CHAPTER 7

The absolute silence in the auditorium is thick and suffocating as Soren and Violet glide down the center aisle.

Soren’s dark eyes lock onto the stage, his voice cutting through the room like ice. "I suggest you think very carefully before you open your mouths to speak another word," he warns, his powerful aura causing Derek and Violet’s father to instantly shiver in fear.

However, Chloe, blinded by her desperation and jealousy, boldly stands her ground. She grabs the microphone, fake tears streaming down her face as she speaks fluently to the reporters. "Don't let them intimidate you!"

Chloe cries out like a flawless victim. "Violet is a thief! She tried to drown me last night because she was jealous of my happiness, and now she is using Mr. Ashwood's power to steal our family’s company shares!" Her desperate acting works, causing the fickle crowd of reporters to whisper furiously, turning their judgmental gazes back onto Violet.

Violet simply smiles, completely unfazed. Suddenly, the massive digital screen behind the podium flashes to life, blinding the auditorium. Instantly, the high-definition surveillance footage plays, showing Chloe violently pushing Violet into the river, followed by Chloe losing her balance and falling in herself. The media hall erupts into loud gasps.

"Wait, I'm not done," Soren's icy voice cuts through the crowd's gasps, as the screen changes, revealing official, verified financial company records. The documents show in bold text that Violet's late mother owned the highest percentage of the company, proving Violet's years of grueling hard work that single-handedly built the empire, while exposing her family’s years of financial injustice and greed. This clearly proves who's the thief and who's the victim.

The reporters record this unexpected evidence, then they their cameras immediately at the ones were acting as the victims, and began hurling insults at the stage.

Derek trembles and tries to smooth things out, but his business empire completely crumbles to dust before his eyes as Soren leaks his fraudulent banking records to the press, causing Derek to collapse onto his knees, trembling in absolute ruin.

"And you were planning to get someone like me to partner with a mess like you? What an insult to my face," Soren spoke mockingly, as he holds Violet's hands tight, letting everyone, mostly the media, take all the images and footages they want.

Violet clenches his hand back, standing bold while glaring right at her stepsister. Chloe was fuming at the sight of this. She thought a man like Soren would have dumped Violet on the streets to fend for herself. She didn't expect Violet to stand by his side like some Queen. This angered her deeply.

Panicking as the crowd screams insults at him, Derek hovers his eyes around like a maniac, until they land on Violet. In defeat, he desperately crawls across the stage toward Violet.

He reaches out, grabbing her hand with a pathetic, pleading look. "Violet... please! You’re still my fiancée! Chloe and her parents instigated me, they forced me to leave you! I love you, please save me!" he begs.

Before Violet can even pull away, a protective, furious Soren strikes Derek across the face with a brutal backhand. Derek crashes to the floor, clutching his bleeding lip. "Don't touch my wife with your filthy hands," Soren roars, his deep voice shaking the walls.

"Wife? Did he just call her his wife?" The crowds gasp in absolute shock, wondering of they heard wrong.

Chloe and her parent's eyes widen too.

"Wife?" Derek uttered with trembling lips, refusing to believe he heard that word from Soren's mouth.

In front of everyone, Soren wraps a possessive, romantic arm tightly around Violet’s waist, pulling her against his chest. "She is no longer your fiancée. She is Mrs. Ashwood."

Derek's eyes widens in disbelief. The entire room gasps in absolute shock. Chloe screams out in chaotic refusal, jumping to her feet. "You’re a liar! Soren Ashwood would never marry a tramp like you! You're lying, Violet! You're a damn liar! Why do good things always happen to her?! You are not worthy!"

Soren opens his mouth to destroy her, but Violet steps forward, showing off her own badass queen power. She coldly signals Soren’s elite guards with a sharp flick of her wrist. "Drag her over," Violet commands. The guards ruthlessly seize Chloe, dragging her kicking and screaming figure across the stage until she is thrown directly at Violet’s feet.

Before Chloe can even look up, Violet lands a hot, stinging slap across Chloe’s face, the loud echo silencing the entire room.

Chloe's mouth drop. Even her parents gasp and yell out Violet's name. "That is for every single lie you’ve ever told, and for trying to kill me," Violet declares coldly.

Her stepmother screams, trying to rush forward to stop her, but Soren's guards violently pin the parents down. Violet stares down at her trembling father, tossing a thick legal document onto the podium. "Sign it. I am taking full control over my mother’s shares and stripping you of everything. From this day on, I don’t have a family."

Her father's pride drops when he hears this, and he weeps, begging his daughter. "Violet, please... I am still your father!" Violet looks at him with dead eyes. "I don't recognize you."

"You heard her. Sign the papers," Soren's cold voice echoes, terrifying the father to sign the papers with shaking hands.