His Broken Heiress

4. DIGNITY FORCED TO ITS KNEES

The sound of shattering glass rang in Lauren’s ears like a bomb explosion.

The massive bottle of Armand de Brignac was now nothing more than a scatter of sharp shards across the Persian rug. The golden liquid, worth as much as her mother's life, pooled and soaked rapidly into the carpet fibers, drenching half of Toby's white designer trousers.

VVIP Room 1 went dead silent. The bass pumping from the club outside felt like Lauren's own wildly racing heart. The air in the room froze.

Then, Toby slowly looked down. He stared at his soaked trousers, then shifted his gaze to the broken bottle at his feet. The muscles in his jaw tightened.

"Oh my God..." Chloe hissed, breaking the silence as she covered her mouth with exaggerated theatricality. "Toby, your pants! Those are from the new Tom Ford fall collection, aren't they?"

"Thirty grand," Liam muttered, slowly shaking his head, looking at Lauren with a gaze that said her life was effectively over. "That bottle is thirty grand. Plus Toby's pants... This girl just destroyed fifty thousand dollars in three seconds."

Lauren's breath hitched. Fifty thousand dollars?

Her chest felt incredibly tight, as if a massive block of ice was crushing her lungs. She had to pawn the last of her dignity tonight just to scrape together three thousand dollars, let alone fifty.

"I-I'm... I am so sorry," Lauren's voice shook violently, barely audible. Her body trembled as she quickly crouched down, instinct taking over. She tried to pick up the sharp glass shards with her bare, shaking hands. "It was an accident... my shoe caught on something... I-I'll clean it up..."

"Caught on something?" Toby cut in, his voice dangerously low, radiating a thick aura of menace.

He looked down at Lauren, who was crouching and picking up glass near his feet. Without warning, Toby raised his right foot and stomped hard on Lauren's hand just as she picked up a sharp piece of the bottle.

"Ah!" Lauren cried out in pain.

The sharp glass sliced into her palm. Bright red, fresh blood began to drip, mixing with the pool of golden champagne on the rug.

"Do you think I give a damn about your excuses, you little rat?!" Toby roared, his voice booming through the room. He kicked the remaining shards of the bottle toward Lauren, sending her tumbling backward until she fell sitting on the wet carpet.

Cruel laughter erupted from Toby's friends. They were enjoying the show. Not a single one of them cared that Lauren's hand was bleeding.

"You ruined my night. You ruined my pants. And you wasted my drink!" Toby took a step forward, looking Lauren up and down with an incredibly vicious, condescending glare. "Pay up. Now."

Lauren cradled her bleeding hand, looking up at Toby with tear-filled eyes behind her thick glasses. "M-Mr. Toby... please. I don't have that kind of money. I'm only working here to pay for my mother's hospital bills. I-I'm begging you... give me time, I'll pay it back in installments..."

"Installments?" Liam burst out laughing, tossing his cigar into a crystal ashtray. "You hear that, Toby? She wants to pay off fifty grand in installments. How long will that take? A hundred years? Using the spare change she gets from scrubbing toilets?"

"Don't make me laugh," Chloe sneered, leaning against the armrest of the sofa while picking at her expensive manicure. "A girl like her won't see fifty thousand dollars in her entire life. Just look at her clothes, she's even wearing cheap glasses with a cracked frame. It's disgusting."

Toby smiled, a crooked grin that made Lauren's blood run cold. He leaned forward, grabbed Lauren's uninjured arm roughly, and hauled her forcefully to her feet.

"Let go of me... it hurts!" Lauren whimpered, trying to struggle. Toby's grip was too strong, his fingers digging in as if trying to crush the bone in her arm.

"You dare tell me to let go after what you just did?" Toby whispered right in Lauren's face. The smell of alcohol on his breath made her stomach turn. "Listen, Rat. Your manager, that i***t Marcus, already warned you, didn't he? In this room, I am the law. You destroyed my property, you pay for it."

"I-I'll tell the manager... I'll let them deduct it from my pay," Lauren sobbed, tears finally spilling over and wetting her pale cheeks. She was truly terrified.

"Your manager will throw you out on the street and sue your ass! Your sick mother is going to die in the gutter because you can't pay her bills!" Toby yelled, deliberately weaponizing Lauren's greatest weakness.

Hearing those words, Lauren's heart shattered. Her uncle had taken everything, the university had ostracized her, and now, her plan to save her mother tonight was completely ruined because of the intentional cruelty of the man standing in front of her.

