Chapter 9
I looked down at him. This once arrogant, untouchable tycoon was now on his knees, weeping like a broken man.
“Quiet.”
I cut off his pleas, pulled out my phone and hit play, turning the volume all the way up.
The conference room filled with the sound of his drunken confession from the night before, mixed with Aurora’s bloodcurdling screams from the basement when he poured industrial acid over her. Two elderly shareholders slumped back in their chairs, horrified.
I opened my handbag and tossed another document in front of him.
A divorce agreement.
“Sign it. Then wait for the law to pass judgment on you.”
Torrential rain hammered against the glass windows with a dull thud.
I stood by the floor-to-ceiling window in the top-floor office, holding a cup of hot coffee and gazing down at the street below.
A man knelt there in the pouring rain.
William Sinclair. Once the most powerful heir in Hong Kong’s financial circle, he was now a broken man, kneeling in the puddles all through the night.
A security guard sent me a message: he’d slammed his forehead against the steps, blood mixing with rainwater across the ground, and refused to leave no matter how many times they chased him away.
I set down my coffee, picked up a black umbrella and stepped into the elevator.
Ding.
The lobby doors slid open. Cold wind and rain lashed at my face.
At the sound of my heels clicking on the floor, the man in the rain lifted his head sharply. His once proud face was pale, covered in mud and dried blood.
He scrambled toward me, grabbing tightly onto the hem of my trench coat.
“Selene… I’m so sorry!” His voice was filled with terror and desperation. “I’ll give you all my remaining shares in the Sinclair Group. Every property and investment under my name will be transferred to you. Please forgive me. Let’s start over.”
I held the umbrella high, looking down at him.
This was the man I had once loved more than my own life. We had shared genuine happiness once, and I truly believed marrying him was the greatest blessing in the world. Yet watching him beg so pitifully now, I felt nothing at all inside.
“Start over?” A cold laugh escaped me. Raindrops dripped from the umbrella’s edge onto his cheek. “Have you lost your memory, William?”
I knelt down slowly, meeting his bloodshot eyes.
“When you hired men to kidnap me, when you let me suffer endless abuse in that pitch-black warehouse, when you trampled my dignity and let the whole world curse my name — did you ever think about starting over then?”
“When you threw that acid-laced syrup at me, when you watched my flesh burn and heard me scream in agony — did you think about starting over then?”
William trembled violently, his lips quivering but unable to make a sound.
I leaned closer and lowered my voice. “There’s something else you never found out.”
“That ice cellar was twenty degrees below zero. As I lay on the frozen ground, burning from my wounds, I felt a warm trickle running down my thighs.”
I watched his eyes widen in horror, speaking clearly and unflinchingly. “William, you froze our two-month-old child to death in that cellar. That baby’s blood mixed with mine, rotting away together in the cold.”
“No… that’s impossible…”
William’s eyes bulged, as if they might pop out of their sockets. He let go of my coat, clutching his head in his hands and letting out a desperate, animalistic wail.
AAAAH!!!
It was the cry of a beast facing its final end. He slammed his head repeatedly against the hard marble steps, blood flowing freely. He completely broke down in the storm.
“One life will never be enough to repay what you owe me.”
I stood up and walked back into the building, never glancing his way again.
His sobs echoed through the rain. As he watched my figure disappear behind the glass doors, he finally understood what it meant to be doomed forever.
Half a month later, at Hong Kong’s Supreme Court.
The courtroom was packed to capacity. Camera flashes outside lit up the area like daylight.
I wore a sharp black business suit and sat at the plaintiff’s bench. Attorney Cooper stood beside me, presenting solid evidence to the judge one piece after another in a clear, methodical tone.
Every new piece of evidence drew gasps from the audience.
I turned to look at the defendant’s bench.
William wore a standard prison uniform with his hair shaved short, cold metal handcuffs locked around his wrists. In just two weeks, he had wasted away drastically, his eye sockets sunken. He looked like an empty shell of a man.
“The defendant, do you plead guilty to all charges?” The judge struck the gavel.
William did not look at his lawyer or the evidence.
He stared straight at me, his eyes filled with overwhelming pain and regret.
“I plead guilty.”
He closed his eyes, tears falling onto the wooden table before him.
“I accept full responsibility for every crime.”
The judge slammed the gavel down hard. Found guilty on multiple charges, William Sinclair was sentenced to life imprisonment with permanent deprivation of political rights. All assets he had illegally seized were liquidated and returned to me in full.
The Sinclair empire had a new ruler.
After the trial, court officers led William away. As he passed my seat, he came to a halt.
His handcuffs clanked loudly.
He turned his head. The eyes that had once looked down on me with contempt now held nothing but humble pleading.
“Selene…” His voice was hoarse and faint, carried away easily by the wind. “I will spend every day in prison repenting. I’ll wait for you. Ten years, twenty years — I’ll wait no matter how long it takes.”
“William.”
I cut through his self-pitying words.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
Those words were crueler than any torture.
I watched the last spark of light fade completely from his eyes, shattering into nothing.
I did not linger. I walked out of the courthouse with steady steps.
The heavy glass doors swung open, and bright sunshine washed over me.
