Chapter 10 - The Mastermind
I turned the heavy parchment paper over with numb fingers.
Printed neatly on the back was a single address located in the most exclusive, heavily guarded district of Atlanta.
Taped below the address was a sleek, black digital keycard with no logo.
My father was not dead.
He had faked his own fatal heart attack six years ago, leaving me to fight my family for his empire.
He had stood in the shadows, watching me struggle, watching me build my company from nothing.
The terrifying realization suddenly hit me with the force of a freight train.
If my father knew Julian well enough to call him arrogant and sloppy, then Julian wasn't just a random man I met at a gala.
My father had orchestrated Julian’s entry into my life.
He had hired Julian to marry me, to test me, to try and break me.
The entire marriage, the betrayal, the courtroom drama—it was all an elaborate, twisted game designed by the man who gave me life.
Julian wasn't the mastermind trying to steal my multimillion-dollar company.
Julian was just a disposable pawn working for my father.
And now that I had destroyed the pawn, the real king wanted his empire back.
I slowly folded the letter and slipped it into the inside pocket of my suit jacket.
I picked up the black keycard, its smooth surface feeling incredibly heavy in my hand.
I had thought the war was finally over when the judge slammed her gavel yesterday.
I had thought I was the smartest person in the room.
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But as I walked out of the bank vault and stepped back into the bright sunlight, I realized the terrifying truth.
The real war hadn't even started yet.
