Chapter 10 : Serves you right
1241 Words
The white Audi's taillights dissolved into Manhattan's neon bloodstream.
Lan Bowen emerged from the Lamborghini's sulfur-yellow cockpit, his Oxford shoe crushing the man's cranium into gravel.
"What a putrid specimen," Jett Hemmer wrinkled his nose, watching the assailant squirm like a speared insect.
The man's curses dissolved into gurgles as Lan's Swiss Army dagger pierced his thigh.
Arterial blood bloomed across denim—a Rorschach test of pain. "Speak."
"La-Lawrence! Roy Lawrence hired me!" The confession tore through clenched teeth.
Lan rotated the blade. Cartilage grated against steel. "Clarify."
"T-the chairman! Wanted her... compromised... forced back..."
Recognition flickered in Lan's eyes—Sean Lawrence's clammy grip on Eleanor's wrist, Elizabeth's phoenix-like talons clutching bankruptcy documents.
"Deliver a message," Lan withdrew the dagger, flicking gore onto asphalt.
"Eleanor Voss wears Bowen's brand. Touch her," he polished the blade against the man's shirt, "and I'll salt the earth of Lawrence Holdings."
The thug's pupils dilated at the name Bowen. Survival instincts overrode agony. "Y-yes, sir!"
Jett peeled his loafer from the man's skull with a theatrical grimace. "Ruined a $2,000 pair."
"Compensation awaits," Lan slid into the passenger seat, texting John Wood coordinates for a dumpster-bound "cleaning fee."
——————
Eleanor's penthouse exhaled vanilla-scented solitude.
She flexed bandaged knuckles beneath steaming shower spray.
Déjà vu struck—high school hallways reeking of Ella Taylor's malice, fists pounding locker metal until steel echoed her ribs' fractures. Martial arts dojo mats soaked with a decade's tears condensed into tonight's catharsis.
Robing herself in Frette cotton armor, she studied the dossier glowing on her laptop: Lawrence Holdings' offshore shell companies, Roy's mistress payments, Sean's rehab records—powder kegs awaiting ignition.
Her finger hovered over Send to SEC.
Muffled screams from downstairs pierced calculus.
Ice cubes clinked against crystal as Roy Lawrence drained his third bourbon. Elizabeth's porcelain mask fissured.
"The Bowens?!" Her whisper could shatter diamonds.
Roy's phone blinked—loan sharks, politicLans, hired goons. All demanded blood. "Do you grasp what we've unleashed?"
Sean's footsteps paused outside the door. They froze midsquabble—vipers sensing prey.
"Son!" Elizabeth's smile stretched like barbed wire. "Join us!"
——————
Moonlight lacquered Sean's path to Eleanor's childhood room. Dust motes danced above the unchanged twin bed.
His finger traced the c***k in her H&M desk where he'd slammed textbooks during tantrums.
In the closet's shadows, a shoebox spilled evidence of shriveled affection: concert tickets he'd "lost", love letters returned unopened, a snowglobe from their lone Christmas outing—its Manhattan skyline eternally pristine.
His fist shattered the tiny city.
"Sinatra's a b***h for nostalgia," Jett Hemmer's voice purred from the doorway.
Sean spun. "Who—"
Twin bodyguards pinned him mid-lunge. Jett examined peeling boyband posters. "Charming crypt you've preserved."
"What do you want?"
"Merely delivering closure." Jett tossed a USB drive.
It skittered across floorboards like a metallic spider. "Mr. Bowen suggests reviewing this before dawn."
The video bloomed on Sean's laptop—security footage of Eleanor's bathroom mirror, Lan's fingers carding through her damp hair.
Her laughter—genuine, unguarded—a sound Sean had never heard.
The screen froze on a timestamp: 2:47 AM. White text slashed the image:
SHE CHOOSES THE ABYSS. YOU? WORTHY OF LIGHT?
——
The next morning, Eleanor Voss carried the coffee into Lan Bowen's office with measured steps. "Your coffee, Mr. Bowen."
Lan's steel-gray eyes tracked the faint crimson blooms along her wrist - lingering fingerprints from yesterday's confrontation.
"Ms. Voss," he drawled, "care to explain these... decorations?"