Toby suddenly let go of her arm, letting out a soft chuckle. "But, because I'm such a kind and generous guy... I'll give you one other option to settle your debt tonight."

Lauren looked at him with a pathetic sliver of hope. "Wh-what is it?"

Toby pointed at his leather shoes, the tips of which were splattered with champagne. "Get on your knees. Use your hands and your tongue to clean my shoes until they shine like new. If you do a good job in front of all of us, I'll consider your fifty-thousand-dollar debt paid."

The room went silent for a moment before Liam, Chloe, and the others cheered in agreement.

"Great idea, Toby! Make her your pet dog!" Liam exclaimed, pouring himself a drink from another bottle.

"Come on, Lauren! Show us your hidden talents," Chloe mocked with a shrill laugh. "This is a very generous offer for a poor girl like you."

Lauren's body went stiff. Her brain tried to process the humiliation Toby had just demanded. Get on her knees? In front of the people who had tormented her at college? Lick their shoes?

It wasn't just a punishment. It was an attempt to destroy whatever was left of Lauren's dignity and humanity. If she did it, she would never be able to look at herself in the mirror again.

"Hurry up, Rat!" Toby snapped, losing his patience. "Get on your knees now, or I'm calling security to drag you to the police station for destroying luxury property! Choose! Your worthless pride, or your mother?!"

Tears streamed relentlessly down Lauren's face behind her glasses. Her bleeding hand clenched into a tight fist until her knuckles turned white.

Mom... I'm so sorry. But I can't. Dad always taught me never to bow to evil.

In the midst of paralyzing fear, seemingly out of nowhere, a spark of defiance ignited in Lauren's chest. She slowly lifted her face. Her red eyes looked directly into Toby's. There was no more submissive Lauren.

"No," Lauren said quietly, her voice hoarse but firm.

Toby frowned, not believing what he had just heard. "What did you say?"

"I said... no," Lauren repeated, this time louder. Her body was still shaking, but her jaw was set. "I know you stuck your foot out on purpose to trip me. You did it on purpose to humiliate me."

A deadly silence descended instantly. Liam and Chloe stopped laughing. No one had ever dared to stand up to Toby on campus, let alone in the nightclub where he threw his money around.

Toby's face instantly turned beet red. The veins in his neck bulged. His ego and arrogance had just been slapped by a poor girl in front of his friends.

"You dare accuse me, you poor b***h?!" Toby roared.

He stepped forward, raising his right hand high. His eyes flashed with dark, brutal rage. He prepared to slap Lauren across the face with full force, a blow that would surely send the small girl flying and break her.

Lauren squeezed her eyes shut, raising her injured arm to protect her head, bracing for the pain that was about to hit her.

One second. Two seconds.

But the slap never landed.

In the suffocating silence, from the darkest corner of the VVIP room—an exclusive booth that Toby and his friends had deliberately avoided because they didn't dare intrude on the privacy of the guest there, came a very sharp, clear sound.

CLACK. SHING.

The metallic sound of a Zippo lighter opening and striking.

A small, bluish flame illuminated the dark corner, revealing the silhouette of a tall man sitting back with his legs casually crossed.

Every eye in the room, including Toby's, whose hand was still frozen in the air, slowly turned toward the source of the sound.

A figure stepped out from the shadows. He wore an expensive black silk shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, revealing lean, muscular forearms and a Patek Philippe watch that could probably buy this entire nightclub.

His aura of intimidation was so thick, so absolute, that the air in the room seemed to have been sucked out. The temperature felt like it had dropped to freezing.

It was Axel Vivaldi.

The sole heir to Vivaldi Corp, the absolute ruler of Wall Street, and the apex predator of all predators in Manhattan.

Chloe's face went as white as a sheet. Liam dropped his glass, letting it shatter. And Toby... the arrogant man who had just been screaming at Lauren was now shaking violently. His raised hand slowly lowered, cold sweat flooding his forehead and neck. They hadn't realized that they had been sharing a room with the most feared devil of all this whole time.

Axel snapped his lighter shut with a soft flick of his finger. The clack sounded like a judge's gavel handing down a death sentence.

His sharp, Arctic-ice-gray eyes stared at Toby, then shifted to Lauren's hand, which was dripping blood onto the carpet. Axel's jaw tightened.

With a voice that was deep, flat, yet radiating a threat capable of freezing the blood of anyone who heard it, Axel broke the silence.

"Take your filthy eyes off her, right now," Axel whispered, his voice echoing in every corner of the room. "Or I will personally make sure you never use that hand again for the rest of your life."