After My Kept Husband Betrayed My Name, I Made Him Regret It

Chapter 2 Willow's Brother

The cameras swung back to me, capturing every second of my humiliation.

I forced down the agony tearing through my knee and made myself say every word clearly.

"I trust Dylan, and I'll make every last person behind this pay!"

But I was already too late.

By the time I saw Dylan again, all that was left of him was a box of ashes.

One of the attendants deliberately let the urn slip from his hands, causing it to shatter on the floor.

"Dylan and Liliana spent years bleeding honest people dry! They both deserve to die!"

People trampled through what was left of him as they walked by, and I dropped to my knees, scrambling to gather every bit I could. In the end, I saved barely half his ashes.

I stormed over to the person in charge and demanded an explanation, but he only answered me with a mocking smile.

"Mr. Alvarez left specific instructions. He said sinners don't deserve a decent send-off, so we gave him the cheapest urn we had. If you aren't happy with it, you're free to buy a better one yourself!"

I gritted my teeth and asked for the best urn they had.

The moment I tried to pay, every card I had was declined. Every one of my accounts had been frozen.

The security guards dragged me out like I was some kind of crazed lunatic.

"If you can't pay, you don't get the ashes!"

I called my bodyguards, but every one of them suddenly had an excuse ready.

"Ms. Cortes, things have changed. The Cortes family isn't yours anymore, and we have to look out for ourselves now."

I had once ruled Wall Street like a queen, and now I was dragging my injured leg down the street because I had nowhere else to go!

Three hours later, I made it to the company headquarters, only to be stopped by unfamiliar security guards who looked at me like I was trash.

I finally lost it. "Do you have any idea who I am? This company is my family's!"

One of them looked me up and down with contempt. "Not anymore. It belongs to Ms. Estes now."

A cold weight settled in my belly. I tried to force my way inside, but they slammed me to the ground and held me there while strangers stood around watching.

Then a pair of familiar high heels stopped in front of me.

"Levi, isn't that Liliana? How did she end up looking this pathetic?"

Only then did the guards let me go. I looked up and saw the wreck of myself in Levi's cold eyes, my hair tangled, my clothes streaked with dust.

There wasn't a trace of pity on his face.

"Are you done fighting this yet? Sign the transfer agreement, and you can still go back to your life as Mrs. Alvarez. If you don't, I'll make sure you don't have a shred of dignity left."

The sight of him holding Willow cut straight through me.

Three years ago, Levi and Zachary had been caught in a financial scam so devastating that it nearly destroyed both their careers and left them staring down crushing liability.

Dylan and I had liquidated everything we could.

We had even leveraged a huge chunk of the company's equity to get the evidence trail that exposed the entire scheme at the last possible second.

When the project succeeded, both of them got their reputations back, and their futures lit up again.

Willow had been the intermediary on that deal. She had walked away with a commission worth nearly half the value of the deal.

I had never imagined she'd be shameless enough to paint herself as some selfless savior who had asked for nothing in return.

I had never imagined those two idiots would fall for the lie and use it to destroy my brother, take away the last person I had left, and grind me into the dirt.

The thought sent something cold and vicious curling through my chest.

I pushed myself up, brushed the dirt off my clothes, and looked Levi dead in the eye.

"Then let's see how this ends. As long as I'm still breathing, Wall Street will still answer to the Cortes family!"

Levi's face twisted with fury. "In three days, you'll know what real regret feels like."

At first, I thought his threat meant he would throw me out and cut me off from everything I had left.

But while I was still desperately trying to find help, a fire tore through the penthouse and reduced everything inside to ash.

Levi and Zachary joined forces to frame Dylan for crimes he never committed.

Every market shock of the past few years was suddenly pinned on the Cortes family as part of some grand predatory takeover plot.

Even the scam in Southeast Asia was rewritten as one of Dylan's schemes.

Meanwhile, Willow's brother, Asher Estes, was recast as the brave man who had been the first to stand up to predatory capital.

With the media pushing that story day and night, the Estes family's little company took off almost overnight.