Chapter 6
1034words
Almost simultaneously, the office door swung open.
Damon Sterling filled the doorway.
He'd clearly rushed back from the conference room, radiating fury and...
Unsatisfied hunger.
Our eyes locked.
His gaze swept over my pale face before settling on the computer, its cooling fan still humming quietly.
"What are you doing?"
His voice dropped dangerously low.
I stood, fighting to control my trembling knees.
"Damon... I was just organizing your desk."
"Organizing my desk?"
Damon closed the door behind him. The lock clicked.
He stalked toward me, each footfall on the carpet as heavy as if he were stepping directly on my heart.
"And that requires using my computer?"
He reached the desk, planting both hands on its edge, trapping me between his body and the furniture.
"Tell me, Vera."
Damon narrowed his eyes, voice rough. "How did you unlock my personal computer?"
I instinctively leaned away. "I didn't... it wasn't locked..."
"Liar."
Damon leaned closer. "That password—one wrong attempt triggers an alarm and lockdown. Yet here we are. Quiet."
"That password is poetry. A line only Elena would know. A secret only the dead should possess."
"How could you possibly know it—a cheap stand-in who sold herself for cash?"
Danger alarms screamed through every nerve.
I had to gamble everything.
"Because you recited it before."
I raised my chin, meeting his bloodshot eyes directly.
"That night you were drunk, clutching Elena's photo, mumbling that line over and over."
"As your stand-in, isn't it my job to remember every drunken word you've uttered?"
Damon went still.
The desperate hope in his eyes extinguished like a doused flame the moment my words registered.
"Drunken words..."
He released me, stepping back, a bitter laugh escaping his lips.
"Right... I've said so many stupid things..."
I thought the danger had passed.
But in the next instant, Damon seized my arm with bruising force.
"No."
He stared at me, his eyes wilder than before.
"It's not just the password."
"There's also that kiss."
He yanked me toward him, fingers roughly tracing my lips.
"That feeling was too familiar... and your back."
"Rip—"
He tore the silk scarf from my neck.
The ugly burn scar, snaking like a centipede up my neck, lay exposed before his eyes.
Damon's fingers trembled as they traced the scar.
"She died in a fire. And you're covered in burn scars."
"How many coincidences can there be? The voice, the kiss, even the scars?"
He stared at me, his voice breaking with desperate hope.
"Is it you? Elena... you didn't die? You've come back to punish me?"
My heart ached.
Seeing him so broken, so desperate for confirmation, I almost confessed everything.
But I couldn't.
If I admitted it now, all my careful planning would crumble.
I had to drag myself through the mud to dispel his suspicions.
"Damon, get a grip."
I pushed his hand away, my voice dripping with self-loathing:
"Look at this scar."
"I got it when my slum apartment caught fire from faulty wiring."
"Elena was a phoenix—even in death, she died in a castle. Me? I'm just a rat who nearly burned to death in a trash heap."
I smiled bitterly, gesturing to my surgically altered face.
"Know why I got this face? That fire turned me into a monster. Without surgery, forget about you—no one would even look at me."
"I'm a fraud, Damon. A monster wearing a dead woman's face just to survive."
"Don't compare me to her. It's an insult to her memory."
Damon's pupils contracted sharply.
He studied the raw self-loathing on my face, absorbed my brutal self-degradation.
That desperate hope finally shattered completely.
Of course.
His Elena had been so proud, so perfect—how could she ever admit to being "a rat from the gutter"?
"Enough."
Damon closed his eyes, suddenly drained of all energy.
"Stop talking."
He waved his hand dismissively, voice weary.
"Get out. Pack your things and prepare for tonight's family dinner."
He turned and walked toward his private lounge.
His retreating figure looked hollow, like a man already half-ghost.
The lounge door slammed shut.
I stood alone in the office.
I collapsed against the desk, gasping for breath, my back drenched in cold sweat.
That was too close.
But I'd survived this hurdle.
Since he was resting...
I turned back to the still-running computer.
The submissiveness in my eyes vanished, replaced by icy determination.
The recording and transfer records were damning evidence.
But on reflection, while they proved Marcus hired killers, they remained circumstantial.
The Sterling legal team was among America's finest—they had countless ways to help Marcus escape justice, even turn the tables.
And if I handed this directly to Damon...
He was too proud, too obsessed with family reputation.
If he learned his own uncle was responsible, he'd likely settle privately to protect stock prices, or merely ease Marcus out quietly.
That was far too lenient.
I wanted destruction.
I wanted Marcus utterly disgraced, reviled by everyone like vermin in the street!
I sat back down, fingers flying across the keyboard.
I began gathering evidence that would make Marcus sweat bullets.
This time, I wasn't hunting for murder evidence—I was following the money.
For men like Marcus, tax fraud was the deadliest poison.
Soon enough, I found it.
In the years before Damon took control, Sterling Group had evaded taxes through offshore shells—hundreds of millions of dollars.
And the signature on every key document read clearly: Marcus Sterling.
This was the real nuclear option.
Once exposed, Marcus wouldn't just face prison—the entire Sterling Group would be engulfed in scandal.
But I didn't care.
I pulled out my burner phone and quickly transferred the files.
I opened an encrypted email and attached the files.
In the recipient field, I didn't list the police—instead, I entered the three most ruthless tabloids in New York.
I hit send.
【Successfully sent】.
I popped out the SIM card and fed it to the paper shredder.
The tiny chip disintegrated into unrecognizable plastic confetti.
A cold smile tugged at my lips.
Tonight's family dinner would be quite the spectacle.
Marcus, are you ready for your reckoning?
