The Trophy Wife's Revenge: Married to the Billionaire

Chapter 3

The clinic wasn’t a hospital. It was a fortress disguised as a modernist art gallery on the Upper East Side. We pulled into a subterranean garage, the limousine gliding past concrete pillars and armed guards who didn't blink as the tinted window rolled down.

Ryder stepped out first, the cane clicking rhythmically against the polished concrete. He offered me a hand—pale, long-fingered, perfectly manicured. I ignored it and climbed out on my own, my legs shaky from the adrenaline crash and the cheap whiskey.

"Stubborn," Ryder noted, his voice echoing in the cavernous garage. "Good. You’ll need it."

"I need a lawyer, not a doctor," I said, wrapping my arms around myself. The garage was freezing. "You can’t just kidnap me and take my blood."

"I didn't kidnap you," he said, striding toward a private elevator. "I liberated you."

"That’s what sociopaths tell themselves."

He stopped, the doors of the elevator sliding open silently behind him. He turned, his grey eyes pinning me against the cold concrete wall.

"If I wanted to kidnap you, Crimson, you wouldn’t be walking. You’d be in a box in the trunk. I need you willing. Or at least... compliant."

He stepped aside, gesturing to the elevator. "After you."

I stepped in. The ride up was silent and fast. When the doors opened, we weren't in a waiting room. We were in a penthouse suite that looked like it cost more than the GDP of a small country. The floors were white marble, the walls glass, overlooking a city that glittered indifferently below.

But the atmosphere was sterile. It smelled of antiseptic and lilies.

"Mr. Crane," a man in a white coat said, appearing as if by magic. He was terrified of Ryder. I could see it in the way he avoided eye contact, the slight tremor in his hands. "The lab is ready."

"And the patient?" Ryder asked, his voice bored.

"He is... waiting."

"Her," Ryder corrected. "She is the patient."

"Of course," the doctor stammered.

Ryder steered me toward a room at the end of the hall. It was cold, filled with beeping machines and monitors. In the center of the room, surrounded by tubes and wires, lay an old man.

He looked like a corpse that refused to stay buried. His skin was translucent, paper-thin, stretched over high cheekbones. His hair was white, wispy as spiderwebs. But his eyes—his eyes were open. They were a piercing, icy blue.

Julian Sterling.

Even without the introduction, I knew. I saw the shape of the nose, the arch of the brow—features I saw in the mirror every morning, albeit softened by youth and health.

"Grandfather," I whispered. The word felt like ash in my mouth.

The old man’s head turned slowly. The machines beeped faster. He didn't smile. He didn't offer a hug. He looked at me the way a jeweler looks at a rough diamond—searching for flaws.

"She has your chin," Julian said. His voice was a dry rasp, like leaves skittering over pavement. "But she has her mother’s eyes."

"I don't know who you are," I said, my voice trembling. "I don't know what he wants." I pointed at Ryder, who stood in the doorway like a sentry. "But I’m leaving."

I turned to go, but Ryder blocked the exit. He leaned casually against the doorframe, his cane resting against his leg.

"Sit down," Julian commanded. The authority in his voice was absolute. It was the voice of a man who had commanded armies and ruined empires.

"No."

"You will sit," Julian said, "because if you don’t, I will ensure that piece of garbage you married dies in a ditch tonight."

I froze. "Dane?"

"You still care for him," Julian scoffed. "Even after what he did?"

"I don't want him dead," I said, my jaw set. "That doesn't mean I love him."

"Love is irrelevant," Julian snapped. "Family is business. And Dane McAllister is a loose end. He owes money to the wrong people. Very bad people. People who will break his legs and feed him to the harbor crabs before sunrise."

My stomach turned over. I looked at Ryder. "Is this true?"

Ryder shrugged. "I bought his debt. But there are secondary liens. If I weren't holding the paper, he’d already be dead."

"So you saved him?" I asked, confused.

"I bought the right to kill him," Ryder corrected calmly. "I can choose to collect, or I can choose to let him rot. That choice is yours, Crimson."

"Why do you care?"

"Because," Julian interrupted, his breathing becoming labored. "Because you are the blood. You are the only one left who can sign the proxy votes. The board is circling like vultures. They want to dismantle the Sterling legacy and sell it for scrap. I need you to take your place on the throne."

"I don't want a throne," I yelled, the frustration boiling over. "I just want to go home! I want my life back!"

"Your life was a lie!" Julian slammed his hand onto the bed rail. The monitors screamed. "You were stolen! You were sold by that nanny! You spent twenty-five years cleaning floors for scum like Dane McAllister while you owned half of this city!"

He fell back against the pillows, coughing, a wet, hacking sound that brought up specks of blood.

