Chapter 7
98%
My heart dropped. Like a stone. Straight to the pit of something I didn’t even know I still
had.
Gone?
I chuckled darkly and leaned back in my seat, swirling the amber scotch in my glass like it was the punchline of some cosmic joke.
“Nice prank, Rosa,” I said into the phone, still grinning like the devil himself. “She’s trying to mess with me, huh?”
There was a pause on the other end.
“No, sir,” Rosa replied nervously. “I mean it. Miss Amelia… she’s gone. She boarded a plane. She hasn’t been here for a week.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure. Gone. Right. And the sun sets in the east now too? Just do what I said, Rosa. No food. No maids. No sympathy. She’ll crack. And when she does, I want her on her knees telling Caroline she’s sorry. Not a minute before.”
“Yes, sir,” she said softly, and I hung up.
Phone hit the table with a satisfying clunk, and I leaned forward, amused. Caroline walked into the suite wearing a silk wrap and that smug little smile she always wore after manipulating someone into hell.
She slid onto the arm of my chair like she belonged there. “Is Amelia finally ready to apologize to me?” she asked, tilting her head sweetly. “Because I’m such a generous soul, you know. I’m willing to forgive her. If she begs.”
I smirked and rested my hand on her thigh. “She’s being stubborn again. But don’t worry–I told the maid not to feed her. Let her sit in that pretty little prison of hers until she’s ready to kiss the ring.”
Caroline giggled, pleased. “Thank you for always choosing me, Favio. Even when she was throwing herself down stairs.”
I chuckled and kissed the corner of her mouth. “You’re the only one who plays the game right, baby.”
She purred and leaned in, but I was already thinking ahead. Amelia wouldn’t last. She never did. She could slam doors, cry blood, threaten fire and revenge–she always came back.
Always.
A week passed.
Caroline and I returned to the penthouse after our little island getaway, and I was in a good mood. Relaxed. Tan. Ready to put Amelia back in line and give her that other penthouse she could sulk in like some drama queen.
I picked up my phone and dialed her. When she didn’t answer, I called again. Nothing.
Finally ennnnnd “Amalin I know you’re still thorn
པཔམཔལ པས་པ]– .!“U
I’m not in the
2/3 8.0%
12:38
Tue, 24 Jun
M
98%
Finally, I snapped, “Amelia. I know you’re still there. Quit playing games. I’m not in the mood. My driver’s waiting downstairs. Get your ass to the other penthouse already, or I’ll drag you there myself.”
I ended the call and turned–only to see Rosa and two other maids standing stiff in the hallway.
Rosa wrung her hands nervously. “Sir… Miss Amelia is really gone. She left last week. She hasn’t been here.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Gone where?”
“We don’t know, sir. She… took all her things. Every last one.”
I didn’t believe it.
I shoved past them, stormed into her bedroom, ripped open the closet doors–empty.
Drawers? Empty.
Suitcase? Gone.
The scent of her perfume still lingered, like a ghost clinging to silk. My jaw clenched. Fists balled at my sides.
“How dare you leave…” I muttered, teeth grinding together. “Without my consent.”
I called my mother. Mrs. Cunningham didn’t just raise me–she engineered me. If there was one person who could make a problem disappear without blinking, it was her.
She answered on the first ring, crisp as ever. “Hello, darling. Finally back from vacation?”
“I am,” I muttered, leaning back against my office desk, phone pressed to my ear. “And you’ll never guess what I found out the minute I walked in–Amelia’s gone. Packed up. Disappeared. Left like a damn thief.”
Mother sounded entirely unbothered. “Well, yes. Of course she’s gone. Isn’t that what you wanted? Now you can marry Caroline without complications.”
I froze, my brow twitching. “I never signed the divorce papers, Mother.”
A pause.
Then her voice came smooth, sharp. “Yes, you did.”
I frowned, “No. I didn’t.”
“Oh, darling,” she said with a patronizing laugh, like she was talking to a confused child. “You remember that document I had you sign last month? You didn’t read it–of course you didn’t. It was your divorce from Amelia. All done. And Amelia’s signature? I tricked her into signing that too.”
I straightened. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I told her it was a contract from Winslock Holdings. She believed me. She signed all five. pages without even blinking. The final page was your divorce. It’s legal. It’s done.”
My jaw clenched. “You forged a contract?” I snapped.
“I protected our legacy,” she said firmly. “Caroline’s from the Winslock bloodline too.
2/3 8.0%
Caroline is made’s con, the row the store in male conny & now–bem out, bankrupt, and deed. We done can that were
ringtee Imers
I stared at the floor for a long OMAX, 60 to my “smers ask you for money?ested slowly, my volks tow
“She tried to,” Myer said with a soot “Sas di gave her a billion, so desse never look back. Though the coté strede me we some Welsh
Y
“Of course not” she said with a Vevo, “wes will be. Whet she wavaly sys decoys and that divores form. I made sus of a lotustise of her ow
1 let out a breath and hung up without soother word, I didn’t ass to say thank you She
I sat there in stence, stening of the empy gees on my desk I should stop what the mos gone Emesis was out of my Ms. My mother did what she always ad bonded the mess didn’t want to look at
I should’ve been odebrating But for soms demo reeson, all I could see in my head wee Amadad’s face then she sp blood of me
The women was poison. Voious Unruly Violent
She was also ins
And now she was out there along? No. Amelia couldn’t hands that Not the Cack Net thunderstore Not silence. She was scared of being alone, Couldn’t even sleep withost the damn hallway
She’d come bet
She sways did
on
Maybe not tomorrow Maybe not the next day
But give it five days. Tops. She’d be at my door again. Crying. Screaming Apologizing Beyping me to let her in
I smirked. She could run halfway across the world, but media was stol mins
She just had realized it yet
Chapter 08
Chapter 8
98%
AMELIA’S POV
Six months.
