Se connecterCarlo was my current business partner and… suitor.Seeing the scene in front of him, his expression darkened. He walked toward us and forced Tony’s hands away from me with a polite yet undeniable strength.“Mister, please remove your hands from my fiancée.”Fiancée.That single word struck Tony like lightning.He stared at me, disbelief written across his face. “No… no, that’s impossible… Claire, tell him it’s not true!”Carlo stepped in front of me, shielding me with effortless elegance.“Mister, you may not know, but Layla and I will be formally engaged next month.”Layla was my new name.Tony looked at me again, and the light in his eyes slowly went out.“Claire, do you love him?”I met his desperate gaze, then I slid my hand through Carlo’s arm and smiled at him.“He’s good to me.”That was enough.Whether or not it was love no longer mattered. What mattered was that I wasn’t the woman who revolved around him.Tony watched our intimate postures, his body swaying like
His expression flickered from shock, relief, and finally despair as he looked at me.“Claire...”He tried to move toward me but was pinned to the floor.Frank slowly rose, voice heavy and grave.“I hereby strip Tony of all positions and inheritance. From this moment on, he is expelled from the family. He will never be reinstated.“And Joseph is to be handed over to Miss Vega for her judgment.”Tony collapsed to his knees, looking up at me with eyes full of pleading.“Claire, I’m sorry… I was wrong… Please forgive me…”I walked toward him, crouched down, and met his eyes directly.“Tony, forgiveness was never the point between us.“This is blood-deep hatred.”I stood, turned toward Joseph, who was restrained on the other side of the hall, and lifted the Browning pistol Tony once gave me.“Bang!” The gun went off. Just like that, the feud was settled.Tony was banished from the family. No longer was he the high and mighty heir of the Gambinos; he was just a man, stripped
Right when everything was collapsing around him, I delivered the final blow.I filed an anonymous tip accusing Gambino Corporation of tax evasion and money laundering, with airtight evidence attached. Regulators moved fast. Within hours, Gambino Corporation was ordered to freeze assets and shut down. The business empire that had propped up the Gambinos was shaken to its core.Tony was trapped at home, unable to chase me overseas. After all, I’d cut off every one of his reach-out routes. On the line, Curtis sounded thrilled. “Miss, we did it!”I watched Tony’s ruined face on the news and said calmly. “This was only the beginning. “I want him stripped of everything.”Then came word about Sasha. She lived on the streets, childless. There were rumors of an attempted tabloid sale before she was snatched off the street and shipped to a psychiatric facility. Word was she’d been silenced, and it was the Gambinos who had dealt with her. I turned my phone off without a twin
The same day I left Switzerland, Tony’s plane landed in Zurich.He came up empty.All I left behind for him was a flawless set of medical documents, showing that the patient had given up treatment and been discharged.There was also one surveillance video.In the video, I was wearing a hospital gown, looking thin and pale. Curtis was supporting me as I got into a car whose destination was unknown.I had paid a Hollywood special effects makeup artist to create the sickly appearance. It was realistic enough to pass for the truth.Tony heartbreakingly watched the video of the “weak” me.Regret and fear almost consumed him.He stubbornly believed that I had left because I knew I didn’t have much time left.With red eyes, he gave the order.“Lock down all export routes in Europe!“Contact the best doctors in the world. No matter the cost!“Turn the world upside down if you have to. Find Madam!”He thought I was hiding from him.However, what he didn’t know was that I had alrea
He finally understood that I knew everything.Most of all, I didn’t kill myself. I simply didn’t want him anymore.This realization hurt him even more than the news of my death.He lost control and destroyed his study, smashing everything to pieces."Claire! Come back! Come back here!"His shouts echoed through the empty villa, but there was no answer.Then, he remembered the question I once asked him."What if one day you really betray me?"He answered back then, "Punish me. Make me search to the ends of the earth for you, and still never find you."The words had become reality.My punishment had arrived.Tony rushed out of the villa and grabbed Alvin, yelling, "She’s not dead! Claire is alive!"Find her! Even if we have to search the whole world, we have to find her!"In his eyes, light returned. However, it was a light that was twisted and obsessive.Meanwhile, I was sitting in a hospital in Switzerland, looking at the diagnosis report Sasha had forged.It said late-s
Sasha’s scream shattered the silence.“It’s fake! This is fake! That bitch Claire must be pulling some trick!”She tried to grab Tony, but he threw her off hard, and she fell to the floor in a mess.Tony stared at the screen. The eyes that had held warmth just moments ago were now consumed by something dark and furious.“Claire...”He forced out my name, his voice full of pain.The next second, he rushed out of the church like a madman. Behind him was a wedding that had turned into a spectacle, where Sasha was screaming in rage.I, on the other hand, was sitting on a private jet bound for Switzerland, expressionless as I watched the chaos unfold live on my tablet.“Miss, everything went as planned.”I nodded and switched off the screen.There were no feelings of victory or satisfaction, just emptiness. Claire was gone, dead the day Tony held a wedding for another woman.In the following seven days, Tony went mad.He sealed off the entire stretch of sea and called in over







