Chapter 5 - The Fall of the KingThe sound of handcuffs locking together seemed to shatter whatever fragile reality Richard had been living in. He thrashed against the security guards, his voice rising into a frantic, desperate howl.
“Get off me! Do you know who I am? I am the CEO of Apex! You can't do this to me! Claire, tell them to let me go! Please!” he screamed, his forehead pressed against the floor where he had dragged my broken body just weeks earlier.
I looked down at him, my expression entirely devoid of pity. When I had been weak, when I had been terrified of dying, he had beaten me, mocked my pain, and celebrated my impending death with another woman in my home. Now, looking at him pinned to the marble, I felt only a profound, liberating emptiness.
“You spent ninety days waiting for me to die, Richard,” I said quietly, crouching down slightly so he could hear every word. “You forgot that when you back someone into a corner and leave them for dead, they learn how to survive in the dark.”
The detective stepped forward, pulling a warrant from his pocket and reading Richard his Miranda rights in a flat, bored tone. Richard continued to yell, thrashing violently until the officers hauled him up by his elbows, dragging him across the very foyer where he had once stood like a king surveying his domain.
As they pushed him out the front doors into the pouring rain, Richard’s desperate cries faded into the distance, swallowed up by the night.
I turned around slowly to face the living room.
Sienna was trembling violently on the sofa, her hands resting protectively over her swollen stomach. The bravado that had made her sneer at me while I lay bruised on the kitchen floor was entirely gone. She looked small, frightened, and utterly abandoned.
“And what about you, Sienna?” I asked, walking slowly toward the sofa.
She flinched, pulling her knees up against her chest. “I... I didn't know! He told me his wife was dying, he told me she was a cold stranger, he promised me we’d have a family here! I’m pregnant, Claire! You can't throw me out on the street!”
I stopped a few feet away from her, looking down at the antique silk robe she wore—my grandmother’s robe.
“You wore my clothes. You sat at my table. You watched your lover beat me and throw me against a wall, and you smiled,” I said, every word dripping with ice. “You aren't a victim, Sienna. You were an active participant in your own gold-digging scheme. But don't worry—I’m not as cruel as your boyfriend.”
Sienna blinked, sniffing back a sob. “What... what do you mean?”
“Your bags are already packed,” I said, gesturing toward the service entrance hallway where three heavy suitcases sat neatly by the door. “My driver is waiting outside to take you to a respectable extended-stay apartment downtown. I’ve paid the first three months' rent.”
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Sienna stared at me in stunned disbelief. “You’re... you’re paying for my apartment?”
“I’m ensuring that an innocent child isn't born on the street,” I replied firmly. “Once the baby is born, my legal team will file child support and paternity establishment documents directly against Richard in federal prison. Every cent he owes you will be extracted from whatever prison wages or hidden assets we uncover. But you will never set foot in this house again.”
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