Chapter 1: Is this the end?

Marion’s POV

“Where is he?” I yell, my voice cracking. “Where’s Reid?!”

My head is pounding. I can taste blood. I try to get up, but my knees are shaking. My mouth’s dry. I think I’m going to pass out. I look pitiful, I think.

“Sign the papers,” Richard snarls, arms crossed, knuckles bloodied, cool as hell. “You want to see your Reid, don’t you? You can finally have him back. Don’t you want that? Sign.”

I stare at him like he’s gone insane. The man I married. The man I thought would protect us. The man to whom I gave my heart. Soaked in the thirst for power. Our perfectly curated marriage now broken.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, my voice low. “Haven’t you already taken enough?”

He laughs—that short, bitter kind of laugh. “Taken enough? I’ve given you everything, Marion. My time. My support. Six damn years playing the man who serves the queen while you hogged the spotlight.”

“Serve? When have you ever served me?” I scoff. “You weren’t complaining when wearing 50,000-dollar suits and taking a private jet across the world. I built Icarus. My blood, my sweat, Richard. I carried that company while you screwed the secretaries. I am the reason you stand tall and smug.”

Richard’s face tightens, but I keep going. I’m too angry to stop now.

“You think I humiliated you? You sat in meetings nodding while I pitched. You paraded around like a genius when it was my work. My research. My patents, which have kept us fed, kept us rich.”

He steps closer, jaw clenched. “And now I want what is owed. You said you'd step down when Reid was born. He’s six now, Marion.”

“And you think that gives you the right to steal everything from me? Icarus is mine.” I shout. “To dangle my son in front of me like some bargaining chip?!”

Then she walks in.

Emma.

She leans against the table like she owns the damn place. Hair done. Face full of makeup. Baby bump front and center like it’s some prize. She doesn’t even flinch. Even waving a gun, she looks plastic.

I blink at her. Then back at him.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter. “Is she what this is about? You think just because I divorced you, and you took my son away from me, I will give you more.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. This is taking too long. Just sign the papers. Richard has done his part, spending six years next to the ice queen. You should have just made him CEO, and all this would have been avoided. Sign the papers and just start over. Let go.”

“Let go?” I laugh, and it sounds crazy even to me. “You show up, steal my husband, take my son away from me, wave a gun around, and tell me to let go? Emma, did all that plastic surgery affect your brain?”

Richard slams the table, making me jump. “Sign it!”

I look down at the papers. Share transfer. Everything. Dated perfectly.

“No!”

The blow comes out of nowhere. I can see the stars dancing around…

My head jerks sideways, my jaw snapping back with a sickening crack. I stumble, landing hard on the cold floor. Richard’s still not done. Not satisfied. He towers over me, breathing like he’s worked up a sweat. He swings the bat again, but he stops….

I’ve never seen him like this. Bloodthirst in his eyes. Not even during the worst of our marriage.

And on Reid’s birthday, no less.

One year since we separated.

It has been one year since the court handed him full custody.

One year of one hit after another—and now this.

But then I hear it.

A voice. Small. Muffled. Familiar.

“Where’s my dad...?"

Reid.

My heart jerks in my chest. I lift my bleeding head toward the screen. The light from the tablet burns my eyes, but I force them open. I see him. My son. Alone. Scared.

“You’ll see your parents once they pay up,” a strange voice says in the background.

It hits me. I get it now.

I turn slowly to Richard, wiping blood from my mouth.

“This is your plan?” I whisper. “Make it look like Reid was kidnapped? If I don’t sign... then what? You're going to keep him hidden forever? He is your son, Richard. Will you punish him forever?”

He doesn’t even flinch.

“I’ll kill him,” Richard says plainly. “And I’ll make sure he knows it was your fault.”

My heart cracks wide open.

He means it. I can hear it. He’s not bluffing. He’s not even angry, just cold. Focused. Like he’s pitching a new investment deal.

“What happened to you?” I ask, and it’s the first time tonight that I’m actually afraid. “You’d kill your own son?”

