman. "Take the warehouses. Take the shipping routes in New Jersey. Take the accounts in Zurich. I’ll sign everything over right now! Just let me walk away!"

Roman didn't answer. He slowly uncapped a silver fountain pen, laying it beside a blank legal document on the desk.

"You don't own those assets anymore, Grant," Roman said quietly, his voice echoing off the corrugated walls. "Your father left them to both of you. But two weeks ago, Evelyn quietly signed an irrevocable proxy transferring her fifty percent voting rights in Mercer Logistics directly to me."

Grant’s head snapped toward me, his eyes bulging with sheer betrayal. "You... you tricked me? The papers you had me sign at the lawyer's office last month—"

"Weren't tax forms," I said, stepping out from the shadow of the desk and walking slowly toward him. My heels clicked rhythmically against the concrete floor. "They were your eviction notice, Grant."

"You bitch!" Grant screamed, straining against the ropes. "You set me up! You conspired with this animal to ruin me!"

Before Grant could finish his sentence, Roman was across the room in a blur of motion. He grabbed Grant by the collar of his shirt, lifting him slightly off the chair, and slammed him back down with enough force to rattle the wooden frame.

"Never raise your voice in front of my wife again," Roman whispered, his face inches from Grant’s. The threat in his eyes was so absolute that Grant stopped breathing entirely.

Roman straightened his jacket, stepped back, and looked at me. "Do you want to do it, Evelyn? Or shall I?"

I looked down at my brother—the boy who had loomed like a nightmare over my entire youth, the tyrant who had made our home a prison. For years, I had dreamed of this moment. I had imagined screaming, fighting, hitting back with all the fury pent up inside my soul.

Instead, a profound, chilling calmness washed over me.

"No," I said softly, stepping back beside Roman. "Killing him or breaking his bones would make me just like him. And I am nothing like him."

Grant let out a ragged, desperate breath of relief. "Evie... thank you... oh God, thank you—"

"However," I continued, cutting him off mid-sentence, "he cannot stay in New York. He cannot use the Mercer name, he cannot touch a single cent of our father's trust, and if he ever steps foot in this state again, your men don't need to ask for permission, Roman."

Roman’s lips curved into a sharp, approving smirk. "Understood."

He gestured to Mateo, who stepped forward with a thick manila envelope and tossed it onto Grant’s lap.

"Inside that envelope is a first-class ticket to Buenos Aires, a new passport under the name Gregory Miller, and twenty thousand dollars in cash," Roman instructed coldly. "Your apartment is cleared out. Your bank accounts are frozen. A car is waiting outside to take you directly to JFK. If you miss that flight, Mateo will throw you into the East River with concrete shoes. Do we have an understanding?"

Grant nodded frantically, sobbing tears of pure humiliation. "Yes. Yes, I understand. I'll go. I swear I'll go."

"Get him out of my sight," Roman ordered.

Two enforcers hauled Grant out of the chair, dragging him cursing and weeping toward the sliding metal doors of the warehouse. As the heavy door rolled shut behind them, the cavernous space fell utterly silent once more.

I stood there in the dim light, my heart beating steadily in my chest.

Roman walked over, stopping just a breath away. He reached out, his warm fingers brushing against my cheek, wiping away a stray tear I hadn't realized I'd shed.

"Are you satisfied?" he asked softly.