Chapter 4

My words landed like a cold stone dropped into boiling oil.

The grief and desperation on Linda's face froze solid.

A wave of muffled gasps rippled through the crowd, and whispered conversations buzzed in every direction.

Every pair of eyes locked onto me, some shocked, some confused, some openly condemning, as if I were the real villain in all of this.

Linda's lips trembled, and it took her a good ten seconds to find her voice again.

"What did you say? You heartless witch. How could you even say something like that?"

She shot up off the ground as a cat with its tail stepped on, bristling and wild, jabbing her finger right in my face. "That's my son. He was your husband. How dare you wish death on him!"

I watched her calmly. Not a ripple crossed my expression.

"I didn't wish death on anyone. I was simply stating a condition for the deal."

My voice was steady, as casual as if I were talking about the weather.

I said, "Three years ago, you took my marriage and my family from me. Today, I'm trading his life for yours. Seems fair, doesn't it?"

"You—" Linda shook with rage, but the words wouldn't come.

From somewhere in the crowd, a middle-aged woman who'd been watching finally couldn't hold back. She stepped forward and pointed at me. "Sweetheart, you can't talk like that. A life is a life. No matter what she did to you, you can't—"

I turned and fixed her with a cold stare. "Excuse me, ma'am. Are you a lawyer? Or a judge?"

The woman blinked, caught off guard. "No, I'm not. I just can't stand by and watch—"

I cut her off, and my tone sharpened to a blade's edge. "Then I'd suggest you keep your legally meaningless personal opinions to yourself.

"Every word out of your mouth is guilt-tripping me. You're asking me to sacrifice my own body to save a man who destroyed my life, and that's called being generous at someone else's expense.

"You don't even know what happened between us, but here you are, playing referee for some so-called 'justice.' That's not noble. That's foolish."

I didn't speak fast, but every word landed clean and heavy.

The woman's face flushed red, then drained white. She pressed her lips shut, mumbled something under her breath, and shrank back into the crowd.

The room went dead silent.

I turned back to Linda. "Now you get to choose. Die, or leave."

Her face was as white as a sheet. She stared at me with pure venom in her eyes, bitter and unwilling to accept defeat, but she knew she wasn't walking away with anything today.

Every mask she'd worn and every scheme she'd calculated had crumbled right in front of me.

She'd tried to turn public opinion against me, but I'd torn apart her so-called "support" in a few sentences. She'd tried to guilt-trip me with family ties, only to realize I'd stopped caring a long time ago.

Finally, she clenched her jaw and forced the words through her teeth. "Aurora, you'll regret this. Mark my words."

Then she turned and limped away under everyone's stare, broken and humiliated.

I watched her go. My face gave nothing away.

Regret? The only thing I regretted was wasting the best years of my life on her and Victor.

Now every decision I made was about paying for that stupidity and setting things right.

I turned and headed upstairs. The elevator doors slid shut, cutting off all sound from outside.

Back in my apartment, I locked the door behind me, leaned against it, and let out a long breath. My legs felt weak underneath me.

Facing down the ugliest parts of my past took more out of me than I'd expected.

My phone buzzed. I picked it up and found a message from the property manager.

[Ms. Wynn, sorry to bother you. We've saved the security footage from earlier. If you ever need it, just let us know.]

I replied: [Thank you.]

Did David and Linda really think this little show was over?

No. This was only the beginning.

Nobody would take what belongs to me and walk away clean. And every ounce of pain they'd put me through, I was going to make them pay it back double.