LOGINThe courthouse smelled like old paper, cold marble, anger and fear. Olivia stepped inside with the full weight of global judgment pressing on her spine. The cameras were already rolling outside, screaming headlines at her like wolves tearing at a carcass without looking.MURDER HEIRESS FACES JUSTICETHE BLOOD WEDDING KILLERWHERE IS ETHAN HENDERSON?Her legal team formed a protective phalanx around her, but it felt cosmetic. Performative. A brand shielding its most controversial asset.Inside the courtroom, the energy was predatory. Half the room wanted a conviction. The other half wanted a spectacle. Everyone wanted a story.Olivia sat. Back straight. Chin lifted. The Board back at her empire would be watching every micro expression she made, evaluating whether she was a salvageable CEO or a disposable liability.The judge entered. The trial opened. And the prosecution started unloading its ammo like a coordinated corporate takedown.Fast. Precise. Ruthless.Then, the prosecutor lift
The world returned in fragments, as though a planet was falling in pieces.A crack of gunfire.A scream.A falling chair.Then silence so loud it rang in her ears.Olivia pushed herself up from the cold stone floor of the courtyard. The blackout still hung over the estate like a shadow, the emergency lights flickering weakly along the walls. Smoke drifted through the air, carrying the sting of gunpowder.Her wedding, her strategic alliance, had turned into a battlefield.Bodies lay where they had fallen, security guards, guests, even a few board members. Some unconscious, some wounded, some worse. The crystal decorations from the altar lay shattered around her like broken ice.She turned, searching for Ethan.Nothing.Not his voice, not his scent.Not his shadow.Not his hand reaching for her like earlier.“Ethan!” she called out.Only silence answered.Her breath fogged in the cold night air.This wasn’t chaos.This wasn’t random.It was targeted.Then she heard a gasp, sharp, fright
The Monroe Estate had never looked like this before, never this golden, never this sharp, never this intimidating. Olivia had built it into a fortress for tonight. Not because she wanted a fairytale wedding. She wasn’t that naïve anymore.This was strategy.This was positioning.This was a message to every ally and enemy watching, “I choose my battles. And I win them.”By dusk, the place glittered like a million dollar campaign. The courtyard was transformed into a ceremonial aisle stretched under a canopy of crystal lights. A classical quartet played slow, powerful music, nothing soft, nothing sentimental.Each note was precise, controlled, like Olivia herself.Guests filled the space, CEOs, investors, politicians, fashion elites.Everyone dressed like they were entering royal court.Everyone whispering.“Why now?”“Is this real?”“Is Jessica really alive?”Rumors circulated like oxygen.Olivia’s name was on every tongue.She kept her face calm and unreadable.Her wedding dress, sle
By morning, the news had detonated across the city like a corporate bomb.Ethan Henderson and Olivia Monroe. Engaged. Again.The headline ran on every screen in the City. Social feeds flooded with commentary, gossip, and “insider leaks.” Investors watched the stock tick upward, analysts called it the merger of the decade, and luxury brands scrambled to send wedding gifts before the guest list even existed.Olivia sat at the head of the conference table in her penthouse office, staring at the screen as the headlines refreshed in real time. Her executive team buzzed behind her, strategy calls, PR pushes, brand opportunity assessments, but she barely heard them.This wasn’t a love story.It was a provocation.Because she knew exactly who was watching.Jessica.Dead or alive, phantom or flesh, she would hear about the wedding. And she would come.Olivia intended to make sure of it.She closed the tablet and stood. “Clear the room.”Her team scattered instantly. Lydia was the last to leave
Amelia’s ring still haunted Olivia.Same design. Same shadowed glint of black metal. Same pulse of something alive beneath the surface.Olivia didn’t sleep that night. She paced through the penthouse, phone in hand, mind racing through numbers, names, and escape routes. The pact with Ethan had become a trap. Again. And she fell for it again.By sunrise, she’d already made her choice.If Ethan and Marcus wanted to play gods, she would be the devil they didn’t see coming.The next day, she arrived at Monroe Atelier’s private office, her empire in motion. Assistants moved quietly through glass corridors. Her name was on every wall, her brand reborn from ashes. But she could feel the fault lines beneath it all.The cult, the ring, Jessica’s ghost, all connected through old accounts and buried contracts.Every man who’d ever claimed to love her was sitting on her fortune.Olivia sat at her desk, straight backed, controlled, as her chief financial officer, Lydia, placed a folder in front of
Olivia hadn’t expected to see Ethan again. Not after Bucharest. Not after the cult, the ring, and the lies. Yet there he was, standing in the doorway of her penthouse, rain dripping from his coat, his eyes burning like she was still his.The city outside was gray and restless. Inside, her world went still.“Olivia,” he said softly, voice steady but loaded with something she couldn’t name. “You shouldn’t have gone to Romania.”She folded her arms. “You shouldn’t have followed me.”Ethan took a step closer. He looked older, sharper around the edges, as if guilt had carved him into someone new. The air between them tightened.“I came to fix what I broke,” he said.“You broke more than that, Ethan.” Her voice didn’t tremble, but her heart did.He moved until only a foot separated them. “The curse, the ring, the blood ties, the ledger, they’re connected to us. To me. I made a deal with the same people who came for you.”Her breath hitched. “You’re lying.”He reached into his coat and dropp







