Chapter 10 - The Sovereign Price
"How did you find this place?" Julian growled, placing Clara behind his legs, his body shielding her from the barrel of the gun.
Victoria gave a small, bitter laugh that echoed off the brass lockers. "My father is predictable. He used that box for forty years to store everything he used to destroy his rivals. Do you think I didn't know where he kept the leash he had around my neck?"
She walked slowly toward them, her heels clicking rhythmically against the stone tiles. Her face was pale, tight with an exhaustion she couldn't completely conceal.
"Give me the binder, Julian. And the recorder. Now."
"You killed Elena," Julian said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, hollowed out by the sheer weight of the truth. "You ran her off the road. Clara was in the back of that car. Clara was two years old, Victoria!"
Victoria’s gaze flickered to Clara for a fraction of a second before snapping back to Julian’s eyes. There was no remorse in her expression—only the cold, brittle pragmatism of someone who had lived her entire life inside an empire built on leverage.
"It was an accident," Victoria said evenly. "It was raining. I was speeding. By the time I saw her headlights, it was too late. My father handled it. He handled it by turning my entire life into a prison. He controlled my shares, my movements, my choices. He told me I would marry an executive of his choosing."
"So you targeted me instead," Julian whispered.
"I found out who the victim was," Victoria admitted, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial purr. "I realized that if I brought you into the family, if I made you my husband, my father could never reveal the truth without destroying the very alliance he was building. And last night, I finally found his safe open."
She raised the pistol, aiming it directly at Julian’s forehead.
"I needed the evidence out of that house. The security protocols at the wedding were designed for my father's team. They checked every bag, every trunk, every vendor. But nobody checks a flower girl."
"You drugged her. You chained her to a stone floor like a stray dog!"
"She was supposed to sit in the dressing room!" Victoria’s composure broke, a flash of hysterical rage contorting her beautiful features. "She found the seam! She started pulling at the thread! If she had dropped that drive in front of my father's guards, I would have spent the rest of my life in a federal penitentiary! What choice did I have?!"
"You had the choice to be human," Julian said.
May you like
Behind Julian, Clara’s small hand reached into the pocket of his damp jacket, pulling on the hem of his shirt.
Victoria cocked the hammer of the gun. "Set the binder on the floor, Julian. Step back with the child. Or I bury you both under forty feet of harbor water."
