From Ruin, He found me.

Chapter5:Blind-Sided.

(Elrissa POV)

The taxi ride back to the mansion was a blur of sparkling city lights and a numbness that crushed my bones. I wanted to check into a hotel but changed my mind. I won't hide like a criminal when I was the one who had been wronged.

As I let myself into the mansion, the hollow silence pressed down hard on me. I stumbled into the guest bedroom swearing never to step foot in the master suite we had shared, I dropped onto the mattress.

The moment my head hit the pillow, the armor I had forced myself to wear in that boardroom completely broke apart. The tears rushed out all at once in hot, heavy torrents, tearing out of my chest in jagged, gasping sobs that shook my entire body.

I curled into a tight ball on the edge of the bed, my damp, ruined dress pressed against my skin like a shroud, a bitter reminder of an anniversary that was supposed to celebrate a fresh start.

Five years.

I had given Jayden five years of my life, anchoring my broken soul to him after my father was gruesomely murdered, truly believing his promise of becoming the shield that would protect me from the ghosts of that horrific night.

Every soft smile he gave me, every promise of a safe future he made to me had been nothing but an intentional lie designed to keep me blind while he built a legal cage around my father’s lifelong legacy.

The betrayal sat heavy like a physical ache in my chest, it's crushing weight kept making it hard to draw air into my lungs as I realized that the man I loved was a predator sleeping with another woman on the anniversary of my father's death.

I lay there, staring into the deep darkness of the room, crying until my eyes burned like fire and my throat was completely dried up before the exhaustion finally dragged my heavy body into a deep, dreamless sleep.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Splaaaaash.

A violent, freezing wave slammed into my face and chest.

I bolted upright,trying to gasp for air, my lungs were burning as the icy torrent stole the breath from my throat, water dripped from my hair, soaking into the mattress and gluing the wet fabric to my skin.

I wheezed, swiping the stinging water away from my eyes as my heart hammered against my ribs in pure panic.

Through my blurred vision, a heavy, metal bucket flew across the hardwood floor and there, he stood, towering above me like an angry cloud.

Jayden.

The morning sun cast a glaring halo behind him, throwing his face into the shadows but the sinister, hateful sneer on his lips was palpable.

The charming, doting husband I thought I married was gone and in his place stood a cold, ruthless predator.

"Elrissa, wake up!" He snapped, his voice flat and completely devoid of warmth. "The pity party is over."

"Are you insane?" I choked out, shivering from the cold as I pushed myself back against the headboard. "Get the hell out of here!"

Without moving an inch, he let out a soft chuckle. Reaching into his briefcase, he pulled out a stack of legal documents and tossed them carelessly onto the wet blankets at my feet.

"I told you last night that you ruined your own life," he said, looking down at me with sheer contempt. "But I think it’s time you understand just how f****d you are."

I stared at the papers, my hands trembling as I picked them up, the ink bleeding slightly from the water.

"What is this?" I whispered.

"That is the paperwork confirming the total forfeiture of your asset," Jayden replied with a dark, victorious glint in his eyes.

"As of eight o'clock this morning, your personal bank accounts have been frozen. The credit cards in your name have all been canceled, this mansion, the cars, the offshore trusts… in fact everything you thought you ever owned has been legally transferred into my name or consolidated under McMahon Enterprises."

My breath caught. "You can't do that. My father's estate…"

"Oh please! Shut the hell up! My father this… my father that, all the time. b***h give me a break!” He cut in with a scowl on his face.

“No! Nah… you don't get to speak about him like that." I screamed.

“Whatever. Just so you know, your father’s estate was a house of cards, and I held the bottom entry,"

Then he leaned down, his face just inches from mine, his eyes burning with deep-seated malice. "Elrissa, did you really think any of this started last night? Or that a simple prenuptial agreement was my only card?"

"I have been setting this blueprint in motion way before your old man ever took his little dive out of that penthouse window," Jayden whispered, his voice sending a sickening wave of dread through my veins. "I had spent years tracking his finances, forging authorizations, and slowly bleeding his personal holdings into accounts you can never touch. And by the time he died, you didn't inherit a fortune. You inherited a beautifully wrapped financial cage and it was last night, you finally walked right into it."

