Chapter 4

Two burly guards pinned my arms behind my back. My father-in-law gripped my shoulder, his voice trembling with a fear he tried to conceal. "Nick! Stay calm!"

"Hit me! Go on! Wasn't that what you wanted?" Brian scrambled up from the floor, his eyes blazing with pure venom. "Do you think beating me will piece that worthless trinket back together?"

He kicked contemptuously at the glittering wreckage scattered near his feet.

"Don't worry, Nick. We'll keep the pieces... we can have it restored..." My father-in-law moved toward the fragments, his hands gently gathering the broken components as if salvaging something precious.

Brian suddenly shoved him aside and, with a cruel, deliberate motion, ground his heel into the small pile of collected pieces. The crunch of glass and metal was sickening. "You old fool," he spat, "do you really think this can be fixed? Today, I'll grind it into dust!"

As he destroyed the last remnants, he looked straight at me, his sneer triumphant. "See this? This is what you and your precious symbols are worth—beneath my heel."

"Dad!" I shouted, seeing him fall. A surge of raw adrenaline ripped through me. With a strength I didn't know I possessed, I wrenched free from the guards' grasp.

"I'll kill you!" I snatched an empty bottle from a nearby table and lunged at Brian.

"Ah!" Brian screamed, genuine terror in his eyes.

The security captain reacted instantly, delivering a brutal kick to my side that sent me stumbling. He then grabbed me by the hair and slammed my face back down onto the cold floor.

"Are you hurt, Brian?" the captain asked with feigned concern, his knee digging into my back.

"Teach him a lesson! Tear that filthy mouth of his apart!" Brian shrieked, clutching his chest in a theatrical display.

"I'm not just Ashley's husband—I'm the sole heir to the Barnett Group! Lay another hand on me and you'll regret it!"

The guards hesitated, my declaration and fury giving them pause.

"The heir to the Barnett Group? So what? You're still just the man Ashley keeps around for show!" one of the bolder guards taunted, his eyes glinting with malice. "And judging by the way she ignores you... I doubt she even lets you touch her anymore! Hah!"

A hollow, familiar ache bloomed in my chest. The taunt struck a nerve—it was true that Ashley and I hadn't been intimate in a long time.

"What is going on?" A cool, familiar voice cut through the noise. Ashley stood at the entrance, flanked by two assistants, her brow furrowed at the scene of chaos.

My body went rigid.

At almost the same instant, another voice—deeper, far more commanding—echoed through the hall.

"Nick!"

The crowd parted as a woman, radiating an authority that silenced the room, strode purposefully toward me.