The Trophy Wife's Revenge: Married to the Billionaire

Chapter 2

A man who carries a cane in a dive bar in Queens is either looking for trouble or looking for a fight.

The silence in the back of the limousine was thick, suffocating, heavy with the scent of rain and the ozone charge of my own adrenaline. I sat in the corner, my raincoat dripping a puddle onto the pristine Italian leather carpet. Ryder Crane sat opposite me, one leg crossed over the other, the silver head of his cane resting against his knee.

He hadn’t spoken since we pulled away from the curb. He just watched me. His eyes were like flint—grey, cold, striking sparks whenever the streetlights flashed through the tinted windows.

"Where are we going?" I asked finally. My voice sounded thin in the large space.

"Central Park," he said. "The Sterling residence."

"I don't want to go there."

He looked up from his phone. "I didn't ask what you wanted."

I stared at him. I was soaking wet, freezing, and my life had effectively ended twenty minutes ago. I felt a strange, hysterical bubble of laughter rising in my throat. I swallowed it down. I was done crying. I was done being told what to do.

"Stop the car," I said.

Ryder didn’t even blink. "No."

"Stop the car," I repeated, louder this time, gripping the handle of the door. "I’m not going to some sterile penthouse to be paraded around like a show pony. I need a drink."

"You have a bar at the residence," he said dismissively. "Top shelf."

"I don't want top shelf," I snapped. "I want cheap whiskey. I want sticky floors. I want to be around people who have nothing to lose, because right now, Mr. Crane, I have nothing to lose."

Ryder stared at me. For a long moment, the only sound was the hum of the tires on the wet asphalt. Then, a slow, dangerous smile curled the corner of his mouth. It transformed his face, making him look less like a CEO and more like a pirate king.

"Dax," he said, tapping the intercom. "Find a bar."

Ten minutes later, the limousine parked outside a brick façade with a flickering neon sign that read *The Rusty Anchor*. It was exactly the kind of place Dane would have crossed the street to avoid.

Ryder opened the door.

I stepped out into the rain. The bouncer, a mountain of a man with a broken nose, took one look at the limousine and stepped aside.

Ryder followed. His cane clicked sharply against the pavement, a rhythmic warning that cleared a path through the crowd. Inside, the air was thick with smoke and the smell of stale beer and bleach. The music was low, a bluesy wail that suited my mood perfectly.

We were an aberration here. The patrons—truckers, dock workers, people who lived paycheck to paycheck—stopped to stare. Ryder in his three-piece suit looked like a shark that had wandered into a goldfish bowl. And me? I looked like the drowning goldfish.

We walked to the bar. Ryder didn’t sit. He stood behind me, a looming shadow.

"Whiskey," I told the bartender. "Whatever’s cheapest. Leave the bottle."

The bartender—a guy with tattoos on his neck and a greasy apron—looked past me at Ryder, then back at me. He hesitated, then slid a dusty bottle of amber liquid and a shot glass across the sticky wood.

I poured a shot. I downed it. It burned like acid, scraping away the taste of the afternoon.

"Slow down," Ryder murmured in my ear. His voice was low, intimate. "Alcohol makes you sloppy."

"Alcohol makes me numb," I shot back, pouring another. "And since you bought my debt, I assume you want me alive to pay it off? Give me this."

I downed the second one. The room tilted pleasantly.

That’s when the trouble started.

I felt a hand on my waist. Heavy, damp, and possessive.

"Hey there, pretty thing," a voice slurred behind me. "You look expensive. You lost?"

I stiffened. I knew this type. He was big, broad-shouldered, smelling of cigarettes and bad decisions. He saw the dress, the damp hair, and assumed I was an easy mark.

"I'm not lost," I said, turning slightly. "I'm busy."

"Busy drinking alone?" The man laughed, his buddies chuckling behind him. He squeezed my waist, his fingers digging into my flesh. "Come sit with us. We'll show you a good time."

"I said no," I said, my voice steady.

In my old life—the life of Dane’s trophy wife—I would have smiled politely, made an excuse, and fled to the bathroom to wait it out. I would have been polite. I would have been "nice."

But I wasn't that woman anymore. That woman had died in the rain on 4th Street.

The man tugged on my arm, pulling me closer. "Don't be a b***h. I'm buying you a drink."

I looked at his hand. Then I looked at the bottle on the bar.

"I said," I whispered, "get your hands off me."

I didn’t wait for him to comply. I grabbed the neck of the whiskey bottle. I didn’t hit him with the base; I swung it in a wild, unpracticed arc, bringing the heavy glass down onto the edge of the bar.

It shattered.

The sound was like a gunshot. Shards of glass exploded outward. The man screamed, clutching his arm where a jagged spike of glass had sliced through his leather jacket. Blood welled up, dark and slick.

The bar went dead silent.

The man looked at his arm, then at me. His face twisted in rage. "You crazy b***h!"

He lunged for me.

I didn’t back away. I scrambled backward onto the bar itself, kicking over stools, scrambling for anything I could use as a weapon. My heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic drum solo. I grabbed a steak knife from the counter—no, a fork. A dull, silver fork.

I held it out, my breath hitching in sobs I refused to let fall. "Stay back!"

"You're dead!" he roared.

And then, the shadow moved.

Ryder stepped between us. He didn’t rush. He didn’t shout. He simply moved, interposing his body like a stone wall. The thug slammed into Ryder’s chest and bounced off like he’d hit a pillar.

