He Cheated With My Enemy, I Ruin Him

Chapter 2

Once the names faded from the table, Natalie stood. "I'll contact you when the timing is right. Not a word of this to anyone."

She took the black umbrella her bodyguard offered and stepped into the rain.

Raindrops hammered against the umbrella like gunfire, just like the day she first met Landon Hale.

Back then, her father, Richard Langley, had thrown her out. She'd stood soaked in the downpour, shivering, until Landon walked by and held an umbrella over her head.

That umbrella had stayed open for eighteen years.

In those eighteen years, they'd grown from awkward children into each other's anchors. They'd fought their families' cruelty side by side and seized control of half of Crestport's empire together. Their blood had long since mingled.

And it was precisely because of that bone-deep trust that Landon had dared to betray her so brazenly.

But Landon had forgotten something. When a mad dog is betrayed, it doesn't swallow its rage. It tears out throats.

As for Fiona—Natalie would teach her a brutal lesson: touch what isn't yours, and it burns. Covet what belongs to Natalie Mercer, and she'd make Fiona cry until there were no tears left.

Natalie dialed a number, her voice cold. "Find out exactly what happened to Landon Hale in Ashford two months ago. Every detail. And have two titanium cages custom-made."

*****

It was nine-thirty by the time she returned to the villa.

That used to be Landon's self-imposed curfew. He'd said, "You're waiting at home for me. I won't leave you alone."

He'd broken that rule himself a month ago.

The house was pitch dark. The empty living room gaped like the maw of some beast, cold and hollow.

Natalie went straight to the study and opened the safe. Inside were three bullets.

Three bullets that Landon had taken for her.

The first time, she'd tried to stop her father from funneling her mother's assets at Mercer Corp into underground operations. Her mother, Catherine Mercer, had built that company from nothing. Someone had come for Natalie's life. Landon stepped in front of the gun.

The second time, Fiona's mother, Vivienne Langley, had secretly sold her to the black market. Landon had fought his way in to bring her back.

The third time, when she took over Mercer Corp, her father retaliated with force. Richard Langley had fired at his own daughter. The bullet nearly pierced Landon's shoulder blade. At that moment, Natalie finally raised her gun to her father's head and banished him from Crestport for good.

She closed her eyes.

Three bullets taken for her. Eighteen years of standing between her and death.

These three bullets would be the last three chances she'd give Landon Hale.

Her phone buzzed. A message from Fiona.

The photo showed Landon gently applying ointment to Fiona's hand. On his wrist was a watch Natalie had never seen before. On his back, a fresh patch of gauze covered a new wound.

Then came the taunt.

Fiona: See this, Natalie? The man who used to take bullets for you is now willingly giving up his own skin for me.

Fiona: The man you guarded for eighteen years. All I had to do was crook my finger.

Fiona: Sooner or later, I'll take everything from you. Including your title as Mrs. Hale.

A second photo. The hospital room was filled with fresh roses.

Fiona: He said my tears are more beautiful than these flowers.

Natalie laughed. She laughed and laughed, then smashed their wedding portrait against the wall, shredded the wedding dress Landon had designed himself, and threw the clay figurine he'd sculpted of them into the trash.

Only after all of it was destroyed did the burning in her chest begin to ease.

But it wasn't enough.

She couldn't cry. That didn't mean she couldn't hurt.

She looked up. The floor-to-ceiling windows, the crystal island counter—every surface held the ghost of some reckless promise, some scalding vow. They wove together into a net that nearly suffocated her.

She picked up her phone and forwarded Fiona's messages to Landon, unedited.

His reply came quickly.

Landon: Don't overthink it, Nat. It's my fault for spoiling you too much before. She's just jealous.

Landon: She's a kid talking big. Your place in my heart is irreplaceable. Love you.

The protectiveness in his words was obvious.

But Natalie felt nothing except a strange calm settling over her.

This love of Landon's, rotten to the core, she didn't want anymore.

She didn't know how she ended up lying in bed, only that her dreams were soaked in red. Her mother's body swallowed by the waves. Landon's blood blooming from a gunshot wound. Fiona's smug, smiling face.

When the first pale light of morning crept through the curtains, Natalie's eyes snapped open and met a pair of familiar ones staring back.

Landon was lying beside her, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

Natalie froze, certain she was still dreaming.

Then she shifted, and the arm around her tightened. Landon buried his face in the curve of her neck, his voice thick with sleep, mumbling like he was still half-dreaming. "Fiona, it's not even light out yet. Go back to sleep."

Natalie's hand shot under the pillow and closed around the hilt of a dagger.

Years of instinct snapped Landon awake. But when he saw the blade, he didn't flinch. Instead, he reached for a velvet box on the nightstand, his eyes soft as he held it out to her. "Nat, stop being angry. You've been looking for your mother's pearl earrings for years. I found them. Consider it my apology for yesterday."

Natalie inhaled deeply, nausea churning in her stomach. "Get off me."

Landon paused. He reached over and tucked her hair behind her ear, his tone light, almost casual. "Fiona was burned yesterday. She was crying so hard—I couldn't just leave her."

"As for the Mercer shares..." His hand settled on her shoulder. "You're the lady of the Hale family now. Do you really need Mercer Corp's assets on top of that? Let Fiona play with it for a while. Once she gets bored, I'll get it back for you."

Natalie thought of how he'd once taken a bullet to protect Mercer Corp for her. His face had been white as paper, but he'd still forced a smile through the pain. "Nat, everything you want—I'll protect it for you. Even if it costs me my life."

Now he was casually asking her to hand it over to their mothers' killer.

What a joke.

She never could have imagined that the same Landon Hale who'd sworn before their mothers' memorial tablets to make Fiona and her mother pay—would end up kneeling at Fiona's feet.

The refusal ground out from between her teeth. "Over my dead body."

Landon's expression turned cold. He seized her wrist.

But before either of them could move, a startled cry came from outside the door—