Chapter4

Liam's hands lunged straight for my neck.

Just a split second before his fingertips could graze my throat.

"Back at you!" I ground out.

Without a shred of hesitation, I drove the shard of glass in my left hand viciously upward.

The jagged edge sank deep into his left shoulder.

Time seemed to freeze.

Liam's eyes widened in sheer disbelief, completely blind to the possibility that I would fight back, right until the agonizing pain shredded through his nerves.

"Argh!" A guttural roar ripped from his throat.

"Oh my God! She killed him!"

"Blood! Look at all that blood!"

The surrounding guests scrambled back in pure panic, horrified by the visceral spray of crimson. A few socialites shrieked, fumbling for their phones to call the police, only to be forcefully shoved back by Liam’s bodyguards. The symphony orchestra abruptly butchered their notes and dropped their instruments. Absolute chaos swallowed the banquet hall.

Liam clutched his bleeding shoulder, staggering back two heavy steps.

"Boss!" The bodyguards instantly drew their telescopic batons.

Mia, terrified, shrank to the very back of the crowd. Staring at the blood staining Liam's crisp suit, she shrieked, "Liam! Kill that psycho! She's trying to murder you!"

But Liam didn't drop.

"Chloe! You're dead!"

He bellowed, lunging at me again. He thrust out his uninjured right hand, aiming a lethal grip straight for my windpipe. This time, there was absolute murder in his eyes.

Seeing their boss take matters into his own brutal hands, the bodyguards stepped back off the marble, systematically sealing every possible escape route.

I lay flat against the freezing marble. The agonizing crush of my shattered right wrist made it impossible to roll away. Yet, as Liam bore down on me like a rabid animal, I didn't even blink.

Even if he choked the last breath out of me, I wasn't going to lose this game.

BEEP—BEEP—BEEP!!!

Right as Liam’s blood-slicked fingers brushed against my collarbone, an ear-piercing siren erupted from his suit pocket.

It was the absolute highest-tier alert—a customized panic alarm reserved solely for Wall Street’s ultra-black-card elites, signifying a total, catastrophic financial meltdown.

Liam’s deadly grip froze in mid-air.

Driven by the primal instinct of a real estate tycoon, he yanked the violently vibrating, encrypted phone from his breast pocket.

He hit answer, dumping it straight onto speaker.

On the other end of the line, his Chief Financial Officer’s voice cracked into a hysterical, high-pitched scream.

"Boss! It's over! The sky is falling!" The CFO trembled uncontrollably through the speaker. "Three unidentified apex predators on Wall Street just launched a maximum-tier, saturated short-selling siege against us! They moved simultaneously in the last three minutes!"

All the blood instantly drained from Liam’s face.

"The hell are you talking about?" Liam roared into the receiver. "Our offshore trusts and the corporate firewalls can hold out for at least—"

"They couldn't hold! The entire board crashed!!" The CFO’s desperate shrieks severed Liam’s last shred of denial. "Their capital volume isn't just a short squeeze—it’s a localized financial slaughter! Every single one of our private estate collaterals across the country, our offshore hedge accounts, the trust funds—they were systematically severed and frozen within the last hundred and eighty seconds!"

The frantic sounds of smashing keyboards and cascading files echoed through the line.

"They bypassed everything and filed for forced liquidation straight with the Federal Bank! The bank just froze all personal credit cards and cash flows under your name..." Before the CFO could finish his sentence, a violent scuffle broke out. Someone seemed to shove him aside, followed closely by a stampede of chaotic footsteps and a collective gasp of pure horror in the background.

"What the hell is going on?! Talk to me!" Liam bellowed at the phone.

For three agonizing seconds, dead silence dragged on. When the CFO finally spoke, his voice was nothing but a hollow, ashen whisper of absolute despair. "Boss... your assets are wiped. No, worse than wiped. You are currently straddling seventy billion dollars in debt. You're bankrupt."

The phone slipped through Liam’s frozen fingers and clattered harshly against the floor.

For a man who worshipped authority above life itself—a man who, just moments ago, used his wealth to casually batter people to their knees—going bankrupt was ten thousand times more fatal than the jagged glass buried in his shoulder.

Liam stood utterly paralyzed, a towering empire crumbling into dust around him. Even the hysterical crying wiped itself clean off Mia’s trembling face. Instinctively, she shrank away, not daring to inch anywhere near him.

I lay there on the cold stone, drinking in the breathtaking despair disfiguring Liam’s face. A raw, vicious gratification finally erupted in my chest. Bracing my uninjured left hand against the slippery floor, I fought through the blinding agony in my right wrist and stubbornly dragged myself into a sitting position.

"How does bankruptcy taste, Liam?" I stared straight up at him.

His neck snapped toward me. Dawning realization contorted his features as his eyes locked onto mine. "You... you did this?!"

"Me?" I let out a cold, mocking laugh.

CRASH—!

I didn't even need to answer. An explosive, thunderous impact suddenly blew open the heavy double oak doors of the banquet hall.