He straightened up, brushed an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve while looking at me like I was nothing more than dirt on his shoe.

"So I'll give you an hour and that's all you'll get. Pack a single suitcase and get out of my sight," he commanded coldly.

"And if you try to fight me, I’ll use falsified medical records to ensure you spend the rest of your life in a mental facility. The choice is yours, darling.

"You monster!" The scream tore from my throat as the weight of his betrayal pushed me past the brink.

Right now, I didn't care about the frozen accounts or gave a s**t about his legal traps. Just hearing him talk about how he ruined my father even before his murder, ignited a primal fury inside me.

I threw the wet documents in his face and lunged out of the bed, my fingers clawing blindly for his eyes, his throat, I wanted to do anything just to rip that sickening smile off his face.

"I will kill you, Jayden! I swear to God I'll…"

WHACK.

A hard, thundering slap collided with the left side of my face with the force of a concrete block snapped my head to the right. My vision instantly went blank as it exploded with blinding white lights.

The impact knocked me clean off my feet, my body crashing hard against the nightstand before I collapsed sideways onto the hardwood floor.

A sharp, throbbing ache punched through my jaw as the copper taste of blood filled my mouth. I dabbed my trembling fingers to my mouth and pulled them back only to see that the slap had split my lip completely open, and my cheek was already swelling, burning like wildfire.

I lay there on the cold wood, gasping for breath as I tried to push myself up on weak, shaking elbows.

Jayden stood over me, his face finally cracking into an ugly, unhinged mask of pure rage. He adjusted his wrinkled cuffs, his eyes burning with an intense, vicious hatred as he looked down at my bleeding face.

"You think you can lay a hand on me again, just because I let you hit me the other night?" he snarled.

"I need you to understand this, Elrissa. You are nothing but a parasite living off the scraps of a dead invalid."

I opened my mouth to speak but a painful cough tore through my mouth instead, spraying blood across the floorboards.

Originally, he was going to give me an hour. But my defiance seemed to change his mind completely as he turned toward the open bedroom door, his face twisting with disgust.

"Security!" he bellowed.

Within seconds, two burly estate guards rushed into the room. They stopped dead in their tracks as their eyes darted between Jayden and my bruised form on the floor.

"Throw her out," he ordered coldly, pointing a finger at me.

"Sir?" the older guard hesitated, looking at my soaked, ruined dress. "Shouldn’t we let her get her shoes, or a bag…"

"I said throw her out!" Jayden roared, slamming his fist against the doorframe. "Right now. Empty-handed. She leaves with exactly what she has on her back and if she ever sets foot on this property again, arrest her for trespassing."

Before I could find my footing, the two large guards stepped forward and without a shred of mercy, they grabbed me roughly by my upper arms and dragged me straight off the floor.

As they hauled me down the hallway, my bare feet scraped across the luxurious floors of the home I used to own, past the expensive art and the imported furniture.

I didn't scream or beg.

I just kept my eyes locked on Jayden, who watched from the bedroom doorway, his arms crossed like an untouchable king.

The guards dragged me into the private elevator, rode it down to the ground level, and marched me straight through the grand, glass-paneled lobby. The morning staff stared in horrified silence as the disgraced, bleeding Madame McMahon was hauled through the building like a common thief.

They pushed open the heavy gates, and without a single word, shoved me out of it.

I stumbled, my bare feet slipping on the wet ground. . I fell on my hands and knees as the freezing morning rain poured down on me, washing the fresh blood from my split lip down my chin.

The heavy gates clamped shut behind me, locking with a definitive, mechanical sound.

I sat there on the freezing concrete, soaked to the bone as the left side of my face turned into a deep, painful purple.

I raised my head, looking up into the grey, stormy sky as I let the rain wash away the remnants of my tears.

Jayden McMahon had taken away all that belonged to me; my fortune, my home, and without doubt, my father's life. But he had left me breathing and that will be the biggest mistake he ever made.

I'll make sure of that.