I looked toward the diamond necklace lying beside his mask.
“Until tonight, some stupid part of me still thought there might be a line they wouldn’t cross.”
Neither of us needed to say what that line had been.
They had crossed it when they exchanged my future for ten million dollars.
Adrian closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them again, some of the coldness was gone.
“I didn’t know they forced you into this marriage.”
I almost laughed.
“You handed desperate people ten million dollars and asked for their daughter.
What did you imagine happened?”
The words landed harder than I intended.
He accepted them without defending himself.
“I thought you were part of them,” he said.
“You thought wrong.”
“I can see that.”
I studied him carefully.
He had spent ten years preparing to face monsters from his past.
Apparently, it had never occurred to him that one of those monsters might have raised someone they were willing to sacrifice too.
Adrian returned to the table and opened his own folder.
“Your father’s loan agreement gives me control if he defaults,” he said.
“The company shares, the estate, the shell corporations—everything he pledged.”
“And he will default.”
Adrian looked at me.
“You’re certain?”
I pulled out another page.
“He already has.”
That surprised him.
I pointed to a transfer dated three days earlier.
“Marcus moved part of the advance payment into an account tied to one of his gambling intermediaries.
That violates the restricted-use clause in your agreement.”
Adrian snatched up the contract.
His eyes moved quickly across the page.
Then back to my copy of the transfer.
“How did you get this?”
“Marcus made me organize the company’s payment confirmations yesterday morning.
He never stopped giving me work just because I was getting married.”
A humorless smile crossed Adrian’s face.
“He breached before the ceremony.”
“Yes.”
“Then technically I could trigger the collateral provisions immediately.”
“You could.”
His eyes narrowed.
“But you don’t want me to.”
I closed the folder.
“I don’t care if my father loses his house.
I don’t care if Marcus loses his company.”
My voice remained steady, even though saying the words aloud made something inside me ache.
“But innocent employees work there.
Contractors are waiting to be paid.
Families depend on salaries.
If you destroy everything tonight just to hurt my father, you’ll punish people who never falsified a report or bribed anyone.”
Adrian stared into the fire.
For the first time since removing the mask, he looked less like a man executing a plan and more like the son whose family had once been destroyed by someone else’s greed.
“My father had employees too,” he said quietly.
“Then you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Silence settled between us.
