Chapter 4
723 Words
"I had you all wrong, Vera. I used to think you were just spoiled, headstrong, a pampered girl with an attitude problem."
He tightened his hold on Lily, pressing her against him as if trying to absorb her into his bones.
"Lily said one wrong thing, and you wanted her dead. That's who you really are at your core. Rotten."
Lily crumpled against him and wept. "I'm terrified, Leo! I can't even look at her!"
"Don't be afraid. I'm here."
He pressed a tender kiss to the top of Lily's head, then turned back to me, eyes cold as stone.
"You can't stand her? Then I'll stand her. Starting today, everything that concerns Lily is my responsibility."
He stopped looking at me. He bent down, scooped Lily gently into his arms, and walked straight past me, out the door of the home that had once belonged to both of us.
The door slammed.
The sound ricocheted through the empty villa.
He never came back.
Days passed. Then one morning, I received Leo's official written notice announcing his formal split from the Quinn family.
The Quinn family had once been the undisputed power in Ashton, but as the domestic landscape tightened, the family had been shifting its business interests overseas for years. Leo had spent that time leveraging the Quinn name and his own ruthless instincts to build an empire of his own. By now he was more than ready to stand alone.
His notice was inevitable.
I took a sip of tea and said nothing.
Jake kept going, his voice shaking with barely contained fury.
Within weeks of moving out, Leo had been taking Lily to every elite venue that had previously required the Quinn family's son-in-law status to enter, their relationship on open, shameless display for anyone who cared to look.
He pulled out her chair, draped his jacket over her shoulders, dabbed the corners of her mouth. He made her the most envied woman in the city.
Every newspaper, every finance column, every entertainment headline ran their photos together.
His love for her was thunderous. He wanted everyone to know.
Jake was staring at something on the tablet, trembling all over. Leo had just bought Lily a sapphire worth a small fortune.
"Ungrateful, backstabbing traitor! How did he kneel before your father and your mother and swear on his blood, and now he has the nerve to pull this?! How does he dare humiliate you like this! Your father is still overseas and hasn't even... does he honestly think there's nobody left in the Quinn family?!"
I sat in the shadows by the window, staring out at the flat grey sky.
I said nothing.
A delivery was brought in.
No sender information. I opened it and found a velvet box inside.
The gold bracelet engraved with "Leo & Lily," the one Lily had once shoved under my nose to show off.
There was also a note: Leo said he's going to marry me. Nobody wants you anymore, so take this bracelet as your consolation prize. Sell it for a few bucks if you like, Miss Quinn~
I stared at the bracelet and the note.
After a long moment, a quiet laugh slipped out.
"Jake. Send a message."
One month later, Leo and Lily's wedding took place in extraordinary style.
Leo had bought out the most expensive oceanfront hotel in Ashton and invited every notable name in the city.
The venue was dressed like a palace, lavish and unapologetic.
Lily wore a custom gown worth a fortune and the sapphire necklace Leo had won at auction, her arm linked through his as he stood beside her with nothing but total, unguarded devotion in his eyes.
"Mr. Lawson, do you take Miss Lane to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love and cherish her, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, faithful to her until death do you part?"
Leo gazed down at Lily, his smile spreading slowly.
"I do."
The last word had barely faded.
Bang!
A gunshot tore through the perfection of the moment.
In the chaos that erupted, a man in a crisp dress shirt appeared behind Leo as if from nowhere, the sharp upward sweep of his brows cold and deliberate, a Damascus knife pressed flat against Leo's throat.
"So you're the one who betrayed Vera Quinn?"
- Writer
