Chapter 9

"She's just getting her revenge! On you, on me! She's running rings around you! You fool—"

Slap.

A sharp, clean slap cut Chloe's shout in half.

Damon's face was hard, and he pointed at the door. "Get out."

"From this day on, don't show up in front of me or Evelyn again."

Chloe cupped her cheek, stared at him, blank.

Then she looked past him to the woman behind him, who was smiling at her in pure mockery...

And in that moment, she finally saw it clearly.

In Damon's heart, she, Chloe, had become the thing that had to be "dealt with." The trouble.

That seemingly harmless, gentle-looking Evelyn was the one who could kill without making a sound. A master.

"Damon, listen to me. Evelyn, she—"

She didn't finish. The housekeeper dragged her out.

Damon turned his face away in disgust.

Evelyn didn't bring up the ceremony.

Damon, anxious to make up for everything, raised it himself. "Evie, let's have the ceremony."

He had already quietly started dissolving his old bond with Chloe.

He wanted to erase it as quietly as possible.

To give the woman he loved a "clean" mating.

Somehow, the bond dissolution document, still being drafted, ended up in Chloe's hands.

Along with it, she found files showing that Damon had already moved most of his assets and company shares legally into Evelyn's name.

She might not have studied much. The best card she'd ever held was her face and her knack for playing small and soft in front of men.

But when it came to basic gains and losses, she saw more clearly than anyone.

One sharp realization dropped on her with a wave of panic:

She was about to have nothing.

After Damon shut her out one more time, she thought back to Evelyn's cold voice saying, "Take another look. Who won?"

A vicious thought rose.

She went straight to the Council and reported Damon for "overlapping bond violation."

The sudden report threw Damon into chaos, and his company's reputation took a heavy hit.

Evelyn, one of the women at the center of the rumors, stepped up to clear the air and stand by him.

She was dragged through the dirt by strangers online for it.

Damon's guilt and tenderness for her only grew.

Back in the early years, Evelyn had been with him while he was building the company, and she'd built her own network and resources.

She'd stepped back for years. Now, with her standing next to him again, it meant more to him than he could say.

And Chloe, on the other side, "happened" to hear that Damon was going to take Evelyn overseas to settle down before the mandated waiting period ended, cutting her off for good.

By then, she wouldn't be able to claim a single coin.

Burned up by envy and fear, Chloe found her chance.

The night before Damon was due to drive out of town alone for a meeting, she slipped into the garage and tampered with the brake system on the car she knew too well.

She just wanted to give him trouble, to keep him from going anywhere.

The next day, it poured.

He had canceled his plan.

But Damon went out anyway, to get Evelyn a late-night street food they'd eaten together back when they were starting the company.

The car lost control on a curve on the highway, broke through the guardrail, and rolled down the slope.

When the news came, Evelyn was watching the garage security footage from the night before.

She set the phone down. There was nothing on her face — not grief, not triumph. Only a cold stillness.

Damon's funeral was kept small.

Chloe hadn't realized that, even though she'd dodged the obvious cameras, she'd been caught on another.