Startled, Eleanor's professional mask snapped into place. "Household accident, sir. My clumsiness strikes again."
The lie rolled off her tongue like honeyed venom.
Delightfully stubborn.
Lan sipped the brew, its perfection confirming what he'd known since her ill-advised vacation - only Eleanor could calibrate the precise 60°C sweetness his palate craved.
That disastrous day when substitute secretaries had delivered what he could only describe as dishwater still made his temples throb.
"As you wish." Eleanor turned to leave, only to have her wrist captured in a vise-like grip.
The more she pulled, the tighter Lan's hold became - a perverse test of yesterday's parking garage demonstration.
"Mr. Bowen?" Her voice dripped saccharine complLance. "Do you require anything else?"
Lan rose, boxing her against the mahogany desk.
This porcelain doll before him - all sweet submission and fluttering lashes - bore no resemblance to the Valkyrie who'd shattered a man's jaw with her Chanel clutch.
"Why the charade?" His breath stirred the hair at her temple. "Not even trying to break free?"
The damning evidence pressed between them - her breasts flattening against his chest, the lethal curve of her waist burning through starched cotton.
He buried his face in the juncture where her neck met shoulder, inhaling bergamot shampoo mingled with something uniquely Eleanor.
"Tonight. My residence." The command vibrated against her skin.
Eleanor's composure cracked. "Your... residence?" The Bowen mansion was Fort Knox of the elite, its gates opening only for the chosen few.
Even as his secretary of three years, she'd never crossed that obsidLan threshold.
Lan traced the shell of her ear with his Rolex.
"The penthouse bores me. You'll find the gate code texted." He pressed a skeleton key into her palm - cold metal biting warm flesh. "Don't test my patience."
Dusk found Eleanor's Audi navigating through the concrete jungle to civilization's beating heart.
The Bowen compound crouched behind wrought-iron gates like a slumbering beast, its modernist architecture contrasting savage beauty against the skyline.
Three stories of glass and steel glowed amber in twilight, yet emitted all the warmth of a mausoleum.
The foyer swallowed her footsteps whole.
Floor-to-ceiling windows framed a garden where topiary soldiers stood at paranoid attention.
Every surface gleamed sterile perfection - the eight-foot Michelangelo replica in the foyer probably disinfected twice daily.
When the SubZero refrigerator wheezed open, Eleanor's eyes widened.
Regimented rows of Voss ArtesLan water stood sentinel alongside...
absolutely nothing. Not even a desolate lemon wedge marred this glacial wasteland.
Typical.
She initiated a grocery blitzkrieg via app - ribeye steaks tangoing with heirloom tomatoes in her digital cart.
If the dictator wanted a spotless kitchen, he shouldn't host prisoners of war.
When deliveries arrived, Eleanor transformed.
The power blazer and pencil skirt gave way to cropped hoodie and joggers, her hair tamed into a rebellious ponytail.
Soon, the air swam with garlic's siren song and the caramelizing kiss of soy sauce.
Her culinary trance shattered when Nenny's FaceTime lit up the marbled island.
"Your coordinates, soldier?" Nenny's combat boots clanged through the speakers.
"Hewitt's here and— wait, since when does your backsplash cost more than my divorce settlement?"
Eleanor's spatula faltered. "Just... babysitting Bowen's new art collection."
"Bull. Shit." Nenny's glare could've melted diamonds. "Tell me you're not falling for that human icicle."
Before Eleanor could counter, the biometric lock beeped.
Not Lan's brooding silhouette, but a silver-haired goddess swathed in Loro PLana cashmere.
Seraphina Bowen's gaze swept over simmering pots and flour-dusted counters like a queen surveying peasant revolt.
"And you are?" The question hung frostbitten between them.
Eleanor's survival instincts roared to life under that arctic stare.
This was the matriarch who'd reportedly made grown CFOs weep over misplaced decimal points.
The woman who'd turned widowhood into corporate bloodsport.
"Eleanor Voss, Mr. Bowen's—"
"—latest error in judgment, it seems." Seraphina's stiletto tapped morse-code disapproval against Carrara marble. "Fetch Lan. Now."
- Writer