His eyes narrow.

“This is who I have always been, Marion; you were just too blind to see. I will do anything to get what I want,” he says. “You think being married to you was easy? You’re a cold fish, Marion. Ice cold. Pretty on the outside, well polished, but every single day with you drained me. And Reid? He was just another reminder. I thought the allegations would break you, but no, not you. Not the brilliant Marion Storm.”

His words are soaked in pure venom. I hear it. I feel it.

And suddenly I know this man standing in front of me never loved me. Nothing was ever real. This has been his plan.

I stare up at him, exhausted. Broken. “So nothing was real?” I am desperate to know.

“Oh, it was, for a while, before you cut off my balls… Do you know how humiliating it is, people calling me the wife, asking me how it feels to ride shotgun next to the great Marion Storm?”

“I can't make you feel like a man, Richard, and stealing everything from me won't fill that hole you are so desperate to avoid.”

He chuckles softly, like it’s funny. “You see, even now, when I hold your life in my hands, you still think you are better than me. Then do this for Reid, Marion, because I swear… I will kill him.”

That's it for me. I feel all the fight left in me fade. Reid is my life, and a company is not worth losing him.

“How do I know you won't kill him?” My voice is scratchy. I hate the weakness.

“Don’t worry about Reid Marion; I’ll be rich enough to send him to some fancy boarding school. Far away. Out of sight. That should satisfy my conscience.”

“I won’t let you get away with this, Richard,” I say, slowly, each word laced with steel. “I will destroy you.”

He shrugs. “Sign the papers, then do as you wish.”

He kneels down beside me and pulls out a white handkerchief from his jacket pocket. He wipes the blood from my trembling hands, gently, almost tenderly, a sick smile on his face.

“We can’t have blood staining my future now,” he says.

My stomach turns.

“I need to see Reid,” I whisper, “before I sign anything.”

Richard smiles.

Emma walks over and hands him the iPad. He turns it to face me. Reid’s still there. Still in that dark room. Still waiting.

“I’ll let him go,” Richard says, “as soon as you sign.”

I close my eyes.

“Okay.”

My hand lands on the documents. The pen feels like it weighs ten pounds.

The pain in my wrist screams as I sign. My signature wobbles across the page. But I do it. For Reid.

Richard’s smile is instant.

“Take him home,” he barks, pointing at the screen.

I watch as Reid is led out of the dark. I don’t know where to or by whom, but I pray for the first time in years that he is safe.

“You know you won’t get away with this,” I say. My voice is quiet. Cold.

“I will get my revenge.”

Richard kneels down again, smug as ever. He brushes my hair back with his fingers. His touch makes my skin crawl.

“You should’ve seen this coming, Marion.”

He grabs the papers and stands.

“Emma,” he says lazily, like he’s ordering dessert. “Have your fun.”

He drops onto the couch, legs crossed, like a king waiting to be entertained.

I see Emma step forward. Something glints in her hand.

A knife. Long. Thin. Clean.

“I want my face to be the last thing you see,” she says. “The woman who took everything from you.”

She smiles.

I try to move, but I can’t. I’m too weak.

Then I feel it.

The blade slides into me. Cold. Final. She pulls it out. Kicks me backward like trash.

Suicide is such a sad thing. I will mourn you, don’t worry,” Richard says. “But for now, I want your last breath to be in this house you built with so much pride. Watching it all burn. A monument to your failure.”

He lights a match.

And just like that, the flames begin to rise.

I lie there, gasping. Blood pooling beneath me. The heat, crawling up the walls.

So this is it.

This is the end of everything.

No friends. No family. Just workers and silence. Maybe Richard was right. Maybe I was cold. Maybe I drove him to this.

But even as the flames crackle closer, a voice inside me whispers.

No.

I refuse.

I force myself to move. My body screams, but I move.

I drag myself across the floor, each breath tighter than the last.

“Why the hell did I make this house so big…?” I whisper.

I reach the front door. Pull. Yank.

Locked.

Smoke floods the hallway. My vision blurs.