The doctor rushed forward, but Julian waved him away with a trembling hand. He fixed his gaze on me, his eyes burning with a feverish intensity.

"Sit down," he wheezed. "Let the doctor take the sample. If you are a Sterling, I will protect you. I will give you the power to destroy Dane, to destroy anyone who ever looked down on you. But you must become what you were born to be."

I looked at the needle in the doctor’s hand. Then I looked at Ryder.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked him. "Why are you helping him find me?"

Ryder walked into the room. He didn't look at Julian. He looked at me.

"Because ten years ago, your father saved my life," Ryder said. "He died doing it. I owe him a debt. And unlike you, I always pay my debts."

It was the first time he had said anything that wasn't a threat or a command. For a second, the mask slipped. I saw something raw underneath.

I sat in the chair by the bed. The doctor swabbed my cheek. He took a vial of blood from my arm. It was over in minutes.

"Now we wait," Julian said, closing his eyes.

They put me in a room down the hall. It was a guest suite, complete with a stocked bar and a view of the skyline. Ryder followed me in and locked the door.

"Make yourself comfortable," he said, pouring himself a drink. "This could take an hour."

I paced the room. "If I’m not a Sterling... what happens to me?"

"Then you go back to Queens," Ryder said, taking a sip of scotch. "I drop you off. You divorce Dane. You get a job. You live a boring, mediocre life."

"And Dane?"

"If you aren't the heir, Dane is useless to me," Ryder said indifferently. "I sell his debt back to the loan sharks. He dies within the week."

He said it so casually, like discussing the weather.

"You’re a monster," I said.

"I am a businessman," Ryder corrected. "Monsters are emotional. I am not."

I walked to the window. New York was sprawling beneath me. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff.

"My parents," I said softly. "Did you know them?"

"I knew your father," Ryder said. "Marcus Sterling. He was... unlike the rest of them. He had a soul. He fell in love with your mother, a waitress. Julian hated it. He tried to pay her to leave."

"He didn't succeed."

"No," Ryder said. "They ran away together. They hid you in Queens. They were happy. Until the accident."

I closed my eyes. I remembered flashes. A woman’s laugh. A man’s rough hands tossing me in the air. The smell of rain. Then, the fire. The sirens. The foster system.

"I miss them," I whispered.

"Memory is a distraction," Ryder said from behind me. I hadn't heard him move.

He was standing right behind me. Close. Too close. I could feel the heat radiating from his body.

"What do you want from me, Ryder?" I asked, not turning around. "Really? If I sign these votes... what do you get?"

"I control the Sterling Group," he said, his voice low against my ear. "I merge it with Crane Capital. I become the most powerful man in the country."

"And me?"

"You become Mrs. Crane," he said. "My partner. My equal in the eyes of the law. The woman who brings the knife to the gunfight."

I turned around. We were inches apart. I could see the scar on his jaw, a thin white line.

"Or," I said, looking up at him, "I become your puppet."

Ryder smiled. It was a slow, dangerous curve of his lips.

"Puppets have strings, Crimson," he murmured. "I intend to cut yours."

There was a knock on the door. Ryder stepped back, the mask sliding back into place.

"Enter," he called.

The doctor came in, holding a tablet. He looked pale. He looked terrified.

"Mr. Crane," the doctor stammered. "The results are in."

"Spit it out," Ryder commanded.

"It’s a 99.9% match," the doctor said. "She is the granddaughter. She is the heir."

Ryder looked at me. He didn't look surprised. He didn't look happy. He looked... hungry.

"Leave us," Ryder told the doctor.

The doctor fled.

Ryder walked to the bar. He poured another glass of scotch, but he didn't drink it. He stared at the amber liquid, swirling it in the crystal.

"Congratulations, Crimson," he said. "You just inherited a billion dollars."

"And the debt?" I asked. "And Dane?"

Ryder turned. "The debt is yours now. You own it. You own Dane. And you own the board."

He took a step toward me, his limp barely noticeable as he moved with a predatory grace.

"Now," he said softly. "The real test begins. Can you kill the husband, or are you too weak to take the crown?"

He set the glass down on the table with a sharp *clink*.

"Get some sleep," he said. "Tomorrow, we go to war."

He walked out, locking the door behind him.

I stood in the center of the room, the silence pressing in on me. I looked at the city lights, millions of people sleeping, unaware that the world had just shifted.

I was a billionaire.

I was an orphan.

I was a monster’s bride.

I walked to the minibar, grabbed the bottle of scotch Ryder had poured, and drank straight from the bottle.

The liquid burned, but not as hot as the rage suddenly flaring in my chest.

Dane McAllister was mine now.

And I was going to make sure he regret ever meeting me.