Chapter 9
The next morning, Lyra Castellane paced the hallway outside her father's office in the Castellane Real Estate headquarters, a smaller, older building than the Parston Tower, but elegant in its traditional architecture.
Her silver eyes were red from lack of sleep, with dark circles underneath that no amount of expensive concealer could fully hide.
She wore a designer dress that usually made her feel powerful, but today, it felt like an armour that was too thin, inadequate protection against what was coming.
Her father was inside with the lawyers, discussing options. But she knew the truth. There were no options. It felt like they hit a dead end.
The Parstons had them cornered, and bankruptcy was inevitable.
Standing nearby, leaning against the marble wall with the casual arrogance of someone who'd already won, was Victor Parston himself.
He was thirty-two years old, handsome in a cold, calculated way, with perfect teeth and perfect hair and a suit that probably cost more than most people's cars.
He'd been pressuring Lyra into an arranged marriage for months and had seen the Castellane family's financial troubles as an opportunity.
"You look tired, Lyra," Victor said, his voice dripping with false concern. "All this stress can't be good for that beautiful face.
You should really consider my offer more seriously."
"I'd rather die," Lyra spat, but her voice lacked its usual fire.
She was exhausted, terrified, and cornered.
"Dramatic as always," Victor chuckled. "But let's be practical. The documents are gone, Lyra. Your father's accountant sold him out and sold you out.
We have everything we need to trigger the bankruptcy provisions in your loans. The banks will foreclose within twenty days."
He pushed off from the wall and stepped closer, invading her personal space in a way that made her skin crawl.
"Unless you accept my very generous proposal. Marry me, and the debt disappears. My family absorbs your family's company, but your father maintains a position on the board.
You maintain your lifestyle, your status, and your place in society. All you have to do is say yes."
"Or what?" Lyra asked, her voice breaking slightly.
"You destroy everything my family built? Ruin, my father? Make my mother lose the home she's lived in for thirty years? You're a monster."
"I'm a businessman," Victor corrected. "And this is just business. Well...." he smiled cruelly, "maybe a little bit of revenge for what your father did to mine twenty years ago. But mostly business."
Lyra felt tears threatening and hated herself for the weakness. She was Lyra Castellane, the Queen, the girl who never cried, who never showed vulnerability.
But now she was trapped, cornered, with no way out.
"Actually," a voice rang out from down the hallway, deep and confident and achingly familiar, "the debt is about to belong to you."
Both Lyra and Victor spun toward the voice. Remy stood there, leaning casually against a marble pillar near the elevator bank, dressed in an impeccably tailored charcoal black suit that made him look like he'd stepped out of a fashion magazine
His golden-amber eyes glowed faintly in the morning sunlight streaming through the windows.
"Who the hell are you?" Victor demanded, his face flushing with anger at the interruption.
Remy didn't answer him. Instead, he walked forward with unhurried confidence and tossed a small object to Lyra. She caught it instinctively, a USB drive, unremarkable except for the label written in neat handwriting: "Parston Crimes 2020-2026."
"Everything is in there," Remy said, stopping a few feet away and meeting her silver eyes with his golden ones.
"The insider trading records. The Parston family's illegal shorting of your family's stock. The bribery of your accountant. The proof of fraud, market manipulation, and conspiracy.
Everything Victor and his father have done to destroy your family, all documented with bank records, emails, and recorded phone calls."
Lyra stared at the drive, then at Remy, her mind struggling to process what was happening. "How did you.....where did you get this?"
"Let's just say I have a talent for being in the right place at the right time," Remy said with a slight smile.
Victor's face had gone from angry red to pale white. "That's impossible. Those files were encrypted. They were....you can't have that. You're bluffing."
"File seventeen on the drive," Remy said without looking at him, his eyes still locked on Lyra's, "is a recorded phone conversation between you and your father discussing how to bribe Thomas Reeves.
File twenty-three is an email chain about timing the stock short to maximise damage.
File thirty-one is....."
"Enough!" Victor shouted, and now his hand moved toward his jacket. "Give me that drive. Now."
Security guards appeared, Victor's personal security, three large men in dark suits.
But Remy didn't even tense. His eyes flared gold, and he saw exactly what would happen: the guards would advance, he would disable them with minimal effort, and Victor would flee before the police could arrive.
But there was a better way.
"I already sent copies to the SEC, the FBI, and three major financial news outlets," Remy said calmly.
"They'll publish in about...." he checked his watch, "four hours. Unless you'd like to call them and confess now? Might get you a reduced sentence."
Victor stood frozen, his world crumbling around him in real time.
"Where did it all go wrong", "I had them in the palm of my hands and now this nobody managed to ruin it somehow."
His face turned red with anger, but he felt powerless.
Then, without another word, he turned and ran for the elevator, his security scrambling to follow.
The sounds of expensive shoes on marble echoed down the hallway, the retreat of a defeated predator.
The silence that followed was deafening.