Ryder didn’t even flinch. He shifted his weight onto his good leg, raised his cane, and brought the silver handle down hard onto the man’s wrist.

*Snap.*

The scream was ear-splitting. The thug crumpled to his knees, clutching his broken wrist.

Ryder stood over him. He adjusted his cufflinks, not a hair out of place. "She told you to stop."

The thug’s friends surged forward, pulling out knives and chains.

Ryder reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun. It was sleek, black, and suppressed. He pointed it at the crowd.

The music stopped.

"Anyone else?" Ryder asked softly. "Or are we done?"

The friends froze, then backed away, hands raised. The bartender ducked behind the bar.

Ryder holstered the gun. He turned to look at me. I was still sitting on the bar, clutching the fork, my chest heaving, rain dripping from my hair onto my nose.

His eyes weren't cold anymore. They were burning with a fierce, intensity that made my stomach flip. He wasn’t looking at me with pity. He was looking at me like I was a puzzle he’d finally solved.

"Missed the artery," he said, nodding toward the bleeding man on the floor. "But you have excellent aim for a civilian."

My hand was shaking so hard the fork rattled against the bar. "He... he grabbed me."

"He won't do it again," Ryder said. He held out a hand to me. "Get down."

I hesitated. I looked at the gun hidden under his jacket. I looked at the blood on the floor. I looked at the man who had bought my husband’s debt.

"Who are you?" I whispered, needing to know the truth. "Really?"

Ryder’s lips twitched. "I told you. I’m a man who buys things."

He stepped closer, his body between my knees. He reached up and gently pried the fork from my fingers. His skin was warm against mine, calloused and rough.

"I buy companies," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper that only I could hear. "I buy debt. I buy secrets." His thumb brushed over my knuckles. "And tonight, I think I just bought myself a wife."

"I'm not for sale," I spat, though the fire in my voice was dying down, replaced by exhaustion.

"Everyone is for sale, Crimson," he said darkly. "It just depends on the currency." He pulled me toward the edge of the bar. "Come. We're leaving."

He helped me down. My legs were shaky, and I stumbled against him. He caught me easily, his arm wrapping around my waist to steady me. He was solid, hard muscle and expensive cologne, grounding me.

"You broke his wrist," I said, looking at the man writhing on the floor.

"He put his hands on you," Ryder said, as if that were the only law that mattered. "I dislike people touching my things."

"I'm not a thing."

Aren't you?* his eyes seemed to say. But he didn't speak. He just guided me toward the door, his grip on my waist firm and unyielding.

We stepped back out into the rain. The limo was waiting, the engine idling.

"Get in," Ryder said.

I stopped. I looked at the streetlights reflecting on the wet asphalt. I thought about Dane. I thought about Maren. I thought about the foreclosure notice on the iPad.

"Why me?" I asked. "Why not just let me rot?"

Ryder opened the car door. He leaned in close, his face inches from mine. The rain dripped from the brim of his hat onto my cheek.

"Because," he said, his voice rough, like gravel over silk. "You have the eyes of a shark, Crimson Knight. And I’ve been looking for a shark to help me eat the world."

He paused, letting the words hang in the damp air.

"Get in the car," he said, his voice hardening. "Or I tell the police you started that fight in there. And I have a very good lawyer. You’ll go to prison for assault."

I stared at him. He was blackmailing me. Again.

But he had also saved me. And worse, a part of me—a dark, broken part that had been starving for three years—wanted to see what he would do next.

I climbed into the limousine.

Ryder slid in beside me. The door slammed shut, sealing us back in the silence.

"To the clinic," he told the driver.

"Clinic?" I asked, rubbing my arms. "I thought we were going to your house."

"Not yet," he said. He reached into the mini-bar and poured two fingers of scotch into a crystal glass. He handed it to me.

"I need to verify your DNA," he said casually, staring out the window.

My hand froze halfway to my lips. "My what?"

"You heard me," Ryder said. "I didn't buy your husband’s debt because I like Dane McAllister. I bought it because I believe you are someone I’ve been looking for for a very long time."

He turned to look at me, the grey eyes boring into my soul.

"Julian Sterling has been dying for a decade," he said. "He’s been looking for his granddaughter. The one who was stolen."

My breath hitched. "I... my parents died in a car crash."

"Did they?" Ryder asked softly. "Or did the state sell you?"

I felt the blood drain from my face. I felt like the floor of the car had dropped out from under me.

"How... how did you know that?"

Ryder smiled, but there was no humor in it. Only determination.

"Because," he said, his eyes dropping to my shoulder, where my jacket had torn during the fight. "I know about the mark on your shoulder, Crimson. That jagged white line. It’s not a defect."

I reached up, my hand trembling as I touched the birthmark on my own shoulder—the one I had hidden under sweaters and long sleeves for years.

The one Dane hated. The one Maren had made fun of.

"You're not just a foster kid, Crimson," Ryder said. "You're the only heir to the Sterling throne. And you just walked right into my lap."

He leaned forward, the darkness of the car swallowing us both.

"Now," he whispered. "Drink your scotch. The test is going to hurt."

And as the limousine sped through the rain, tearing through the city toward a fate I couldn't comprehend, I realized with a jolt of terrifying clarity that my life as Crimson the Invisible was over.

I was about to become Crimson the Heir.

And Ryder Crane was going to make sure I survived it, even if he had to break every bone in my body to do it.