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Chapter 794:

Less than a mile away, on a wooded hill overlooking the manor, a black SUV sat hidden among the trees. Cole sat in the driver’s seat, a pair of high-powered military binoculars pressed to his eyes. He had been there for an hour, watching every second of the takedown. He had watched Richard be dragged away screaming. He had watched Alycia try to kill June and have her arm broken. He had watched it all, and he had felt nothing.

Until he saw Easton wrap his arm around June’s shoulders.

Until he saw the look on June’s face as she leaned into him — the look of complete and utter trust and peace. A look she had never once given him. Not in three years of marriage. Not in their most intimate moments. Not ever.

A raw, burning jealousy tore through Cole’s chest, so intense it made him double over in pain. He dropped the binoculars onto the passenger seat and punched the steering wheel as hard as he could. The car horn blared — a long, mournful sound that echoed through the empty woods.

He had done everything. He had destroyed Alycia. He had bankrupted the Beasleys. He had pulled every string available to ensure Richard received the maximum sentence. He had believed this would be his atonement. He had believed that if he fixed what he had broken, if he punished the people who had hurt her, June would look at him again. That she would forgive him. That maybe, just maybe, they could have a second chance.

But he had been wrong. So devastatingly wrong. June didn’t need him. She didn’t need his money, or his power, or his apologies. She had Easton. She had someone who would stand beside her, who would protect her, who would love her unconditionally.

And Cole was nothing. A ghost. A memory. A mistake she had already erased from her life.

He picked up the whiskey bottle from the passenger seat and took a long, burning drink. His phone buzzed on the center console. It was a text from his assistant: Both suspects formally booked. All assets frozen. No loose ends.

Cole stared at the words for a long time. There was no satisfaction. No victory. Just endless, bottomless emptiness. He threw the phone into the backseat, where it landed with a clatter and went silent.

𝖱𝘰𝗆a𝗻𝗰𝖾 𝘢𝘯𝘥 р𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗂о𝗇 𝗼ո 𝘨𝗮𝗹ո𝗼𝗏𝖾𝗅ѕ.𝖼o𝘮

He turned the key in the ignition and pulled out onto the highway. He didn’t know where he was going. The penthouse on Fifth Avenue was full of June’s things, full of memories he couldn’t bear to face. The office was empty. All his friends were merely business associates who would abandon him the moment his money ran out.

He drove for miles, lost in thought. At the highway interchange, he made a sudden, sharp turn — not back toward Manhattan, but north, toward the Hudson Valley, toward the old Compton family estate where he had grown up. Where his grandmother Eleanor still lived. Where the bedroom of his dead twin brother Caleb had remained untouched, locked and shuttered, for fifteen years.