Chapter 5 - The Sister's Betrayal
The betrayal hit me with the force of a physical blow to the chest.
My own father had stood silently by while Julian humiliated me, all because he was extorting him for gambling money.
He was willing to sacrifice my happiness, my future, and my pride just to settle a financial score in the underworld.
Nikolai looked down at my father with a level of disgust that made my skin crawl.
"You dare bring your pathetic debts into my home after trying to poison my future wife?" Nikolai growled.
He signaled his guards, who immediately grabbed my father by his coat collar and dragged him toward the exit.
"You have twenty-four hours to leave Chicago, or I will bury you under your own shipping ports," Nikolai warned.
The heavy oak doors slammed shut, completely erasing my family from my life in an instant.
I stood up from the table, my legs shaking as the adrenaline finally began to fade.
Nikolai wrapped his strong arms around me, pulling me against his broad chest in a rare moment of tenderness.
"I will dismantle everything they built, piece by piece, until they are nothing," he promised into my hair.
We spent the next week planning a wedding that would solidify our absolute rule over the city's elite.
I was finally learning how to wield the immense power Nikolai had placed in my hands.
But late one night, my encrypted phone buzzed with an incoming call from Penny, my former best friend.
I answered the phone, expecting an apology for abandoning me at the engagement party.
Instead, Penny was sobbing hysterically over the sound of breaking glass and shouting men.
"Evelyn, you have to run right now, they are destroying everything!" Penny screamed into the receiver.
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"Who is destroying everything?" I asked, my blood running instantly cold.
"The FBI," Penny cried. "Julian planted massive money-laundering files in your name, and they are coming to arrest you!"
