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**Preface**

-------------Update Schedule------------

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Chapters are updated daily, though there may be occasions when I post twice or even three times a day. Turn on notifications so you don’t miss a drop!

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-------------Author’s Note -------------

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Thank you so much for choosing to read my story, your time and attention mean everything. With countless amazing books out there, the fact that you chose mine is something I sincerely appreciate. It's both an honor and a privilege.

If you're enjoying the journey, I’d truly appreciate hearing your thoughts. Your feedback motivates me a lot to write even when I am down.

Multi-dimensionally Yours,

Grace Grandi

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-------------Chapter One-------------

*Christiana's POV*

“Chairman of Salazar Empire Arrested for Killing His Wife in Domestic Dispute.”

“Salazar Empire Collapses in Scandal.”

“Billionaire Family Falls from Grace After Tragic Murder.”

I couldn't get a hold of my sanity with all the demeaning talks about my family.

For f*cks sake, I am mourning! Yes, it is true. My father killed my mother but it was all because of me!

That night was practically the worst night of my life. The argument between my parents was just like always, but this time, it was with more intensity.

I didn’t bother to intervene, because some twisted part of me thought my mother was finally saying everything she had always held back.

I blamed myself because I had brought Bella into our lives. I had told my mother she was my best friend, I thought she was, she portrayed to be the female best friend I never had, I didn't know she was using me to climb to the top.

I didn't know that I brought the devil into our home.

My mother was fed up that night because Father had gone too far with his entanglement with Bella, the affair was now being rubbed to her face and she couldn't take it anymore.

“Giveon, please. I’m asking you... keep Bella away from the company and from our family. She doesn’t belong in your business. She doesn’t belong in our life. She is going to ruin everything that we have built together!”

My father let out that cruel, dismissive laugh he reserved for anyone who dared to challenge him. “You think you can tell me who belongs where? You don’t know a damn thing about what I need right now. Bella understands me and you are just a selfish woman.”

“Understands you?” My mother’s voice rose, trembling with rage. “She’s twenty-nine, Giveon. She’s just a year older than your daughter! She’s using you, and you’re too blind to see it.”

“You’re just jealous,” he snapped. “Can't you just move on? We are now too old for eachother, Grace."

My mother was mute for a while, I guess she couldn't believe he could say that to her.

I wasn't very surprised, I had tried to talk my father out of it severally and I've received worse.

He continued, "You’ve always hated any woman who genuinely loves me, just like you hated my mother. You hate that she’s smarter than you and she’s not bitter like you.”

“Bitter?” My mother’s voice cracked like glass under pressure. “I gave you my life. I built this home. I carried your child. I stood by you while you built your empire from the ground up. And this is how you repay me? You are evil.”

BANG!

Just by the sound, I knew that the huge table glass in the sitting room had broke.

I ran as fast as my legs would carry me and when I reached the bottom of the stairs, the sight froze me.

In the center of the living room, beneath the chandelier she happily chose for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary laid my mother.

Her hair fanned out like a halo. Her head bent at an unnatural angle against the sharp corner of the glass coffee table.

Blood bloomed beneath her skull, dark and vivid, red pooling like spilled wine across the rug.

My father stood over her, frozen in place. His chest rose and fell in shallow, panicked bursts. His hands trembled. His lips parted, but no words came.

“Grace,” he whispered my mother’s name barely audible, but soaked in urgency

Then he dropped to his knees beside her. It was as though he knew immediately that she was gone, because he didn’t bother reviving her, he simply wept. Gut-wrenching, primal sobs that echoed through the hollow space where our family used to live.

Our butler at that time, rushed in also and gasped at the sight of my dead mother, he rushed away immediately, and I knew he went to call for help.

I stood at the edge of the stairs, my heart pounding so violently I thought it might burst through my ribs. My feet were numb, my skin turned cold , I couldn't feel anything at that moment. Something inside me that once believed in love and in family, died right there on that floor with her.

The rest of the incident came in merciless flashes.

The police blue and red lights pulsed through the windows like a curse, bathing the walls of our once-perfect home in guilt and judgment.

Officers pushed past me with drawn weapons, shouting commands I couldn’t comprehend.

My father sat on the floor, crumpled, his shirt soaked in blood and tears. When they pulled him up, he didn’t resist. His hands were cuffed behind his back as he sobbed like a man possessed.

“It was an accident!” he wailed. “I didn’t mean to…God, I didn’t mean to!”

They didn’t care. Neither did I.

Reporters had already swarmed the front gate like vultures. Cameras flashed with machine-gun rhythm as they shouted different demanding questions.

“Mr. Salazar, did you kill your wife?”

“Is it true you were having an affair?”

“Christiana! Christiana, is it true your father pushed her?”

No one cared about what I felt, losing my mother to the hands of my unfaithful father.

Now, it's just me against the world.

The mansion that once hosted CEOs, diplomats, and celebrities now reeked of death, disgrace, and betrayal.

Our empire didn’t just burn, it turned to ash by sunrise.

***

They say you can hear the sound of a heart breaking, but mine shattered in silence, somewhere between the soft thump of sand hitting her casket and the echo of the priest’s final amen.

I stood motionless, dressed in black, my heels sinking into the freshly dug earth as if the ground was pulling me in too.

The framed photo of her trembled in my grasp, her smile still perfect, still warm. She looked alive and happy, but the box beneath my feet said otherwise.

She wasn’t supposed to fu*king die like that. Not at the hands of the man who once told her, forever.

“Christy…”

Tony’s voice broke gently through the fog in my thoughts.

He reached out and brushed the back of my hand with his fingertips. He stood beside me, quiet but present like a wall I could lean against if I chose to.

My dear childhood friend, I almost thought I was alone.

In less than forty-eight hours, everything crumbled before my eyes.

Major investors pulled out like rats fleeing a sinking ship. The board resigned in disgrace. The empire my family had built brick by brick, decade after decade, folded beneath the weight of scandal and shame.

Our name, once printed in gold on magazine covers, engraved in glass atop boardroom towers, now trended with disgust.

A legacy reduced to a headline. A brand turned into a cautionary tale.

Bella Calamida, the ghost in all of this vanished.

She didn’t show up at the funeral, or at least give herself to the police officers and said she was one of the culprits. She possessed my father and made him kill my mother.

Well, if she had attended the funeral, we may have held another funeral because I would kill her.

*THREE MONTHS LATER*

Tony sent me a message this morning.

“Oil Heir Bryan Adams Set to Marry Big Bella Fashion Brand Owner, Bella Calamida.”

The headline screamed at me from the screen like a slap.

She wore white in the engagement photo. All teeth and innocence, looking immaculate. Like someone who would never seduced a married man or buried a woman with her evil and walked away without a scratch.

I stared at the image until the letters blurred, the grin on her face melting into something monstrous.

She took everything from me, my family, my peace, my name.

Now, I would take everything from her and I would start with her fiancé, Bryan Adams.