Chapter 456
Chapter 456:
“One down,” I murmured. “Two to go p>
Liam and Beatrice.
Alistair stepped in behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder.
“Saturday,” he promised. “The engagement party. We finish them p>
I leaned back into him, drawing strength from his heat.
Below, on the street, the elevator doors opened. The guards threw Sienna out onto the pavement. She landed in the gutter, her skirt tearing.
Paparazzi, alerted by Felix, were waiting. Flashbulbs exploded. They captured the moment perfectly: the wannabe queen in the trash.
Within minutes, the photo went viral.
Across town, in the Kensington office, Liam’s phone buzzed.
He picked it up. He saw the photo of Sienna in the gutter.
He stared at it.
Something in his brain clicked. A memory flashed—not of Sienna, but of Skye. Skye crying in the rain years ago, when he had left her stranded.
The headache returned, blinding him. It was like a spike being driven into his skull.
“Skye…” he whispered. The name felt like glass in his throat.
He looked at the bottle of pills on his desk. The “vitamins” his mother insisted he take.
He remembered the taste—bitter, chalky. And every time he swallowed them, the fog got thicker.
His hand trembled, but this time it wasn’t from weakness. It was from rage.
He realized, with sudden, terrifying clarity, that he had been asleep. And while he slept, they had turned him into a monster.
He picked up the bottle.
He smashed it against the wall.
Crack.
The orange pills scattered across the floor, rolling under the furniture.
Liam didn’t pick them up.
𝘛𝗁і𝘀 𝘤𝗈ո𝗍𝗲𝘯𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝘶the𝗻𝘁𝗶c f𝗿𝘰𝘮 𝗯𝘦.𝖼𝗈𝗺
He gripped the wheel of his chair, his knuckles turning white. He sat there, breathing hard, the fog slowly beginning to lift.
The pills lay unswallowed for the first time in months.
The sleeping king was waking up.
And he was angry.
The shattered glass of the pill bottle lay on the floor of Liam’s office like diamonds in the dust, a testament to a rebellion that was too little, too late.
Across the city, in the penthouse of Oracle Holdings, the mood was not one of anger, but of cold, calculated precision.
Skye Sterling sat behind her massive glass desk, the sea view sprawling beneath her like a conquered kingdom. The adrenaline of evicting Sienna had faded, replaced by the steady hum of strategic planning.
The cream-colored envelope felt heavy in Skye’s hand, its weight disproportionate to the paper stock. It was textured, expensive, the kind of stationery that whispered of old money and closed doors. She ran the pad of her index finger over the embossed logo in the center.
A&S.
The letters were intertwined in gold leaf, stylized to look less like a romantic union and more like a corporate merger logo. It was sharp, modern, and aggressive. It wasn’t just an invitation. It was a weapon. It was a declaration of war printed on twenty-dollar cardstock.
Alistair Thorne leaned against the doorframe. He had been watching her for five minutes, silent, his presence a dark, comforting pressure in the room. He wasn’t wearing his usual suit jacket. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing the corded muscle of his forearms and the platinum watch that cost more than most people’s houses.