IRIS POV
I stared at the stranger in the Rolls Royce.
Rain pounded the sidewalk around me. Thunder rumbled overhead like the sky was angry. But inside that car, everything looked warm and dry and safe.
The man waited. He didn't smile. Didn't beg. Just held that umbrella like he had all the time in the world.
"I don't know you," I said. My voice sounded hollow.
"No," he agreed. "But I know you, Iris Chen. And I know what just happened in there." He tilted his head toward the hotel. "Get in. Or don't. But you're soaking wet, you have nowhere to go, and I'm offering you a choice."
A choice. That was funny. I hadn't had a real choice in years.
I got in the car.
The door closed with a soft click, sealing me in with this dangerous stranger. He smelled like expensive cologne and rain. The leather seats were softer than clouds.
"Where do you live?" he asked.
I rattled off the apartment address. My apartment. Except it wasn't mine anymore, was it?
The driver pulled away from the curb. I didn't look back at the hotel. Didn't want to imagine Damien and Vivienne saying their vows in front of everyone I knew.
"Thank you," I whispered. "For the ride."
The man studied me with those storm-grey eyes. "Don't thank me yet."
Something about his voice made goosebumps rise on my arms. But I was too tired to care about danger. Too broken to be scared.
Twenty minutes later, we pulled up to my building. My old building.
"Wait here," the man said. "I'll send someone to help you pack."
"I don't need—"
"You're shaking. You need dry clothes and help carrying whatever you're taking. Don't argue."
I was too numb to fight. A woman in a black suit appeared with an umbrella and followed me upstairs.
The apartment looked the same. Coffee mug in the sink from this morning. My book on the couch. Photos of Damien and me on the walls, smiling like we'd last forever.
Liars. We were all liars in those pictures.
"Where should I start?" the woman asked gently.
"Bedroom," I heard myself say. "Just clothes. And the box under the bed."
The box held Mom's things. Her jewelry. Her journal. Photos of us before cancer ate her alive. I'd rather die than leave those behind.
I walked through the apartment like a ghost. Touched the couch where Damien and I had planned our future. The kitchen where I'd made him breakfast every morning for six years. The desk where I'd worked on his business presentations while he slept.
Every surface held a memory. Every memory was a lie.
My laptop sat on the desk. I grabbed it, then stopped.
Wait.
I opened it and checked the purchase receipt in my email. Damien's name. His credit card.
The couch? His name on the receipt.
The TV? His.
The dishes? Wedding gifts from his family, technically his.
Everything. Every single thing was in Damien's name.
Even my engagement ring—I looked down at my bare finger. I'd left it on the hotel dresser when I took off the wedding dress.
I owned nothing.
My hands started shaking again, worse this time. I stumbled to the bathroom and threw up.
When I finally stopped heaving, I checked my phone's banking app with trembling fingers.
Checking account: $243.67
Savings account: $0.00
The trust fund Mom left me showed as "TRANSFER PENDING—ACCOUNT CLOSED."
Two hundred forty-three dollars. That's what six years of my life was worth.
I laughed. It came out sounding like crying.
"Miss Chen?" The woman in the suit appeared in the bathroom doorway. "Are you alright?"
"I'm perfect," I said. "Just perfect."
She helped me pack one suitcase. One. That's all I had that was truly mine. Some clothes. Mom's box. My phone charger. A photo album from before Dad remarried.
That was it. That was my entire life.
We went back downstairs. The rain had gotten worse, coming down in sheets that made the world look blurry.
The stranger was still waiting in the car. He looked at my single suitcase and something flickered in his eyes. Anger? Pity? I couldn't tell.
"Is that everything?" he asked.
"That's everything I own," I said flatly. "Turns out I don't own much."
"Where do you want to go?"
Good question. My best friend Sophia was on a business trip until Monday. I had no other family—Dad made that clear today. No close friends because I'd spent six years working and supporting Damien instead of having a life.
"A hotel, I guess." I checked my phone again. "$243 should get me a few nights somewhere cheap. Then I'll figure something out."
"No."
I blinked. "No?"
"Come with me," he said. It wasn't a request. "I have a guest room. You can stay there tonight, get cleaned up, eat something. Tomorrow, when you're thinking clearly, we'll talk about my proposition."
"I don't even know your name."
He smiled for the first time. It made him look even more dangerous.
"Adrian Thorne."
My heart stopped.
Adrian Thorne. The Adrian Thorne. Manhattan's most ruthless billionaire. The man who'd built an empire from nothing and destroyed anyone who got in his way. I'd read about him in business magazines. Seen his face on Forbes covers.
What was he doing here? How did he know me?
"Why?" I whispered. "Why are you helping me?"
"Because, Iris Chen, you're exactly what I need." He leaned forward, and his eyes pinned me in place. "And I'm going to give you exactly what you need—revenge."
That word hung in the air between us like smoke.
Revenge.
Against Damien. Against Vivienne. Against my father and Patricia and everyone who'd thrown me away like garbage.
My hands curled into fists.
"What kind of proposition?"
Adrian's smile widened. "The kind that will make them all regret the day they crossed you. But first, you need to get out of those wet clothes and eat something. Can't plot revenge on an empty stomach."
The driver started the car. We pulled away from my old building, from my old life, from everything I'd known.
I should be terrified. Should jump out of this car and run.
Instead, I felt something warm spreading through my chest. Something I hadn't felt in years.
Hope.
And underneath it, darker and sharper—anger.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
Adrian's eyes gleamed in the darkness. "Home."
But the way he said it made me wonder: whose home? And what price would I have to pay to stay there?
The car turned onto a street I didn't recognize, heading toward a part of Manhattan where people like me didn't belong.
My phone buzzed. A text from Damien: *I'm sorry. Please understand.*
I turned off my phone.
Understanding was over. Now it was time for something else entirely.