That’s how long I disappeared off the face of the earth. No phone. No press. No damn noise. Just silence and the scent of lavender fields outside my family’s estate in the South of France. You’d think silence was peaceful.
But it wasn’t. Not at first.
I had night terrors for weeks. Couldn’t even sleep in a bed without seeing red blooming between my legs. My brother Adrian–yes, Dr. Rodrigo, perfect prodigy and private clinic miracle worker–stayed up most nights making sure I didn’t claw my own skin off from panic. He even took my phone on the first day and locked it away, like it was a drug I needed to detox from. He said, “Social media and men. Same poison, different packaging.”
He wasn’t wrong.
My parents just held me like I was still seventeen and sobbing over some boy I couldn’t remember the name of now. Back then, I thought heartbreak was missing a call.
Now? Heartbreak was watching the man who once said he loved me leave me bleeding on a hospital bed like I was a burden.
I broke down once, during breakfast. Halfway through a croissant. Out of nowhere. My mother dropped her knife and wrapped her arms around me while I sobbed into her silk robe. “You don’t have to be okay yet, hija. We’ll wait with you.”
It took six months of therapy. Real therapy. Not that rich–housewife, “I’m sad because my credit card declined” type. I mean real work–shadow work, trauma release, sessions where I had to actually say the baby’s name out loud.
Yes, I named the baby.
No, I’m not telling you.
And then one day, I woke up and I wasn’t numb. I didn’t flinch when I saw the color red. I didn’t dream about Favio’s voice echoing down hospital corridors.
I was still scarred. But I wasn’t broken.
And that’s when my father offered me vengeance like a glass of wine at dinner.
“We could bankrupt the Cunninghams if you give me the word,” he said, folding his napkin like it was a death certificate. “They shouldn’t get away with what they did to our daughter.” But I just shook my head and looked him straight in the eye. “No, Papá. This is my fight
now.”
Because this wasn’t about mourning anymore. This wasn’t about the baby I lost–though that grief still sits under my skin like a dormant flame.
No.
This was about power.
1/3
88%
12:38 Tue, 24 Jun
เจ
<98%
I am no longer Amelia Winslock, their little obedient billionaire bride. I’m not a name they can scrub clean or a wife they can exile into silence.
My real name is Amelia Rodrigo–and I’m going to hunt them with every tool they handed me. Every signature. Every bank transaction. Every whispered insult they thought I didn’t
hear.
The day Adrian gave me back my phone, he looked at me and said, “You sure you’re ready
for this?”
And I said, “I was born ready. I just forgot for a while.”
First thing I did was dial that old devil in pearls–Mrs. Cunningham herself.
She picked up after two rings, her voice sweet like sugar dipped in venom. “Oh, Amelia, I wondered when you’d call. Let me guess, you need money now? Looking for a little pocket change after your stunt?”
I smiled into the phone. “I just wanted to confirm the wire transfer. One billion, wasn’t it? You know… the amount we agreed on?”
She actually laughed. I could picture her perfectly–perched on one of those overpriced antique chairs, a whiskey in hand, looking smug.
“Oh, darling,” she said, “you really are dumber than I thought. The paper you signed? That wasn’t a financial contract. That was your divorce. And it included a clause that said you’d never ask for a penny from my son. Not now, not ever.”
Then she had the audacity to say, “You really should’ve read the fine print.”
And hung up.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry.
I laughed.
Because poor little Mrs. Cunningham still thinks her empire is safe. Still thinks I’m the woman who begged her son to love her. Still thinks I can’t touch her. She has no idea who I really am.
I don’t want their money. I want everything else.
I want the Winslock name back–my foster family’s legacy, stolen by their greed. I want their board members defecting, their factories shut down, their press in scandal.
And when I’m done? I want Favio to stand in the middle of his glass empire, watching it crack from the inside.
Not because I still love him. But because he killed my child and buried my name–and thought I’d stay dead with it.
Not this time. I’m not here to heal anymore.
I’m here to ruin everything.
***
The email hit my inbox on a Tuesday morning, just after my coffee cooled and my silence. was starting to taste too sweet. It came with a chime, simple, harmless–like it didn’t carry
Chapter 8
2/2 923
12:38 Tue, 24 Jun M.
<98%
A luxury wedding invitation in digital black and gold, so dripping in wealth and arrogance it practically smelled like old money and new sins. The signature at the bottom? Mrs. fucking Cunningham. She was really going through with it. Favio was really marrying Caroline.
One month from now. There was a private note attached–her final little dagger.
“Now you’re free to watch him love someone better. Try not to cry, darling.”
I leaned back in my chair, slowly sipping the rest of my lukewarm espresso like I was tasting war.
Cry?
Oh no, sweetheart.
You should’ve sent a warning instead.
I didn’t cry. I smirked. Let them think I’m soft. Let them believe I’m sitting in some dark room grieving my ex and chain–smoking over the ruins of my life.
I tapped my screen. “Call Sofia,” I told my assistant. “And get Marco. I want the full team. I want to be unrecognizable. I want to break necks when I walk in.”
12.38 Tue 24 JN.
