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Chapter 825:
Half an hour later, the manager ordered her to empty the garbage bin outside the VIP private room.
Alycia pushed the heavy, foul-smelling cart down the hallway with difficulty and stopped near the corner by Room One. The door stood slightly ajar, and muffled laughter drifted out along with the distant pop of a champagne cork.
A small cluster of waiters loitered at the bend in the corridor, their voices low and conspiratorial.
“That woman inside must be June Erickson — the one who’s been dominating the Wall Street headlines. Stunning, and her composure is absolutely extraordinary,” one of them whispered.
𝖳hе 𝗆𝗼ѕ𝘵 𝘱𝗈𝗉𝗎l𝖺𝗿 ո𝘰𝘃e𝗹ѕ 𝗼ո.с𝗼𝗆
At the name June Erickson, Alycia’s body went rigid. Her fingers dug into the plastic rim of the cart.
“I heard she signed her divorce agreement with the CEO of Compton Group this morning,” another waiter said.
“And walked away with half the Compton family trust. Over ten billion dollars p>
“Ten-billion-dollar heiress — and Chief Scientist at Apex Bio. Some people really do have it all p>
Each word drove into Alycia’s skull like a red-hot needle.
Through the crack in the door, she caught a glimpse of June — radiant in a velvet gown, crystal glass raised in a toast, laughing with her companion in the warm candlelight.
Why? Why was that woman — the very one who had dismantled her life, piece by piece — now celebrating with ten billion dollars in a Michelin-starred restaurant? While she stood in a grease-stained uniform, pushing a garbage cart through a service corridor like a rat through a sewer.
The disparity crashed over her in a wave. Jealousy curdled into something darker, more absolute, and the last thread of Alycia’s restraint snapped.
She abandoned the cart where it stood and stumbled out through the restaurant’s rear exit into the alley behind — dim, damp, its brick walls covered in graffiti. She pressed her back against the wall and gasped for breath, her eyes wild.
“I won’t let you get away with this,” she snarled through her teeth. “I would rather die than watch you enjoy that money in peace p>
Her hands trembling, she reached into the hidden lining sewn into her undergarments and withdrew a small plastic bag. Inside was a diamond necklace — the last valuable she had managed to conceal when she was evicted from her apartment. Worth at least two million dollars.
She had intended to use it to flee to South America and start over. She had changed her mind.
She would use it to buy June Erickson’s life.
Alycia pulled out a battered secondhand phone and opened an encrypted Tor browser with practiced, unhesitating fingers.
“You’re finally free, and every single man in this city should be setting off fireworks p>
Vera’s arm looped through June’s, her champagne breath warm against June’s ear. They stumbled slightly as they emerged from the private dining room, the corridor’s plush velvet walls catching June’s shoulder. Three hours of Dom Pérignon and wagyu beef had left her limbs loose, her thoughts unspooling like ribbon.